More Abuse Reported at Private Prison Operated By CCA

"Gov. Neil Abercrombie has promised to bring back all Hawaii inmates serving prison sentences on the mainland because of previous allegations of mistreatment by guards at Saguaro,"according to the Jan. 14 newspaper report.

Eighteen Hawaiian inmates sued CCA in December 2010, claiming that guards stripped, beat, kicked and threatened to kill them, banged their heads on tables while they were handcuffed, and that "the warden himself" threatened their families. Those inmates claim that CCA "deliberately destroyed and failed to preserve evidence of their wrongdoing, including videotapes," and "deliberately falsified reports."

Hawaii's governor also cited a December 2010 "riot" at another CCA prison in Arizona, Red Rock Correctional Center, which holds about 50 Hawaiian prisoners. The Saguaro prison holds about 1,800 Hawaiians...

Link to Article Here

Link to Suit filed Here

California Governor Brown's Budget Cuts Private Prison Spending

This year's California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget assumes $410 million paid to for profit private prisons for housing California inmates. Next year the expenditure would drop to $224 million.

Out-of-state private prison costs, the most expensive line item in the CDCR contracted facilities budget, would go from $272 million in the current year to $148 million in 2011-12.

Click here to see details of the CDCR budget.

Read the complete article Here

Aramark Violates Contract with KY DOC

*GASP* A prison corporation over billing the state and screwing taxpayers out of their hard earned money? How shocking! Makes me wonder how much they over bill the states for their university contracts and how old the food is that they serve to college kids...

A state lawmaker wants Attorney General Jack Conway to investigate possible violations of Aramark Correctional Services' $12 million food service contract with the Kentucky Corrections Department.
Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, said Aramark broke the terms of the deal last year by refusing to provide cost-related records to state auditors who were conducting their own investigation of food served to inmates at Kentucky's 13 prisons.
In a Jan. 4 letter to Conway, Yonts also listed other "examples of contract breach" identified in state Auditor Crit Luallen's final report, including Aramark overbilling the state and serving old food to inmates that was not stored properly.

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/10/1593198/lawmaker-asks-attorney-general.html#ixzz1ArY1vd3b

Another Lawsuit Against CCA For Sexual Abuse

No worries, even if CCA is forced to pay out money for damages I'm sure they can find ways to recoup their losses by overcharging states for the so-called 'service' they provide.

A German woman has filed a lawsuit against a private company that ran a Kentucky prison and some of its employees, saying she was forced to trade sex to call her ill mother.
The suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Louisville is the latest in a series of cases alleging sexual assault at the Otter Creek Correctional Complex in Wheelwright. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered all the female prisoners removed from the facility a year ago when a scandal involving corrections officers and inmates reached its height.
The lawsuit says the inmate, a 38-year-old German citizen, is serving 12 years for theft and other charges. Although the lawsuit names the inmate, the Associated Press does not generally identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted.
The lawsuit accuses Dwight Crowell, an internal affairs officer at the prison, of sexual assault. It also names several of his superiors — former Otter Creek Warden Jeff Little, currently the security chief at another CCA prison, Lee Adjustment Center, John Ferguson, chairman of CCA's board of directors and Tony Grande, an executive vice president of CCA — and says they didn't stop the wrongdoing.
Louise Graham, a spokeswoman for CCA in Nashville, Tenn., declined to address the specifics of the inmate's allegations.

Read more here

Feds Investigate Conditions at MS Youth Facility

Yet another example of why allowing corporations to make a profit from incarcerating our citizens. Is this really the best this country can do to 'rehabilitate' troubled teens? 

The U.S. Department of Justice informed Gov. Haley Barbour late last year that it had begun an investigation into the treatment of juveniles at the prison.

A former inmate testified today at a House Juvenile Justice Committee hearing that he was beaten at the state's youth prison.

"The Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility was hell," recalled Ross Walton, a 25-year-old former inmate.

Jackson lawyer Robert McDuff filed at lawsuit against Florida-based the GEO Group on behalf of 13 youthful offenders at the Leake County prison. It alleges young offenders at the 1,200-inmate prison are being forced to live in "barbaric, unconstitutional conditions."
Other defendants in the lawsuit are state Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps and the Walnut Grove Correctional Authority, which was created by the city to oversee the facility, and others.
Walton told state lawmakers today of being beaten by guards and seeing other inmates being beaten. "I've witnessed guards beat inmates over drug money," he said.
He said he's seen the staff bring drugs to the facility, including marijuana, cocaine and pills.
Prices at the prison canteen are hugely inflated, he said. The price of a bar of Irish Spring? $2. The price of a tube of Colgate? $5.
Shannon Busby and her husband told the committee that the same Ramen soup that cost 15 cents at Walmart is $4.60 in the canteen.
She told the committee about the experiences of her son, Kenneth Page, at the prison.
"He wants to be be somebody," she said. "He wants to change his past."
They are unable to send him a Bible, she said. The only Bible he can get they must order from the prison's website.
The same website allowed them to buy him a Christmas dinner for $100, she said. "We didn't do it because we couldn't afford it."

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CCA Takes Hawaii Taxpayers For An Expensive Ride

Just more proof that CCA is a corrupt, inept, incompetent and unqualified corporation that doesn't give a damn about public safety. You can bet that money was funneled to someone in Hawaii's legislature or DOC in order for the contracts to be awarded in an underhanded and unethical manner. Looks like the citizens of Hawaii have been taken for a fun and expensive ride through their dealings with CCA - as have so many other states.

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The state's auditor on Wednesday blasted the Hawaii Department of Public Safety's management of a contract to house prisoners in privately owned Arizona prisons.
In a 77-page report, Marion Higa also criticized the financial data about the arrangement the department has provided legislators and the public for using a flawed methodology and containing inaccurate or insufficient figures.

"Without clarified guidance by policymakers, the department has no incentive to perform better and will continue to evade accountability by providing unreliable and inaccurate reporting of incarceration costs," Higa wrote in the audit's conclusion.

"In addition, the department has misused its procurement authority to circumvent the process designed with safeguards to protect the state's interests," she added.

Interim Public Safety Director Jodie Maesaka-Hirata said her agency acknowledges the auditor's recommendations "and will address the concerns raised in the report. In addition, we will review all administrative rules, practices, and existing policies as it relates to the mainland and federal detention center branch."

Much of the audit's findings were critical of actions taken before current Gov. Neil Abercrombie took office earlier this month, succeeding Gov. Linda Lingle. Abercrombie has said he wants to stop exporting inmates to other states but hasn't specified how that would be accomplished.

Spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said possible solutions include "revisiting ideas of increasing prison capacity in Hawaii and ensuring successful transitions into the community."

About 2,000 male Hawaii prisoners are housed in the Florence, Red Rock and Saguaro correctional centers owned by the Corrections Corp. of America, according to the audit.
The state in 2006 signed an "intergovernmental agreement" with Eloy, Ariz., where the facilities are located, but deals almost exclusively with CCA, the report contended.

The arrangement allowed agency officials to circumvent and manipulate the state's competitive procurement process to steer business to CCA, the audit found. The department also treated CCA as a government agent instead of a private vendor operating for a profit, it contended.

Full Story on Bloomberg

New Ohio Prison Director's Conflict of Interest

Once again we see an unholy cross-over between private and public sector employment. Is anyone really supposed to believe that a former CCA employee will not be advocating for more privatization of Ohio's prisons or think for one second that contracts will be awarded fairly?

What a complete and utter joke this is. Hope Ohioans are ready to spend even more on their prison budget. Not once has it ever been proven private facilities that operate for profit save the state any money whatsoever. In fact, it kind of defies logic to think that hiring a 3rd part middleman saves money in any industry, doesn't it?

Columbus Dispatch

Gov.-elect John Kasich, who has said he wants to explore privatizing state prison operations, has chosen a former longtime state prisons official who later worked at a company that operates private prisons to run the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.


Kasich introduced Gary C. Mohr during a press conference this afternoon at the Ross County Courthouse in Chillicothe, Mohr's hometown. He is the 11th cabinet nomination so far before Kasich takes office on Monday.

Kasich and Mohr pledged that all state decisions involving privatization would publicly bid and transparent and that Mohr would abstain from any decision involving his former employer, Corrections Corporation of America, a private operator.

From 2007-09, Mohr was a managing director for Nashville-based CCA which owns and operates a private prison in Youngstown that houses federal inmates. The company runs 60 prison facilities housing 75,000 inmates in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

Mohr currently is chief executive of the consulting company, Mohr Correctional Insight, which has mostly worked with CCA, including instituting a new management system for prison staffing. He has been in that position since 2009 after earlier serving from 2005-07.
Kasich has targeted the state prison system as a way to save money with Ohio facing a potential shortfall of $8 billion or more in the next two-year budget that Kasich must introduce by March 15.

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