Bribery, Fraud, and Tuberculosis

I know, not exactly an everyday combination.  But all those fun things are coming out of (or circulating around) a private jail in Texas run by LCS Corrections.  The warden of the facility is currently under investigation by the FBI for bribery, fraud, and theft allegations.  The US Marshal's Service is also investigating claims of inadequate medical care; infections and lesions apparently go untreated for days at a time.  But the lack of treatment goes beyond individual cases; a doctor at the prison has been permitting prisoners exhibiting symptoms of TB, a highly contagious lung infection, to be housed in the general population.  It has also routinely failed to conduct tests for TB, which can help stem outbreaks.

A Death in Mississippi, a Lawsuit in Texas

Rolling 2 stories into one here.  First up is a story from Mississippi, where Derek Criddle, a 26-year-old young man in a CCA facility, was stabbed to death during a fight.  Six other prisoners were injured in the scuffle, and two remained hospitalized as of Thursday.

Meanwhile in Texas, the family of a prisoner who died after "the [Brooks County] prison disregarded his very, very serious medical condition" is suing LCS Correctional Services for the wrongful death of Mario Garcia.

Why I Hate LCS Today

A 27-year-old man, Leo Guajardo, just died at an LCS Correctional Services facility in Texas. He went to the doctor for high blood pressure, a doctor who failed to notice he had a massive brain tumor and gave him blood pressure medicine. Details are sort of unclear on what happened after that, but he ended up going to the hospital and dying within a matter of days. I just don't understand how you can miss something like a massive brain tumor, when he's been incarcerated at the facility for about 6 months.

Why Private Prisons Needs to Comply With Public Records Laws

A private prison in Texas has been found to be out of compliance with the minimum provisions of its contract for the second time in the past year.  Why?  Because they failed to report 2 DEATHS at the facility.  But of course the deputy warden wouldn't know he needed to report something so minor as a death, since neither he nor the warden are even licensed!  The prison is run by LCS (Louisiana Correctional Services, a relatively minor player), for anyone who's interested.  I Hate You Today, LCS

Undertrained Staff

A recent surprise inspection of a prison owned and operated by LCS Correctional Services revealed that 73% of the staff haven't yet completed their training to be COs. I guess that makes sense, since this is the facility that wrongly released a convicted sex offender. Maybe if you trained your people properly, they wouldn't release the wrong guys.

Phone Taps and Bribes

Those "conservative activists" who called out ACORN a while ago and more recently tried to break into Senator Mary Landrieu's office are apparently all tied to a conservative think tank called Pelican, based in New Orleans. On Pelican's board is a lady whose husband owns LCS correctional services, which the FBI is currently investigating for allegations of bribery in its contract negotiations. So I hate you today, LCS correctional services for your shady contracts, and everyone at Pelican, for being a bunch of subversive conservative operatives.

LCS has cleaned up its act, maybe.

LCS Correctional Services has worked on improving conditions at a facility that failed inspection on 17 points about a month ago, in preparation for an upcoming inspection. Among the issues they failed in compliance checks on were training for guards and checking for contraband. Hopefully they can begin to run it as only a substandard prison, instead of an abysmal one.

Why I Hate LCS today

LCS Correctional Services, one of the bit players in the market, recently had a facility fail an inspection for, among other things, failure to train their COs, a lack of an adequate TB management plan, and not requiring their employees to be licensed by the state. The prison opened just 1 year ago. Oh, and if you want to see the proud faces of a company that can't run a prison properly for even a year, go here:

http://www.lcscorrections.com/site.php