CCA's Tremendous Influence

Just a quick link here to an article from a few weeks ago (apologies for the delay) detailing CCA's (and to a lesser extent, the GEO Group's) incredible political influence, and how that influence has ensured for them a steady flow of prisoners, including across state lines.  It discusses specifically how targeted political action in California helped to double the state's contribution to the company's revenue as its prison population exploded, and how difficult it can be to accurately determine the influence the industry truly has.

(Sort of) Breaking News - Riot in Oklahoma

There was a riot yesterday afternoon in the CCA-run North Folk Correctional Center in Sayre, Oklahoma.  Though no staff were injured and no hostages taken, at least 20 prisoners were injured in the disturbance, including one who was stabbed.  Of course, the prison couldn't handle the riot itself, and 6 units from the state police had to assist (how's that for privatized public services?)

Here's a bit more on the situation.

UPDATE: At least 46 prisoners were injured in the riot, with at least 16 having to be transported to a hospital to treat their injuries.

They Rapin' Errbody Up in Here

To borrow a line from Antoine Dodson.  Forgive me for making light of the situation in the title, but two CCA officers are currently facing charges of rape in separate incidents.

In Florida, a guard is on trial for allegedly raping a fellow employee who was suffering an asthma attack.  Meanwhile, over in New Mexico, a trial against a corrections officer who has admitted to raping 4 women under his watch at the Camino Nuevo Women's CF in 2007 has been delayed as CCA tries to buy more time to mount a defense.

Once again, these shining examples of private prison professionalism give us a glimpse into what happens when profit is a higher priority than providing quality service.

2 + 2 = 4

What do you get when you cross an explosion in the incarceration rate of immigrants with the proliferation of private, for-profit prisons to house them?  Why, you get a FUCKING 90% increase in the arrest of guards in federal prisons over the last decade, and a 200% increase in investigations of misconduct.  And mind you, private prisons still only house about 17% of federal prisoners.  So their guards must really be terrible.

If anyone ever tries to convince you that an employee of a private prison company (or employee of any private company performing an inherently governmental function for that matter) operates to the same standards as his government counterpart, you can call that person an idiot.

More Coverage on Florida's Mess

An editorial from the Tampa Bay Times on how the decision is a message to Governor Scott's administration that they're "not above the law."

An article by Bill Cotterell discussing how the privatization plan was pushed by Diana Arduin, former aide to Governor Scott and a consultant hired by the state Senate to look at budget items.  Arduin has long been a proponent of private prisons (including having worked as a trustee of GEO Group's real estate firm), so it's kind of odd that the Senate would look to someone who promotes an industry that has repeatedly proven itself to be costly and inefficient to look at its budget.  But hey, that's Florida for ya.

And last but not least, an excellent article from the Florida Independent about the political influence that was, and still is, wielded by private prison corporations due to their lavish campaign and lobby spending.

CCA Guard Charged With Selling Drugs

A female guard at a CCA prison in Tennessee has been charged with smuggling nearly 3/4 of an ounce of marijuana into the facility, in order to sell it to prisoners.  This is what happens when you underpay and under-train your staff for the sake of profit.

I Just Don't Understand...

I won't go into a rant on this article, at least not this early in the morning.  So I'll let the author give you some insight into the insanity that is Michigan's corrections policy:

"Gov. Rick Snyder has talked a lot about new ideas and reinventing government... But on one of Michigan's biggest quandaries - the state's bloated prison budget - the administration is embracing the failed policies of the past."

The state plans to bring in private contractors to operate some prisons and eliminate 2,000 government jobs, as well as privatize the medical and mental health care systems for prisoners. This comes even though the state acknowledges that the prison run by the GEO Group is one of its most expensive and inefficient.

Good Luck, AP

Honestly - I'm not being sarcastic here.  The AP has requested the settlement in the recent case the ACLU and Marlin Riggs won against CCA in Idaho be unsealed.  The case alleged violence at the facility was so pervasive that it was called "Gladiator School," and that the prison intentionally denied medical care to assaulted prisoners in order to cover up the extent of the violence.  The AP says the case raises profound questions of public concern, which I certainly agree with.  So, I wish you the best of luck in getting that settlement unsealed; I'd love to see what it says, and how much CCA had to pay.

Haha

Coming on the heels of the news that a court in Florida ruled the largest prison privatization scheme in history unconstitutional, stock for both CCA and the GEO Group lost value.

A Parent's Worst Nightmare

Continuing with WhyIHateCCA's guest author series, I present this first-hand account of a father's struggle to find his son, who was lost in the Mississippi system after suffering brain damage in a riot at the GEO-Group operated Walnut Grove Correctional Facility.  Walnut Grove is currently the target of a lawsuit by the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center over deplorable conditions and abhorrent violence.

by Michael McIntosh

Good Afternoon, My name is Michael McIntosh.  I am the parent of a youth that was attacked, critically injured and then hidden in the system, to keep the incident quiet.

Imagine this…

On a normal visitation day, I was told by the Walnut Grove (WG) staff that my son, who had been there for 3 months, was no longer at the facility.  Walnut Grove is a private juvenile detention center operated by the GEO Group for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. When I reached out for more information of where my son was, they consistently denied knowledge of his whereabouts. How could a child placed in the custody of the MDOC disappear?  After not getting any assistance from WG staff, I was referred to the Warden, who refused to tell me about my son’s whereabouts. After 2 1/2 weeks of MDOC and WG passing the buck back and forth and playing games, I took matters in my own hands and started my own investigation. I realized that they did not care about the well being of my son, nor did they care about me knowing his status. I found out that my son was in the hospital, but no status information was given. I called MDOC and asked the medical department about my son’s status to which I received no response. A few days later, an MDOC chaplain called to help me with visitation to my son. After 5 1/2 weeks of searching, visitation was granted to me to see my son, but they had moved him to another facility. A new visitation order was granted for a two-hour visit, in which I was only able to spend a half hour with my son. The reason this happened is because I questioned the head nurse about the status of my son; because of her attitude, she called security and told them she felt threatened and needed assistance. Security came to assist her, but it was not the 24-hour security that was already in his room, but rather hospital security. The security officer told me I had to leave, that visitation was over. Keep in mind that this was more than a month after the incident. The next day I called the chaplain back, explained what happened and asked for another visitation with my son. On Friday of the following week the head doctor of MDOC called and I was told no further visitation will be granted and the visitation that I was granted was done as a favor to me.  I was forced to wait until my son was granted visitation rights by MDOC. My son was transferred to Parchman hospital where he received no medical treatment. After four to six weeks, he was released from the Parchman hospital, and he was transferred to a drug and alcohol facility at Parchman though he does not have a problem with either. He has yet to receive treatment that addresses his injuries even though many request have been made for treatment. He is an underage inmate at Parchman, put there and left there so that this incident would not be known. My son had been assaulted in a riot at the Walnut Grove YCF in which he received brain damage, but has still not received proper medical treatment for what he experienced.

Effing A

A judge in Florida has ruled the pending privatization on nearly 30 state prisons unconstitutional.  I'm sure a challenge from the Scott administration is forthcoming, but I want to savor this victory for at least a little while.

Click here for more detailed information about the ruling.

Why I Hate Florida Today

Florida is currently in the midst of the biggest prison privatization push in history - the state is looking to privatize 29 correctional facilities, basically the entire bottom half of the state's prison system.  This comes after the GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, along with other private prison interests, spent record amounts in campaign contributions and lobbying in the last election cycle, so you wouldn't be alone in thinking this sounds a bit like a handout from Florida's Republican leadership to wealthy donors.

As this move to privatize has developed, a few groups in the community have started to fight back against the outsourcing of an inherently governmental function.   The union that represents Corrections Officers (The PBA) has filed a lawsuit, seeking to block the privatization, and the Teamsters union has filed an ethics complaint against Governor Scott because he accepted campaign contributions from the two largest private prison companies in the country, both of which are bidding on the proposed privatization.

The lawsuit by the PBA has limped its way through the court system.  After a lower court ordered ousted Corrections Secretary Edward Buss (ousted because he, as the EFFING SECRETARY OF CORRECTIONS, thought the plan was a horrible idea) to be deposed in the matter, a higher court affirmed the ruling, only to have Governor "I Love Privatization" Scott appeal.  Well, Scott lost, whining about how state officials are not to be deposed under Florida law (I guess he forgot the part where he forced Buss to resign because Buss disagreed with him). The PBA has had trouble getting information out of the Corrections Department through discovery, which is why Buss was called to testify in the first place.  It appears as though Buss, the aforementioned secretary of corrections, was never really consulted about the push to privatize nearly 30 prisons.  The state seems pretty scared to let Buss testify; the Scott administration has already appealed the ruling numerous times, and is considering challenging Buss' testimony in the Florida Supreme Court.  In fact, his lawyers at one point even let a little Freudian Slip pass, remarking that allowing Buss to testify might do "irreparable harm" to state government.

They're probably right.  Buss's testimony was released, and in it he gives details about his remarkable lack of insight and knowledge about the privatization scheme before it was forced upon him.  Buss testified that, during hearings with legislators near the beginning of his term, he was not informed of the privatization plan until after it had been introduced.  He also said that no one came to talk to him (do I need to insert his title again) about the privatization.  In maybe the most telling portion of his testimony, in response to a question as to whether or not he would have liked to have been contacted before the plan was introduced, Buss said, "It's a different state, and I just got here."  Sorry Mr. Buss, but you were definitely not in Kansas anymore.  Buss says the privatization plan was not part of the corrections budget he saw when he took the job, and that he had virtually no input when it was made part of the budget.  More details have emerged about the plan, including the fact that the original "business plan" for the awarding a contract to operate 29 prisons was only four pages long.  Four fucking measly pages.  I guess Florida's politicians all like to read as much as their heralded presidential candidate.

But even in the face of a lawsuit and an ethics complaint, the state's political leaders blindly push forward in their bullheaded plan to turn over government services to an inefficient and abusive industry.  And they're not above utilizing sly political maneuverings to get their way.  The president of the state Senate has reorganized a few legislative committees, including removing the only state senator who seems to have any sense, Mike Fasano, from the Government Oversight Committee.  This is a way of neutering the influence of Fasano, an outspoken critic of the privatization push and the $25 million the Administration failed to inform legislators that the state would be on the hook for.  So now the last defense Florida taxpayers had against this onslaught of privatization has no official power to challenge it.

Fuck you, Florida.