Another Wrongful Death Suit Against CCA

The ACLU of Hawaii has filed a wrongful death suit on behalf of the family of Clifford Medina, a 23-year-old Hawaiian prisoner who was murdered in the Saguaro Correctional Center, a CCA prison in Arizona.  The lawsuit contends that the company's negligence and drive for profit led to Medina's murder by a fellow prisoner.  This murder was one of two in a very short time frame at the facility, and one of a few issues that led the Governor of Hawaii to pledge to return all his prisoners to the islands, including an alleged sexual assault by a staff member at this same prison.

The lawsuit has already been covered by a ton of media outlets, so I won't go into a detailed breakdown.  Suffice it to say, I effing hate CCA.  I'll just give you links

KVOA News in Tucson, AZ
KITV News in Honolulu
Hawaii Reporter
Hawaii News Now
Nashville Scene
Courthouse News Service

Mississippi Tosses GEO Group!

Mississippi, of all places, has had enough.  Not exactly known for its hospitable prison system, the state announced last Friday that it intends to terminate its contract with the GEO Group to operate 3 facilities, effective in July.  One of those facilities is Walnut Grove, which was recently the target of a lawsuit that brought sweeping change to the way Mississippi incarcerates its youth.  Plagued with violence, medical neglect, and persistent sexual abuse, the facility's conditions were so abysmal that the Department of Justice called it "some of the worst abuse" they had seen in any investigation of a prison or jail.  Children housed there used terms like "barbaric," "a war zone," and "the deepest depths of hell" to describe it.  The settlement in the lawsuit removed all juveniles from Walnut Grove and mandated that they never be held in solitary confinement.  Lest you feel bad for GEO getting slapped around so hard in the lawsuit, remember that they earned millions of dollars in profit by treating children like shit.

Now, the state will pursue a new company to take over operations of the prisons.  Apparently, it hasn't crossed the Governor's mind to just have the government run them.  Anyway, CCA probably has the inside track to take over the prisons, since they already contract with the state to operate two others and can probably offer the lowest bid, because they're the largest and operate the biggest economy of scale in the industry.  I imagine maybe the things like the murder and the multiple suicides in one of the prisons, along with GEO's request for $5 million more per year to operate the prison, caused the state to want to move in a new direction.  GEO, playing the perfect jilted lover, claims it's the one who initiated the split, because the facility had been "financially under-performing," which if true just proves how fickle and greedy their corporate mentality is.

Change is long overdue.  The federal judge who ruled in the lawsuit against Walnut Grove called it a "cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the [children] at substantial ongoing risk."  I have no faith in any private prison company to come in and operate these prisons much better - this is far from the first time the industry has dramatically failed to live up to its promises and the terms of its contracts.  Mississippi should think long and hard before inviting yet another for-profit company to operate these prisons. Keeping the door open for the private industry simply invites more abuse.  The state would be much better served by assuming responsibility for its prisoners.  In addition to the considerable improvement many prisoners would see in their living conditions, the state should not continue to funnel taxpayer dollars to an industry that profits by performing an inherently governmental function.  Especially when the state's own experience shows just how poorly that money is being spent.

Death of Hawaiian Prisoner Sparks Lawsuit

Hawaii contracts with CCA to house some of its prisoners on the mainland, because they don't have room for them in prisons on the islands.  But their relationship has been marked by problem after problem, from the sexual assaults of women in a prison in Kentucky (after they had been moved there following sexual assaults at ANOTHER CCA prison)  and coverups to mistreatment of male prisoners in Arizona.  In light of these issues, and a report of the state's solicitor general that was highly critical of the private prisons housing Hawaiian prisoners the governor has pledged to bring all Hawaiian prisoners home, but has found the process for doing so more difficult than anticipated.

One of the most serious issues that has arisen is the deaths of two young men at the Saguaro prison in Arizona.  After a class of prisoners sued the state and CCA over their mistreatment at the facility, the ACLU of HI has just filed a lawsuit against the state and CCA over the death of Bronson Nunuha, who was murdered at the prison.  The 26-year-old's death is being challenged as preventable; the ACLU of Hawaii claims the state and CCA were both negligent, leading to his wrongful death.  Nunuha was even being held in segregated confinement, where he was separated from the general population, but even that wasn't enough to prevent him from being murdered only months before he was set to be released; only 1 guard was responsible for overseeing about 50 prisoners.  The lawsuit contends that CCA's "unchecked hunger for profits" led the company to cut staffing to such unacceptably low levels as to allow for Nunuha's murder; he was stabbed over 100 times.

Unfortunately for the state, which gives the company $10 million annually to allow its citizens to be murdered, their own officials have faced significant difficulties in trying to extract information from the facility.  The aforementioned report of the Solicitor General noted major obstacles the agency encountered in trying to conduct an investigation of conditions Hawaiian prisoners were housed in.  Maybe it's because CCA doesn't give a shit about the people it houses, and does everything possible to prevent governments from seeing just how poorly their tax dollars are being spent.

Ongoing Abuse

Hawaiian prisoners continue to report extreme violence and abuse at the Saguaro Correctional Facility, a CCA joint, in Arizona.  Thousands of Hawaiian prisoners are housed by CCA on the mainland, despite Governor Abercrombie's promise to bring them all home.  In the private hellholes, they have been repeatedly subject to sexual assault and harassment, violence, and even murder.  The Solicitor General of the state even released a scathing report on the questionable tactics CCA engages in to manipulate cost projections and scam the state into thinking it's saving money by having prisoners at their facility.

In a complaint just filed in Honolulu, Hawaiian prisoners are suing CCA and the state of Hawaii for subjecting them to the brutal conditions at Saguaro.  The complaint details some of the problems these men face, saying

    "Plaintiffs were stripped of nearly all of their clothing while being beaten, questioned, and humiliated.

     "Plaintiffs were threatened with harm to themselves and their families, including through such statements as:

     "a. 'We have your emergency contact information;'

     "b. 'We know who your family is and where they live and we are going to harm them;'

     "c. 'We are going to kill you;'

     "d. 'We will continue to beat you and the only way to stop that is to commit suicide;'

     "e. 'We will send you to hell;'

     "f. 'We will stick something up your ass.'

     "g. 'We will smash all the bones in your face.'"

I really hope this finally catches the Governor's attention and that he realizes sending prisoners to private facilities is a disgraceful and inhumane way to back out of the state's responsibility to house its prisoners.

Couldn't Have Said it Better Myself

Governor Lingle of Hawaii has threatened to veto a measure pending before Hawaii's legislature that calls for an audit of the state's contract with CCA to house prisoners stateside.  Why I Hate CCA is firmly in support of such a measure, as I have reported on two murders of Hawaiian prisoners in the Saguaro Correctional Facility that took place over the course of the last 6 months.  Clearly, CCA has failed to adequately secure this facility and protect the Hawaiian inmates under its watch.

As Daniel Gluck, an attorney at the ACLU of Hawaii put it, "Hawaii allowing a $61 million no-bid contract to go on for 15 years with no independent oversight is an unsound financial practice for the state"

New Details on Clifford Medina's Death

Clifford Medina, a Hawaiian prisoner serving his sentence in a CCA prison in Arizona, was strangled to death by his cellmate, also a Hawaiian prisoner. Clifford is the second Hawaiian prisoner to be murdered in this facility, the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy Arizona, in the past five months. Hawaii's Department of Public Safety says it will investigate the death and the state's contract(s) to house prisoners on the mainland, which I think is a good idea considering the state spends $61 million per year to incarcerate some of its citizens in private prisons.

Another Dead Hawaiian Prisoner

Another Hawaiian prisoner, Clifford Medina, has died, stateside, in a CCA-run facility in Arizona,  This is the second Hawaiian inmate under the age of 30 to have died in the past 5 months at this prison.  In February, Bronson Nunuha was killed there.