"The very existence of a prison that operates on a profit making basis reflects a lack of respect for the status of (prisoners) as human beings," the Israeli Supreme Court found in invalidating a law authorizing the country's first private prison.

Like America, Israel is struggling under the weight of a devastating budget crisis and severe prison overcrowding. On March 31, 2004, the Israeli Knesset (i.e., legislature) responded in a very American way, by enacting Amendment 28 of the Prisons Ordinance, authorizing the construction and operation of an 800-bed private prison "in the prison compound south of the city of Beer-Sheba."

Privatization "was expected to bring about a savings for the state… estimated at approximately 20%-25% of the cost of operating a prison," according to an opinion that was submitted to a project committee. Savings over a period of 24 years, eleven months was "estimated at approximately NIS 290-350 million."

On March 16, 2005, an academic institution, a retired senior officer in the Israel Prison Service, (IPS) and an IPS prisoner challenged amendment 28.

On March 18, 2009, the Israeli Supreme Court barred the prison's operation, and on November 19, 2009 the Court issued a 208-page opinion, holding that Amendment ...

by David M. Reutter

An October 2010 report issued by Kentucky’s Auditor of Public Accounts concerning the $12 million food service contract between Aramark Correctional Services (Aramark) and the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) found a lack of oversight, overpayments and a failure to provide the service required by the contract.

Aramark was awarded the contract in FY 2005. It was to provide three meals a day that contained an average of 2800 calories, costing KDOC $2.34 per prisoner per day. The contract’s adjustments set that cost at $2.63 per day in FY 2010.

The audit was set following a House Judiciary Committee finding that food service was a contributor to the August 2009 riot at Northpoint Training Center. Reports on the riot and legislative hearing testimony “suggested problems related to poor sanitation and pest control in the institutions’ kitchens, dining halls, and/or food storage areas, poor food quality, inadequate food quantity, and reports of large scale food-related illness outbreaks.

To conduct the audit, Aramark was requested to provide cost data, including the direct cost of services by prison. Aramark said it would only provide it “on the condition that the information not appear in the audit report or any ...

by Christopher Petrella and Josh Begley

While data generated by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and state departments of corrections (DOCs) have long demonstrated persistent racial disparities in rates of incarceration, no comparative study until now has considered the racial composition of select state-contracted, privately-operated prisons around the nation. We selected California, Texas and Arizona for our examination because they warehouse some of the largest numbers of prisoners in private, for-profit prisons. Taken together, these three states account for over 30 percent of all prisoners held in privatized correctional facilities in the United States.

Our research indicates that although people of color are already overrepresented in public prisons relative to their share of state and national populations, they are further overrepresented by approximately 12 percent in state-contracted correctional facilities operated by for-profit private prison firms. Not only is the overrepresentation of people of color in private prisons a matter of public concern, it also begs some previously unconsidered questions.

Our conclusions are based on the latest U.S. Census demographic figures available through the Prison Policy Initiative’s “Correctional Facility Locator 2010,” cross-referenced with prisoner population directories available on state DOC websites and statistical information procured through public records requests filed ...

Several weeks after firing Maine State Prison warden Patricia Barnhart on January 10, 2013, and two years after taking over the Department of Corrections (DOC), Commissioner Joseph Ponte appears determined to continue – and ramp up – his forceful program of reform.

In an interview at the DOC’s Augusta headquarters, the calm, 66-year-old corrections veteran spoke about his accomplishments, intentions and frustrations. In spite of the latter, running the department “is the most fun I’ve had,” he said. Maine has a “small enough” corrections system so “you can see the result” of your work.

Accomplishments

New Philosophy and Leadership

Within the limits of a tight budget and some recalcitrant correctional officers, Ponte is trying to replace warehousing and punishing prisoners with what they need to turn their lives around. When he took over the DOC he saw how well that approach worked at Maine’s two youth centers, where the recidivism rate had declined significantly. He decided to apply the approach to adult offenders.

Ponte’s philosophy is seen in his choices for his recently reconstituted team. Rodney Bouffard, longtime head of the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, has been named acting warden of the state prison in Warren. ...

In December 2012, the Colorado Medical Board concluded its inquiry into a complaint filed against Dr. David Mark Sakai Oba, who provided medical services at the CCA-operated Bent County Correctional Facility (BCCF), and issued an admonishment.

Terrell D. Griswold, 26, was incarcerated at BCCF in September 2009 when he filed a sick call request due to persistent pain in his side and blood in his urine. He stated he had a weak urine stream and wanted to have his prostate checked, and filed another sick call request two months later.

He was seen on December 3, 2009 by Dr. Oba, who, according to a subsequent lawsuit filed by Griswold’s mother, was “an employee and/or agent of CCA.” Dr. Oba diagnosed a urinary obstruction and ordered antibiotics, though Griswold never received them as the prison clinic said they were not available.

He received no other medical treatment for his urinary obstruction, and while the prescription for antibiotics was renewed by Dr. Oba in May 2010, they reportedly were never given to Griswold.

According to the suit, Oba “was aware his orders for medications were routinely not carried out, but he did nothing to correct the situation. It was Dr. Oba’s duty, ...

In a September 6, 2012 unpublished ruling, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a jury verdict that found Corizon Health, Inc., formerly Prison Health Services (PHS), had a policy or custom of refusing to send prisoners to hospitals. The appellate court also held it was reasonable for the jury ...

by Matt Clarke

Unique circumstances have combined to make northern Louisiana a prime location for private prisons, as Louisiana sheriffs can profit by letting a private company build and operate facilities that house both local prisoners and prisoners from other jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, other parish prisons – especially those in the densely-populated southern part of the state – and Louisiana’s state prisons are severely overcrowded and provide a steady stream of prisoners to fill the for-profit facilities in the north.

Currently, over half of the state’s approximately 40,000 prisoners are incarcerated in local parish prisons, which are operated by sheriffs or a private company.

It costs the state an average $55 per day to house a prisoner in a state facility. Yet the state pays sheriffs a mere $24.39 per diem to house state prisoners in parish prisons. When factoring in private prison companies’ need to generate profit from the meager per diem rate, plus a cut for the sheriffs, it is easy to see that despite the state spending $182 million annually to house prisoners in local facilities, very little of that amount is spent on rehabilitative programs and services for those prisoners.

Yet sheriffs, and the private prison companies ...

Christopher Petrella and Alex Friedmann are leading a coalition of organizations urging U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) to reintroduce the Private Prison Information Act during the 113th Congress. I reached them both on the phone on a busy afternoon on January 9, 2013. Alex spoke from his office in Nashville, Tennessee while Christopher was on the road in Boston.

Christopher Petrella is a doctoral student in U.C. Berkeley’s Department of African American Studies; his dissertation focuses on the intersection of race, class and prison privatization. He also teaches classes at San Quentin State Prison.

Alex Friedmann is the managing editor of Prison Legal News, associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center and president of the Private Corrections Institute, which opposes prison privatization. He spent ten years behind bars, including six years at a facility in Tennessee operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

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MEL MOTEL: So let’s talk about this bill, the Private Prison Information Act (PPIA). Why is this bill important? Who should care about this issue?

ALEX FRIEDMANN: The PPIA would apply to private prison contractors on the federal level – it would subject them to the same obligations under the Freedom of ...

The Idaho Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a prison doctor’s challenge to his job termination, stemming from his abusive treatment of a prisoner.

Dr. John F. Noak was the medical director for Prison Health Services (PHS), which provided medical care for the Idaho Department of Correction ...

by Matt Clarke

In an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that federal prisoners housed in privately-managed prisons may not file Bivens-style federal lawsuits against private prison employees alleging lack of medical care in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Richard Lee Pollard was a federal prisoner incarcerated in a California facility operated by Wackenhut Corrections (now GEO Group) when he slipped on a cart left in the doorway to the butcher shop in the prison’s food service department, fell and was injured. He was X-rayed at the prison. Because prison medical staff believed he had fractured both elbows, he was taken to an outside clinic for orthopedic evaluation. He later had surgery.

Pollard filed an action in federal court under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), alleging that guards had caused him severe pain by requiring him to put on a jumpsuit for transportation outside the prison when he could not extend his arm, and by placing him in arm restraints that caused him great pain. He also alleged that prison medical personnel failed to provide a splint, physical therapy and medical studies recommended by the outside clinic and provided insufficient pain medication, leaving ...