Friday, June 10, 2011

"It was a mini riot, and yet no guards intervened."

That is the description of the situation which Antoney Jones found himself in almost immediately after arriving at the Idaho Correctional Center. Jones, a black gay man, was intentionally placed by guards into a housing unit where he would be assaulted by other prisoners. "Prisoners throughout the pod lined the rails and began yelling, 'Kill the nigger,' 'Get the fag' and 'Kill the rat.'"

Mr. Jones' story is one of more than a dozen similar ones found in the complaint of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Idaho against CCA for their operation of ICC, a prison so notorious for its violence that it's been dubbed "gladiator school" by those housed there. The violence is so pervasive particularly because the prison is private; by routinely hiring unqualified staff and reducing staffing levels to the barest of minimums, the prison is literally a breeding ground for violent activity. In the assault that prompted the lawsuit (and an FBI investigation), a prisoner was brutally beaten for so long that his assailant had time to stop and rest in the midst of the attack, while guards simply watched from a control tower. That sort of unprofessional conduct is heart-wrenchingly unacceptable.

And in other effed-up privatization of correctional services in Idaho news, the state has fined a private medical care provider, CMS, "nearly $400,000 by state officials for failing to meet some of the most basic health care requirements outlined by the state." And this is in a state that permitted CCA to operate the ICC for years without fining them, which means the medical "care" CMS was providing must have been appallingly insufficient.

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