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American Legislative Exchange Council
Lobbyists, Guns and Money: March 25, 2012, NYTimes
columnist Paul Krugman takes them on.
Private prison company’s growth went hand-in-hand with
political influence: Jon Collins September 26, 2011 Minnesota
Independent
"Publicopoly: ALEC and the bid
to make private all that is public." An exhaustive DBA Press analysis of
thousands of pages of documents obtained through public records requests over
the past several months has revealed the source of many
suddenly-wildly-popular bills aimed at weakening public employee unions to be
‘model legislation’ disseminated primarily through one entity, the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). July 11, 2011
NPR
expose on the for-profits role in the AZ immigration law
November 28, 2011 Arizona Republic
Arizona's state lawmakers are especially receptive to corporate money and
influence, according to a new report from two liberal-leaning advocacy
groups. The 100-page report strives to show how the American Legislative
Exchange Council uses "its resources to shepherd legislation from the
corporate boardroom to the governor's desk," said Marge Baker, executive
vice president at the Washington D.C,-based People for the American Way
Foundation. ALEC describes itself as a nonpartisan national association of
state legislators. Critics, however, say it is a conservative-based partisan
organization that brings together about 300 large corporations and 2,000
predominately Republican legislators on task forces to produce model bills.
Lawmakers then take those bills back to their state legislatures in hopes of
passing them into law. The groups released the report, "ALEC in Arizona:
The Voice of Corporate Special Interests in the Halls of Arizona's
Legislature," as ALEC prepares to hold its "States and Nation
Policy Summit" in Scottsdale, beginning Wednesday. More than 50 Arizona
lawmakers are members of the group. Arizona corporations that provide
financial support to ALEC include the Salt River Project, Taser
International, and Pinnacle West Capital Corp., the parent company of Arizona
Public Services Co., the state's largest utility company. "There's no
way ordinary citizens can match the level of access and influence that ALEC
provides to these corporations," Baker said. "So Arizonans are
subjected to laws that serve the interests of the rich and powerful."
But Kaitlyn Buss, an ALEC spokeswoman, said the organization is merely a
"resource" for lawmakers. "Our main goal and focus is to
promote free market, limited government and federalism (ideals)," Buss
said. "We do have model legislation. It's a main part of what we do, but
that doesn't give it priority over anything else that might be introduced at
the Legislature." The report includes side-by-side comparisons of dozens
of "model bills" generated at ALEC conferences, and those
introduced at the Arizona Legislature. In Arizona, lawmakers passed 19 of the
36 model bills introduced in 2010, ALEC officials said. Typically, ALEC model
legislation -- including those highlighted in the report -- focus on
anti-immigration, anti-union, and anti-federal health-care reform
initiatives.
September 16, 2010 Think Progress
In December 2009, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a
powerful front group that helps corporate representatives craft template
legislation for state lawmakers, funded partially by the private prison
industry — hosted Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce (R) and began debate on
legislation that would provide broad powers to local police to arrest anyone
who might look like an immigrant. ALEC then distributed the template
legislation to its members. The January/February 2010 edition of ALEC’s
magazine highlights the draft version of SB1070 — the “Support Our Law
Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” — as model legislation. In April of
this year, Pearce then introduced ALEC’s template as the infamous SB1070 law.
Notably, the ALEC task force which helped Pearce devise his racial profiling
law included Laurie Shanblum, a lobbyist from the
mega-private prison corporation Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)
which previously played a role in privatizing many of Texas’ prisons. An
investigation from Arizona’s KPHO-TV found more ties between SB1070 and the
private prison industry: Paul Senseman, Gov. Janet
Brewer’s (R-AZ) deputy chief of staff was a former lobbyist for CCA (his wife
is still a lobbyist for CCA) and Chuck Coughlin, Brewer’s campaign chairman,
runs the lobbying firm in Arizona that represents CCA. In These Times
reporter Beau Hodai, who also reported much of
SB1070’s connections to the private prison industry, has a chart to explain
the relationship. CCA is set to receive well over $74 million in tax dollars
in FY2010 for running immigration detention centers. In a presentation given
earlier this year, Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund with a large
financial stake in CCA, suggested that CCA’s profitability depends on
increasing numbers of immigrants sent to prison. Many of the legislators
helping to earn CCA more profits with radical anti-immigrant bills mirroring
SB1070 have been recipients of private prison industry cash or have worked
closely with the CCA-funded ALEC organization: – TENNESSEE: Earlier this
year, legislators in Tennessee passed an immigration bill with provisions
“similar to, but less harsh than, those of SB 1070, including requiring city
and county jails in the state to report any person who may be in violation of
immigration laws to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” But that
wasn’t enough: right-wing local lawmakers also passed a resolution honoring
Arizona’s SB1070, and a delegation of state lawmakers promised to introduce
an anti-immigrant bill even “broader” than SB1070 in 2011. Many of the
leading local lawmakers who voted for the anti-immigrant bill and resolution
received thousands of dollars from CCA’s political action committee in the
past two years, including State Reps. Gerald McCormick ($250), Barrett Rich
($500), Eric Watson ($250) and State Sens. Bill Ketron
($1,000), Jim Tracy ($500), Dolores Gresham ($1,000), Bo Watson ($500), and
Jack Johnson ($500). Tracy, who sponsored the resolution honoring Arizona’s
SB1070, also received $2,000 directly from CCA founder Tom Beasley, reports
the Nashville City Paper. CCA retains five lobbyists in the state and spent
at least $50,000 this year to lobby on immigration and other issues. –
OKLAHOMA: Rep. Mary Fallin (R-OK), who won her
party’s nomination to run for governor this year, received the maximum
donation permitted by law from CCA. State Rep. Randy Terrill (R-OK), who
announced that he was planning an “Arizona-Plus” immigration bill that would
be harsher than SB1070, is a proud member of the CCA-funded American
Legislative Exchange Council. – COLORADO: A group of Republican lawmakers in
Colorado, after a research trip to Arizona this summer, have stated that they
plan on passing a SB1070 law in Colorado next year. CCA’s lobbyists in
Colorado have raised funds for many of the lawmakers in the group. CCA
lobbyist Margy Christiansen raised $400 State Rep.
Randy Baumgardner, one of the leaders of Colorado’s Arizona expedition, and
CCA lobbyist Jason Dunn raised $150 for State Sen. Mike Kopp, the Republican
minority leader who is promising to promote an SB1070 bill next session. –
FLORIDA: During the gubernatorial primary campaign between disgraced
businessman Rick Scott and Attorney General Bill McCollum (R-FL), the
prospect of importing Arizona’s SB1070 became a prominent issue in the race,
with both candidates promising to bring a version of the law to the state.
While many Florida Republicans recoiled at the idea, which stands to alienate
many Hispanic voters, a cadre of state lawmakers and candidates for the state
legislature, most funded by the prison industry, announced their support for
an SB1070-type law. State Rep. Bill Snyder, who has received $500 from CCA, pledged
to introduce a bill more draconian than SB1070. State House candidate Ben
Albritton, another outspoken supporter of SB1070, took $500 from CCA, and
State Rep. Joe Negron, who has been working with Snyder to sponsor the bill,
received $1,000 from the Geo Group, another major private prison contractor
which operates immigrant detention centers. Overall, the Republican Party of
Florida has been the biggest recipient of prison industry cash in the past
two years: $37,000 from CCA and $145,000 from the Geo Group. – PENNSYLVANIA:
In the Key State, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-PA) introduced the
ALEC-drafted “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” one
month before State Sen. Russell Pearce (R-AZ) introduced his version of the
bill in Arizona. Metcalfe is a highly active member of ALEC. He was paid
$1,500 by ALEC just to attend its meetings with CCA lobbyists on how to draft
the law. In Tennessee, the average daily number of immigration detainees sank
to 40 in FY2009, down from 95 in FY2008. This may change with CCA’s
aggressive lobbying for more laws encouraging aggressive arrests of
immigrants or people who look like immigrants. Charles Maldonado, who has
reported on CCA’s corrupting influence at the Nashville City Paper, notes
that CCA may see new business at its West Tennessee Detention Facility with
the passage of more SB1070-related laws. ALEC, with funds from several
private prison companies, helped sponsor “truth-in-sentencing” and
“three-strikes-you’re-out” laws all over the country for the past two
decades. These laws have greatly increased incarceration rates, and have
contributed to America’s distinction of having the largest prison population
in the world.
October
29, 2007 Governing
In recent years, the American Legislative Exchange Council has been one of
the most formidable actors on the state policy stage, crafting and helping to
enact new laws by the hundreds. But massive staff turnover and managerial
complaints have led to questions about whether the effectiveness of ALEC, as
the group is commonly known, may diminish. Twenty-two members of the staff,
plus one part-timer and two consultants, have left since the beginning of
last year, when ALEC hired Lori Roman as its new executive director. That's a
considerable percentage of ALEC's total staff, which at press time numbered
29, with three vacancies. Some of the ALEC activists out in the country are
beginning to raise questions about all this. "What the hell's going
on?" asks Mississippi state Rep. Bill Denny, an ALEC state chair. "We
just lost all of those people, and they couldn't all have been bad."
Numerous former staff members describe a work environment that grew hostile
and "toxic" over the past 18 months. ALEC recently settled a
lawsuit brought by one former staffer and faces two pending complaints lodged
with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Roman says the
departures were neither surprising nor alarming, noting that a change in
management, particularly when the new leader comes in with a different style,
is often unsettling. Some people in such a situation are bound to leave, she
suggests. Roman, who previously ran faith-based programs in the federal
Department of Education, declined to speak to many of the complaints on the
record. She handed Governing a statement that says, "ALEC's new
management team carries out the mission of ALEC with a focus on ethics,
accountability and high performance. Some people may not like that style of
management, but the facts show that it has made ALEC stronger. In 2006, we went
from a $6 million organization to a $7 million organization, with no increase
in turnover." Published staff reports appear to contradict the turnover
claim. They show that the organization lost only five staff members in 2005
and just three in 2004, compared with the more than 20 who have left since
the start of 2006. ALEC's staff serves as the conduit between legislators and
representatives from private-sector companies, who meet together on eight
task forces that draft model legislation and policy statements. ALEC's
conservative policies have been widely translated into actual legislation. In
recent years, the group has averaged 1,500 bill introductions per year, with
about 200 of those bills becoming law. ALEC's influence has been felt across
a wide range of issues, from environmental and prison policy to gun owners'
rights and digital-rights management. Turmoil on the inside is bound to limit
this kind of influence, and in a few of ALEC's strongest states, affect the
dynamics of the legislative process. Perhaps for this reason, not all the top
ALEC officials are willing to acknowledge that serious turmoil exists.
"I can assure you the supermajority of the board is very excited about
where ALEC is going," says Kansas state Sen. Susan Wagle, the organization's
immediate past chair. Georgia state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, who chaired ALEC's
board when it hired Roman, calls the complaints "lying, crying garbage
without any facts to back up what they say." But based on a series of
interviews conducted by Governing, these defenders appear to be in the
minority. "I have deep concerns about it," says Iowa state Rep.
Dolores Mertz, ALEC's national chair. "Right now, it's going through a
trying timse." Other legislators, some
speaking on a not-for-attribution basis, have made complaints about
arbitrariness, sloppy mistakes and a lack of responsiveness. Some
private-sector members, who are the group's financial mainstay, also have
expressed concern, with members from the oil and pharmaceutical industries,
for example, saying they are reconsidering their contributions. Even if some
of the most serious allegations prove false, the loss of so much
institutional knowledge is bound to have an effect on ALEC, if only in the
near term. "It's always jarring if there's new staff, because they have
to start from scratch," says Iowa state Sen. Jeff Angelo, a member of
ALEC's criminal-justice task force. "Most of the model legislation
you're working on, it takes time."
December
9, 2006 Arizona Republic
Hundreds of state lawmakers from around the country will work with industry
lobbyists in the Valley today to craft model legislation on tort reform,
corporate tax policy and industry regulations. The task force meetings cap
the three-day States & Nation Policy Summit at the JW Marriott Desert
Ridge Resort of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, a
group that wields significant influence on state legislation but is virtually
unknown to average citizens. Dozens of Arizona legislators belong to ALEC, at
a rate that the state chairman says is higher than in most states. And its
influence in Arizona has been seen in recent years on legislation ranging
from private prisons and school choice to tax policy and environmental
regulations. Model legislation and policy positions adopted at the local
summit could lead to new laws proposed in Arizona and statehouses across the
country. Nationwide ALEC boasts membership from about one-third of all state
legislators in the nation and bills itself as a non-partisan but conservative
group that promotes Jeffersonian principles of individual liberty, free
markets and limited government. But it is the group's connections to
corporate America and its strategy of developing industry-approved model
legislation for its members around the country that distinguish it from other
legislative groups. That also has generated a lot of criticism, especially
from environmental organizations. Sen. Bob Burns, R-Peoria, Arizona's state
chairman for ALEC, says the criticism of corporations' role in the organization
is unfounded. "Are we supposed to lock the private sector out of the
legislative process?" he asked. But critics believe many in the public
would be concerned if they knew the role that corporate interests play in
developing ALEC's model legislation and policy positions. Last year, ALEC
says, more than 1,000 ALEC bills were introduced in state legislatures,
including Arizona's. About 20 percent of the total went into law. "If
you are all for corporate America controlling the agenda in America's statehouses,
there is nothing wrong with it," says Adam Schafer, executive director
of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. "But if you think
elected officials should be the ones writing the laws, you may find problems
with the way they do their model legislation." Corporations and industry
groups almost completely finance the group's activities through membership
dues and donations, and pay for sometimes extravagant trips for many
legislators and their families to conference destinations at resorts around
the country. Companies spend thousands of additional dollars to buy seats at
the table during task force meetings where the group's model legislation is
crafted. ALEC officials say industry representatives pay the task force dues
starting at around $2,500 annually to gain a seat on each task force in their
areas of interest. The dues for some task forces are higher, but ALEC
officials wouldn't say how high the dues for industry members can go. The
task forces are structured with two chambers: one consisting of legislators,
the other of industry representatives, ALEC officials say. In task force
meetings, which are not open to the media, industry lobbyists can push their
own pet legislation or block bills they oppose. To become model legislation,
both the public sector and private sector sides must approve the bill. Lori
Roman, ALEC's executive director, points out that task force legislation must
be approved by legislative board members before it becomes model legislation.
And Michael Bowman, director of policy and strategic initiatives, says it
would be "almost criminal" not to consult industry representatives
and notes that companies sometimes have competing interests anyway. "We
have so many special-interest groups or so many business interests or corporations
here that they don't even agree," he said. "You can't pass
something that favors your own company because another company is going to
say, 'We're not going to vote for that.' " Russell Smoldon,
a lobbyist for SRP and ALEC's private-sector chairman in Arizona, says
corporate influence on public policy shouldn't be viewed any differently than
union influence or the influence of environmental groups. But critics say
that the industry lobbyists may have huge economic incentives to push
legislation they favor that may not be in the public good. A representative
for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is the co-chair of the tax and fiscal policy
task force, for example, and the group has pushed model legislation and
policy papers critical of tobacco taxes. Robert Dewey, a vice president for
Defenders of Wildlife, which has issued a scathing report on the group, calls
ALEC a "Trojan horse" that allows "corporate America to
exercise significant influence over state legislation in almost every
statehouse around the country." Others, like Tim Delaney of the
Phoenix-based Center for Leadership, Ethics & Public Service, question
how close they adhere to Jeffersonian principles. "I'm not sure Thomas
Jefferson wanted to have Big Tobacco or Big Pharmacy companies in the backroom
writing legislation," he said.
August
14, 2006 In These Times
While New Mexico’s landscape may make the state the Land of Enchantment,
its rapidly growing rates of incarceration have been utterly disenchanting.
What’s worse, New Mexico is at the top of the nation’s list for privatizing
prisons; nearly one-half of the state’s prisons and jails are run by
corporations. Supposedly, states turn to private companies to cope better
with chronic overcrowding and for low-cost management. However, a closer look
suggests a different rationale. A recent report from the Montana-based
Institute on Money in State Politics reveals that during the 2002 and 2004
election cycles, private prison companies, directors, executives and
lobbyists gave $3.3 million to candidates and state political parties across
44 states. According to Edwin Bender, executive director of the Institute on
Money in State Politics, private prison companies strongly favor giving to
states with the toughest sentencing laws—in essence, the ones that are more
likely to come up with the bodies to fill prison beds. Those states, adds
Bender, are also the ones most likely to have passed “three-strikes” laws.
Those laws, first passed by Washington state voters in 1993 and then
California voters in 1994, quickly swept the nation. They were largely based
on “cookie-cutter legislation” pushed by the American Legislative Exchange
Council (ALEC), some of whose members come from the ranks of private prison
companies. Florida leads the pack in terms of private prison dollars, with
its candidates and political parties receiving almost 20 percent of their
total contributions from private prison companies and their affiliates.
Florida already has five privately owned and operated prisons, with a sixth
on the way. It’s also privatized the bulk of its juvenile detention system.
Texas and New Jersey are close behind. But in Florida, some of the influence
peddling finally seems to be backfiring. Florida State Corrections Secretary
James McDonough alarmed private prison companies with a comment during an
Aug. 2 morning call-in radio show. “I actually think the state is better at
running the prisons,” McDonough told an interviewer. His comments followed an
internal audit last year by the state’s Department of Management Services,
which demonstrated that Florida overpaid private prison operators by $1.3
million. Things may no longer be quite as sunny as they once were in Florida
for the likes of Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America
(CCA) and the former Wackenhut, now known as the GEO Group of Boca Raton,
Fla. But with a little bit of spiel-tinkering—and a shift of attention to
other states—the prison privatizers are likely to keep going. The key shift,
Bender explains, is that “the prison industry has gone from a
we-can-save-you-money pitch to an economic-development model pitch.” In other
words, says Bender, “you need [their] prisons for jobs.” If political
donations are any measure, economically challenged and poverty-stricken
states like New Mexico are a great target. In this campaign cycle, Democratic
Gov. Bill Richardson has already received more contributions from a private
prison company than any other politician campaigning for state office in the
United States. The Institute of Money in State Politics, which traced the
donations, reported that GEO has contributed $42,750 to Richardson since
2005—and another $8,000 to his running mate, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish. Another $30,000 went from GEO to the
Richardson-headed Democratic Governors Association this past March.
Richardson’s PAC, Moving America Forward, was another prominent recipient of
GEO donations. Now, its former head, prominent state capitol lobbyist Joe
Velasquez, is a registered lobbyist for GEO Care Inc., a healthcare
subsidiary that runs a hospital in New Mexico. But don’t get the idea that
GEO has any particular love for Democrats: $95,000 from the corporation went
to the Republican Governors Association last year alone. What companies like
GEO do love are the millions of dollars rolling in from lucrative New Mexico
contracts to run the Lea County Correctional Facility (operating budget: $25
million/year), and the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility ($13
million/year), among others. CCA also owns and operates the state’s only
women’s facility in Grants ($11 million per year). To make sure that those
dollars keep flowing, GEO and CCA have perfected the art of the “very tight
revolving door,” says Bender, which involves snapping up former corrections
administrators, PAC lobbyists and state officials to serve as consultants to
private prison companies. In fact, the current New Mexico Corrections
Department Secretary Joe Williams was once on GEO’s payroll as their warden
of the Lea County Correctional Facility. Earlier this year, Williams was
placed on unpaid administrative leave after accusations surfaced that he
spent state travel and phone funds to pursue a very close relationship with
Ann Casey. Casey is a registered lobbyist in New Mexico for Wexford Health
Sources, which provides health care for prisoners at Grants, and Aramark,
which provides most of the state’s inmate meals. In her non-lobbying hours,
it turns out that Casey is also an assistant warden at a state prison in
Centralia, Ill. It appears that even for a prison industry enchanted by public-private
partnership, Williams and Casey may have gone too far.
May
2, 2006 Progressive State Network
The Institute on Money in State Politics, a tireless group of people who
compile campaign finance data for all fifty states and regularly report national
trends, have a new report "Policy Lock-Down: Prison Interests Court
Political Players" looking at the $3.3 million private prison companies
have donated to state-level actors in the last two election cycles. The
report specifically notes: Analysis of campaign contributions made to
state-level candidates and political parties also reveals that private-prison
interests: Concentrated their giving on legislative candidates who, if
elected, act on state budgets and sentencing laws. These candidates received
almost half of the money given to candidates — slightly more than $1 million.
So the priority is budgets and people who determine sentencing? This will
come as no shock to anyone who has studied the origin of strict sentencing
laws in America. As Nathan Newman noted in "Governing the Nation From
the Statehouses: ": For two decades, ALEC has been a driving force in
lobbying for legislation to hand over prisons to corporate management, with
95,000 inmates in at least 31 states or 6.5% of all prisoners in private
prisons, two-thirds of them in prisons run by Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA), one of ALEC's leading corporate sponsors. Seven states place
more than one-fifth of their prison population in corporate-run prisons. A
2000 report by the Western States Center, "The Prison Payoff: The Role
of Politics and Private Prisons in the Incarceration Boom," traced the
rise of private prisons to "tough on crime" legislation sponsored
by ALEC and its allies that extended sentences and pushed prison populations
beyond the capacities of existing state facilities. And conservatives who
pushed budget-busting sentencing laws then turned around and blamed guard
salaries for the resulting funding crisis. With tight fiscal budgets,
privatization was sold as the solution. State prison guards, who had often
supported many of the tougher sentencing laws, have found their jobs
disappearing to privatization through this two-step process. In Wisconsin,
for example, more than 3000 inmates are sent out of state to CCA facilities,
leaving the remaining state guards in overcrowded prisons subject to riots
and other threats. CCA isn't just one of ALEC's leading sponsors. For a time,
they chaired the task force that authors model legislation on sentencing
issues for ALEC. Humorously, when Wyoming's Casper Star-Tribune reported on
this fact, they drew a quick response from CCA, claiming that CCA does not
believe that mandatory sentencing laws help their business. No word yet on
how private prison companies are responding to the new Institute report.
Bureau of Prisons
Aug 31, 2018 govexec.com
Federal Official Boosted Use of Private Prisons; Now He Has a Top Job at
One
A former federal official who earlier this year instructed the Bureau of
Prisons to identify inmates to be transferred to private detention centers
has left his government job for a position with one of the largest
contractors housing federal prisoners. In January, Government Executive
reported that Frank Lara, then the bureau’s assistant director for
correctional programs, sent a memorandum with the subject line “increasing
population levels in private contract facilities” to agency leaders. In it,
Lara tasked facility leaders with identifying inmates for transfer to private
facilities, saying it would “alleviate the overcrowding at Bureau of Prisons’
institutions and maximize the effectiveness of private contracts.” A few
months later, Lara announced his retirement. Earlier this month, he began
working at the GEO Group as its director of operations. The company is one of
the largest contractors housing federal inmates. In fiscal 2018, for example,
GEO Group has received $147 million in awards from the bureau, according to
federal spending data. While Lara’s memo went out to all bureau leaders, it
mentioned only one facility by name: Rivers Correctional Institution in
Winton, N.C., which is owned and operated by the GEO Group. The GEO Group did
not respond to several emails, and when asked about the hiring over the
phone, a company official hung up. Government Executive was unable to reach
Lara directly. Eric Young, president of the union local that represents
bureau correctional officers, called Lara’s move, “The biggest damn conflict
of interest that I’ve ever seen.” Just prior to the memo’s release, dozens of
bureau officials, including Lara, attended a conference hosted by the
American Correctional Association. The conference was sponsored by the GEO
Group, among others. The bureau said it spent $153,000 on travel costs
associated with the conference. The Washington Post reported last year that
GEO held its own annual conference at a Trump resort in Florida, and that it
donated $225,000 to a pro-Trump super-PAC in the run up to the 2016 election
and an additional $250,000 to his inauguration. GEO Group has been one of the
largest clients of the lobbying firm Ballard Partners since Trump took
office, registering as a client in February of 2017 and since spending
$850,000 with the group, according to lobbying disclosures. Politico deemed
Ballard “the most powerful lobbyist in Trump’s Washington.” According to the
Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets database, Ballard has held 355
meetings with White House officials and 56 with representatives of the
Justice Department, the Bureau of Prisons’ parent agency. The revolving door
at the Bureau of Prisons is not new. CoreCivic, for
example, GEO Group’s main competitor in the contract prison space, has
frequently hired ex-federal officials for leadership positions. Harley Lappin
served as the bureau’s director before transitioning to becoming CoreCivic’s executive vice president and chief
corrections officer. William Dalius worked at the
bureau for 30 years, most recently as the administrative division assistant
director and chief financial officer. He is now the vice president for
operations at CoreCivic. Kim White was a regional
director at the bureau and later the assistant director for human resources.
She is now CoreCivic’s assistant director of human
resources. John Baxter spent 24 years at the bureau before joining CoreCivic and is now its vice president for mental health
services. Charles Cox spent 23 years at the bureau, during which, according
to his résumé, he played an “instrumental” role in developing the agency’s
“private secure and community corrections procurement strategies.” After his
retirement, Cox went to work for Corrections Corporation of America, CoreCivic’s predecessor. After a stint back in public
service at the county level in North Carolina, Cox finished his career as a
vice president at GEO Group. Rodney King, a spokesman for CoreCivic,
said experts in corrections overwhelmingly come from the public sector and
therefore the company must recruit from former public officials. “Our goal is
to recruit and retain the best people from the biggest pool of talent,
whether that means developing and promoting from within our organization or
recruiting experienced professionals from outside CoreCivic,”
King said. “We of course recruit from the public sector for a wide range of
roles at our company. Not doing so would severely limit the pool of qualified
candidates for jobs with our company. That applies not just to positions in
our leadership ranks, but also our teachers, treatment specialists and
corrections officers.” Nick Schwellenbach, the
director of investigations at the Project on Government Oversight, said the
revolving door creates ethical issues. “It raises some severe questions about
who these senior executive branch officials are working for,” he said. On
Lara specifically, he added the transition “definitely flunks” the smell
test. Lara's memo followed guidance from Attorney General Jeff Sessions last
year that reversed an Obama administration policy to phase out the use of
private prisons. In 2016, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued a
memo instructing the bureau to either end private facility contracts when
their terms expired or “substantially reduce [their] scope” to correspond
with declining inmate populations. Sessions said Feb. 23, 2017, that Yates'
decision “changed long-standing policy” of the bureau and impaired its
“ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.” Many
lawmakers expressed outrage at the time, accusing Trump of rewarding his
campaign donors. “This is how our corrupt political and campaign finance system
works,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said after Sessions' announcement last
year. “Private prison companies invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and today they got their reward.” The
bureau began contracting with private prisons in 1997 to address
overcrowding. Contract facilities currently house about 18,000 federal
inmates, or 11 percent of the total population. A 2016 inspector general
report found the contract prisons “incurred more safety and security incidents
per capita than comparable BOP institutions and that the BOP needs to improve
how it monitors contract prisons in several areas.” The private facilities
confiscated eight times as many contraband cell phones, had higher rates of
assaults (both inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-officer) and were placing
inmates’ rights and needs at risk. Lara’s memo came just days after the
bureau held a conference call with facility administrators, instructing them
to prepare for a 12 percent to 14 percent reduction in their authorized
staffing levels. Such cuts would result in shedding 5,000-6,000 jobs, at
least some of which are currently vacant. Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposed
a cut of about 6,000 bureau positions, more than 1,800 of which were
correctional officers. The bureau has faced increasing pressure from Capitol
Hill as it has continued efforts to eliminate the positions, with lawmakers
ramping up pressure on the agency to add to its workforce. The federal
prisons overseers have so far not backed down from the scheduled elimination
of around 6,000 vacant positions, as well as additional vacancies that have
arisen during an extended hiring freeze at the agency. The bureau has
increasingly depended on a process known as “augmentation,” in which
non-correction officers are reassigned to guard duties. The fiscal 2018
omnibus spending measure President Trump signed into law in March provided a
$106 million increase to the Bureau of Prisons budget. A Senate report on the
omnibus directed the bureau to “curtail its over-reliance on augmentation and
instead hire additional full-time correctional staff before continuing to
augment existing staff.” A bipartisan group of lawmakers, however, have
raised concerns that the bureau had no plans to implement the changes mandated
by Congress, and multiple sources told Government Executive earlier this year
that the agency had not backtracked from its planned staffing cuts. Bureau
Director Mark Inch resigned abruptly in May, just nine months after taking
office. The New York Times subsequently reported that Inch had become
frustrated by the administration flouting “departmental norms” and Sessions
leaving him out of meetings on “major staffing, budget and policy decisions.”
Congress
and the White House
Briefing
Remarks by Alex Friedmann on HR 2450 January 25, 2010
Briefing
Remarks by Judy Greene on HR 2450 January 25, 2010
Freedom
Forum CEO Tied to For-Profit Prisons An advocate for--and against--freedom of
information
Oct 13, 2019 wbur.org
Sen. Warren Asks DOJ Inspector General To Investigate Private Prison Transport Companies
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is asking the
Department of Justice's inspector general to investigate private prisoner
transport companies, and examine whether the DOJ is
doing its job to oversee an industry frequently under fire over abuse
allegations. Companies like Prisoner Transportation Services of America, or
PTS, have been the subject of harrowing stories of alleged prisoner abuse,
neglect and sexual assault. That includes the alleged sexual assault of a
Massachusetts woman. As WBUR reported in May, the woman, Smith, said she was
raped by a PTS guard during a two-week trip in a van from California to
Massachusetts. (WBUR only identified Smith by her surname as the station
doesn’t identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.) Warren and
other lawmakers brought their requests to the DOJ's Office of the Inspector
General after an attempt to get information from the companies directly
earlier this year. The Massachusetts Democrat and 2020 presidential candidate
initially sent a letter to PTS in February asking how the company keeps
detainees safe, as federally required. The letter was also signed by fellow
2020 hopeful New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, as well as Florida U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch. The Democrats also asked how many detainees in
PTS custody have died, or been injured or sexually
abused. Get news from the Capitol and the campaign trail sent to your inbox
each week by WBUR’s Kimberly Atkins. Sign up now. PTS was able to say how
many people died in its custody (five), and how many people reported a sexual
assault (six). But the company said it couldn't report how many people
suffered a medical emergency or needed medical attention. PTS president Joel
Brasfield called it "impractical" to gather that data going back
more than 10 years, as the lawmakers requested. PTS also didn't identify any
audits or evaluations conducted by the DOJ, the
agency responsible for making sure minimum standards protecting people being
transported as well as the public are followed. The lawmakers called it an
"alarming omission." "The information we have obtained from
our request to PTS suggests that, despite numerous reports of problems that
endanger prisoners and the public, DOJ may be failing to provide critical
oversight of private prisoner transportation companies," the lawmakers wrote
in their letter sent Friday to the inspector general. In that notice, Warren
and her colleagues asked the IG's office to examine the DOJ's oversight of
the private prison transport industry dating back to 2003, spanning three
presidential administrations. PTS did not immediately respond to a message
seeking comment. Neither did the DOJ. The Massachusetts Probation Service has
tapped PTS to move more than 460 adults since 2015. PTS and its subsidiaries
collected more than $1.3 million in the last 10 years from Massachusetts,
mostly from the probation and parole departments. In Smith's case, she was
put into PTS custody in January 2016 after she was picked up on a probation
violation while attending a drug rehabilitation program in California. A
guard, Jermaine Taylor, was charged with three counts of sexual assault for
allegedly putting his hands under her pants while she was handcuffed and
shackled during a stop in New Jersey. Taylor pleaded guilty in August — not
to sexual assault, but third-degree aggravated assault causing significant
bodily injury. He admitted only to securing the woman's handcuffs too
tightly, causing "impairment of functions." Smith told WBUR she was
angry with the plea, and wasn't informed by Atlantic County, New Jersey
prosecutors about the specifics to which Taylor was pleading. Taylor is
scheduled to be sentenced next month. As part of the plea deal, he is
expected to receive no jail time beyond the nearly five months he's already
served.
Sep 26, 2019 newsweek.com
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS DOUBLED PRIVATE PRISON SPENDING WITH MOST MONEY
SPENT ON DETAINING IMMIGRANTS: 'THEY ARE NOT A THREAT TO PUBLIC SAFETY,'
ADVOCATES SAY
Under the Donald Trump administration,
the U.S. has more than doubled its spending on services from one of the
biggest private prison companies in the world, with the
majority of that spending going towards the detention of immigrants
across the country. In the first 11 months of fiscal year 2019 alone, the
U.S. has seen more than $595 million in obligated spending dedicated to The
GEO Group, a Florida-based for-profit correctional institutions company
operating prisons around the world, according to the U.S. government's
federal spending website. The total is more than double the nearly $260
million that the U.S. government obligated to The GEO Group under the Barack
Obama administration in 2014, five years ago, with the amount dedicated to
the private prison company seeing a sharp spike in President Donald Trump's
first year in office, 2017, and steadily increasing over the following two
years. The surge in funding for The GEO Group, which has faced international
scrutiny over its treatment of inmates—and in particular,
of immigrant detainees—comes as the incarceration rate in the U.S.
continues to fall. In April, reports released by the Department of Justice
revealed that the imprisonment rate in relation to the U.S. population had
fallen to its lowest point since 1997, sinking to just 440 inmates per
100,000 residents in 2017. That decrease has come "despite [the Trump
administration's] best efforts," however, Kara Gotsch,
the director of strategic initiatives at The Sentencing Project, an
organization advocating for prison reform, told Newsweek. "At the end of
the Obama administration, the Department of Justice had announced a phasing
out of private prisons," she noted. "But, with the Trump
administration, he appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general and they
quickly reversed that phase-out." While Sessions has long since been
ousted at the White House, his efforts to undo the Obama-era order to roll
back federal reliance on private prisons have persevered. A January 2018 memo
leaked last year showed the Justice Department had even gone so far as to
seek to identify inmates to transfer out of government facilities and into
privately run prisons. Still, Gotsch said, the
number of inmates held in federal prisons across the U.S. has been on the
decline. Where is the money going? So, why the boost in spending on a
for-profit prison company like The GEO Group? Immigrant detention appears to
be the answer. Of the $595 million the U.S. has obligated to The GEO Group in
fiscal year 2019, in excess of $323 million, or more than 53 percent, was
money obligated from the budget of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agency, which oversees the detention of immigrants held under federal
custody. "Most of that money is going to ICE detention, which isn't
surprising," Gotsch said. While rates of
federal imprisonment are going down overall, under the Trump administration,
communities across the country have seen widespread "targeted
enforcement operations," with some raids leading to the arrests of
hundreds of people at a time. "When the Trump campaign came into office
on a wave of nativism and xenophobia and a war on immigration, the [private
prison] market was revived," Judy Greene, a criminal justice policy
analyst and the founder of Justice Strategies, a nonprofit research
organization focused on cost-effective approaches to criminal justice and
immigration reform, told Newsweek. However, Greene warned, companies like The
GEO Group could suffer in the long-run due to their role in helping the Trump
administration enforce its hardline immigration policies. "Their
participation with this extraordinarily harsh immigration enforcement regime
has tarnished their image with the public to a [significant] extent,"
Greene said. This past year, Greene noted, a number of major banks have
sought to distance themselves from the private prison industry, including
firms like The GEO Group, with banks including Wells Fargo and SunTrust
refusing to provide future financing to private prison giants. "They are
now pulling back from financing these companies and so it's a very troubling
picture for [firms like The GEO Group]," she said. "I should think
they are quite worried." And with a number of 2020
Democratic candidates, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren,
throwing their support behind calls to end private prisons and
"exploitation for profit." In a June Medium post, Warren said that,
if elected, she would bring the practice of "private profiteering off
cruelty" to an end. "The government has a basic responsibility to
keep the people in its care safe—not to use their punishment as an
opportunity for profit," Warren wrote. "If we have, you might call
it a regime change," Greene said, adding that companies like The GEO
Group could be "looking at the end of the federal market." For Gotsch's part, however, even if a newly elected leader
were to bring about an end to the use of private prisons, that would not
solve the U.S.'s "mass incarceration problem." "I feel like
people are missing the boat if they think that...if you get rid of the
private prisons, you won't have a mass incarceration problem," she said.
"I'm opposed to the use of private prisons because I don't think anybody
should be profiting off of incarceration," she said. But, even if the
government's reliance on them were to come to an end, "we would still
have racial disparity... we would still have unfair systems from policing to
the courts...All that is still in place...All of that still has to be
reckoned with."
Jul 12, 2019 cbsnews.com
House Oversight Committee seeks
documents from for-profit immigrant detention companies
The House Oversight Committee is
demanding documents related to government contracts with companies that
detain or house thousands of immigrants. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the
chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights
and Civil Liberties, sent letters to two for-profit contractors operating
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers, as well as
another company that runs the nation's largest holding facility for
unaccompanied migrant children. The congressmen also sent letters seeking
similar information from ICE and the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, which oversees care for unaccompanied migrant children. The move
comes amid a groundswell of public outrage following reports of abuse and a
rash of migrant deaths in government custody. "The Committee is
investigating the Trump Administration's rapidly increasing use of for-profit
contractors to detain tens of thousands of immigrants, including a troubling
series of reports of health and safety violations and the dramatically
escalating and seemingly unchecked costs to U.S. taxpayers for these
contracts," Cummings and Raskin wrote in their
letters. The lawmakers cited claims of abuse and inadequate living conditions
in their letters to the chief executives of CoreCivic,
Geo Group, Inc., and DC Capital Partners, LLC. CoreCivic
and Geo Group are each paid hundreds of millions of dollars to operate
detention centers for ICE. DC Capital Partners is an investment firm that
owns Caliburn International, the parent corporation
of the company that operates a massive unaccompanied children shelter in
Homestead, Florida. The letters to DC Capital President Thomas Campbell and
HHS Secretary Alexander Azar note that the company running the Homestead
location has received government contracts totaling more than $545 million.
The letters point to a series of sexual abuse complaints at the facility and
cite a CBS News report documenting the rapid hiring of employees who were
granted a government waiver allowing them to bypass Florida's child abuse and
neglect background check system.
Another CBS News report, revealing that former White House Chief of
Staff John Kelly joined Caliburn's Board of
Directors, is also cited. Before joining the White House, Kelly was also on
DC Capital's board. The investment firm bought the company operating the
Homestead facility in 2018 while Kelly worked at the White House, and its
unaccompanied children operation tripled in size before he left. The House
Judiciary Committee authorized a subpoena for Kelly Thursday, related to his
both his work for Caliburn and his role in
determining federal immigration policy. A spokesperson for Caliburn said in a statement to CBS News that the company
welcomes the investigation "as a chance to tell our story and dispel
misapprehensions about the critical work we do taking care of the teenagers
at the Homestead temporary emergency care shelter until they can be placed in
a safe home during this unprecedented surge of unaccompanied minors entering
the U.S." The letters to CoreCivic, Geo Group
and ICE note that the companies are being paid substantial sums to run
facilities that have been repeatedly criticized by the Department of Homeland
Security's Inspector General for dangerous conditions. The letters point to
at least 25 deaths in ICE facilities since 2017. Both companies said in
statements emailed to CBS News that they are reviewing the letters. Geo Group
noted in its statement that "for more than 30 years, GEO's processing
centers have been subject to independent oversight, including full-time,
on-site government monitors." "We are committed to transparency, and providing the safest and most humane
care possible for those in our 14 ICE processing centers is our top
priority," the company said. "It's critical to understand that CoreCivic has a 35-year track record of working with both
Democrat and Republican administrations to help solve the very types of
crises we are now seeing on our southern border," said CoreCivic spokesperson Amanda Gilchrist. The statement
included a bullet-pointed set of "key facts about our company" that
included a claim that it has never housed unaccompanied migrant children. CoreCivic was previously known as Corrections Corporation
of America until changing its name in 2016. In the 1980s, Corrections
Corporation of America operated an immigration detention center in Texas that
was included in a landmark court case about unaccompanied migrant children.
The case included allegations by a 16-year-old girl of strip and vaginal
searches by guards at the facility. That case led to the Flores Agreement,
which set the nation's laws governing how unaccompanied children must be
treated by the government. The company said in statements to CBS News that it
has never contracted to house unaccompanied migrant children. "It's
unlikely that (federal immigration officials were) able to properly ascertain
her age" at the time, the company said. The Flores case "was about
INS practices at the time" and not specifically about the Texas
detention center, the company said. "CoreCivic
does not operate facilities for the purpose of housing unaccompanied
minors," Gilchrist said. Editor's note: This story has been updated to
clarify that the complaints against Corrections Corporation of America in a
1985 lawsuit were allegations and not proven in court.
Jun 21, 2019 medium.com
National: Elizabeth Warren wants to ban
private prisons
Last month Caliburn
International — a for-profit company whose subsidiary operates Homestead, the
largest detention center for unaccompanied migrant children — hired John
Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff. Caliburn has
profited directly off of the Trump administration’s
inhumane immigration policies — while children at Homestead are reportedly
kept in unsanitary, prison-like conditions, often for months. Now John Kelly
is cashing in, too. Rep. Pramila Jayapal and I have demanded answers. But
this is just the latest example of private prison companies wringing billions
out of federal taxpayers. I’ve been after these companies to come clean about
their practices and human rights abuses. Every answer just raises more
questions. We didn’t get here by chance. Washington works hand-in-hand with
private prison companies, who spend millions on lobbyists, campaign
contributions, and revolving-door hires — all to turn our criminal and
immigration policies into ones that prioritize making them rich instead of
keeping us safe. From 2000 to 2016, the private prison population grew five
times as quickly as the overall prison population. And the profiteers
multiplied, too: today, nearly 4,000 corporations make money off mass
incarceration. President Obama took steps to lower the incarceration rate and
wind down private prisons, but these companies got their biggest break yet
when Donald Trump landed in the White House. With Trump, private prison
companies saw their chance to run the same playbook for our immigration system.
They poured money into lobbying for “alternatives” to ICE detention centers.
And boy, did it pay off. Private detention centers have made millions
implementing Trump’s cruel immigration policies, as the number of detained
children quintupled in just a single year. Today 73% of detained immigrants
are held in private detention facilities. The companies running prisons and
detention centers regularly sacrifice safety to boost their bottom line.
Private facilities have higher rates of assaults than federal prisons. They
violate federal rules by putting incarcerated people into solitary confinement to fit more bodies in
the building. They impose forced labor on immigrants just to make a buck.
Multiple detainees have committed suicide. And now, under Trump, babies are
getting sick and dying from their detention centers. The government has also
stood silently by while private contractors providing services in both public
and private centers come up with extortive schemes to make millions off of the backs of incarcerated people. Prison phone
companies charge as much as $25 for a 15-minute call, forcing families into
debt just to stay connected to loved ones. Commissary contractors mark up
prices, and companies coerce detainees to work for as little as a dollar a day
just to afford basic necessities like toothpaste.
While contractors getting paid taxpayer dollars cut
corners to maximize margins, the government has turned a blind eye. Food
companies make millions but serve bug-infested food to save cash. An investigation
into a prison transport company that allowed at least five deaths and a
sexual assault to occur under their watch has gone nowhere. And today, the
exploitation doesn’t end when individuals emerge from prison or detention.
Current law pushes money into the hands of for-profit supervision companies,
many of which are run by the same private prison corporations. These
companies get rich by making people just getting out of prison — often with
huge debts — pay outrageous fees for monitoring and supervision services like
ankle monitors. Some have gone so far as to threaten individuals with
reincarceration. This is exploitation, plain and simple. Our criminal and
immigration systems are tearing apart communities of color and devastating
the poor, including children. Women — especially women of color — are
particularly saddled with the financial burden. We need significant reform in
both criminal justice and in immigration, to end mass incarceration and all of the unnecessary, cruel, and punitive forms of immigration
detention that have taken root in the Trump Administration. The first step is
to end this private profiteering off cruelty. The government has a basic
responsibility to keep the people in its care safe — not to use their
punishment as an opportunity for profit. That’s why today, I’m proposing my
plan to root out once and for all the profit incentives perverting our
criminal and immigration systems. Here’s what I’ll do: Ban private prisons
and detention facilities. There should be no place in America for profiting
off putting more people behind bars or in detention. That’s why I will shut
down the use of federal private detention facilities by ending all contracts
that the Bureau of Prisons, ICE, and the U.S. Marshals Service have with
private detention providers. And I will extend these bans to states and
localities by conditioning their receipt of federal public safety funding on
their use of public facilities. Stop contractors from charging service fees
for essential services. Companies shouldn’t be able to treat incarcerated
individuals as captive profit centers. We should prohibit contractors from
charging incarcerated and detained people for basic services they need, like
phone calls, bank transfers, and healthcare. I’ll also keep contractors from
imposing exploitative price markups on other services they provide, like
commissary or package services. And I’ll prohibit companies from charging for
re-entry, supervision, and probation services, too — because no one should
have to pay for their own incarceration, whether it’s inside a facility or
outside of one. Hold contractors accountable by expanding oversight,
transparency and enforcement. It’s time to shine sunlight on the black box of
private services that receive taxpayer dollars. I’ll close the ridiculous
FOIA loophole that lets private prison subcontractors operate in the shadows.
I will put in place an independent Prison Conditions Monitor within the
Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General. The Monitor will
keep contractors from cutting corners to make a quick buck by setting
enforceable quality standards, regularly auditing and investigating
contractors, and terminating their contracts if they fall short. I’ll direct
the Department of Justice to prosecute companies that blatantly violate the
law. And I’ll make sure companies are held accountable no matter who’s in the
White House by allowing people to bring a lawsuit against abusive contractors
who violate their rights. Washington hands billions over to corporations
profiting off of inhumane detention and
incarceration policies while ignoring the families that are destroyed in the
process. We need to call that out for what it is: corruption. Incarcerating
and detaining millions for profit doesn’t keep us safe. It’s time to do better.
Mar
13, 2019 observer.com
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Grills Wells
Fargo CEO Over Financing ‘Caging of Children’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) grilled Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan
on Tuesday over the bank’s financing of private prisons. “I’m interested in
the human rights abuses and environmental disasters that some say are
financed by your bank, Wells Fargo,” said the freshman lawmaker during
Tuesday’s House Financial Services Committee hearing, pointing to Wells
Fargo’s financial involvement with private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic. “We made a decision two years ago to exit two
relationships we had with two private prison firms. One has been exited and
when the credit agreement with the other matures, we will no longer have a
relationship,” responded Sloan, adding that he could not recall which of the
two companies Wells Fargo had ended its business dealings with. After
highlighting three reports documenting CoreCivic
and GEO Group’s construction of family detention centers, Ocasio-Cortez asked
the Wells Fargo CEO why his bank was “involved in the caging of children.” “I
don’t know how to answer that question because we weren’t,” answered Sloan.
“For a period of time, we were involved in financing
one of the firms. We aren’t anymore. I’m not familiar with the specific
assertions that you’re making, but we weren’t directly involved in that.”
Following the Trump administration’s crackdown of the controversial ‘zero
tolerance’ policy, banks involved in the financing of family detention centers
came under heavy criticism by immigration activist groups. Last week,
JPMorgan Chase announced it would “no longer bank the private prison
industry.” “This is a deliberate lie driven by an agenda aimed at abolishing
ICE, knowing that we have nothing to do with passing, setting, or advocating
for or against immigration laws or policies. Our company has never managed
facilities that house unaccompanied minors, and we have played no role with
policies related to the separation of families,” a spokesperson for GEO Group
told Observer in response to Ocasio-Cortez’s questioning. “The contractual
services we provide for ICE today are no different than the services we
provided for eight years under the Obama Administration.”
Mar 14, 2019 truthout.org
As Bankers Back Away, For-Profit
Prison Companies Step Up Political Spending
The U.S. for-profit prison industry, already facing organized opposition
from human rights and justice reform advocates, got some bad news recently
from its bankers. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. bank measured by
assets, last week announced its intention to stop financing private operators
of prisons and immigrant detention centers after an evaluation of costs and
benefits. The move follows banking giant Wells Fargo’s recent decision to
scale back its involvement with the private prison industry as part of its
risk management efforts. The decisions are a blow to an industry with a
business model that relies on debt financing in the form of credit, loans,
and bonds for day-to-day operations as well as for buying smaller companies.
The banks’ announcements come amid a years-long campaign by advocacy groups
that targeted the industry’s bankers. For example, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo
were among the six Wall Street firms identified in a 2016 report by
California-based privatization watchdog In the Public interest (ITPI) as
financing the debt of the two biggest U.S. for-profit prison companies:
Nashville, Tennessee-based CoreCivic (formerly
Corrections Corporation of America), which at the time had total debt of
about $1.5 billion, and The GEO Group of Boca Raton, Florida, with debt of
about $1.9 billion. In 2017, after release of the ITPI report, the national
progressive advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy launched the
“Corporate Backers of Hate” campaign to target “some of the companies which
most egregiously prioritize profits over people,” including JPMorgan and
Wells Fargo. Activists kicked off the campaign with civil disobedience at
JPMorgan’s Manhattan headquarters, followed by rallies outside of shareholder
meetings in Texas and Delaware. Last July, activists working with the
campaign held a protest outside the New York City home of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon that led to eight arrests. Meanwhile, more than 80
organizations from immigrant rights groups to social investing firms came
together last year as part of the Families Belong Together campaign to create
a corporate accountability committee targeting big banks through strategies
aimed at both industry insiders and consumers. At the same time, activists
intensified scrutiny of the industry’s other financing. For example, a
national initiative called Real Money Moves is calling on athletes, actors,
artists, and activists to keep their money out of private prison companies,
and a growing number of public pension funds are divesting from the industry,
whose stock prices have soared under the Trump administration and its
punitive immigration policies. Then last month, U.S. Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez of New York called for hearings on banks’ funding of private
prisons that hold undocumented immigrants. “We’re going to hold oversight
hearings to make these banks accountable for investing in and making money
off of the detention of immigrants,” she said at an event hosted by an immigrants’ rights advocacy group in New York City.
“Because it’s wrong.” While just over 8 percent of all U.S. prisoners are
held in private facilities, over 60 percent of those in U.S. immigrant
detention are, with CoreCivic and The GEO Group
together holding about 15,000 people in immigrant detention each day. Under
mounting pressure from critics, private-prison firms are stepping up their
already-considerable political influence operations. The industry spent over
$3.8 million on lobbying at the federal level in 2018 alone, and over $1.9
million on campaign contributions during the 2018 campaign cycle, according
to OpenSecrets.org. That’s a significant increase over the industry’s
spending of $2.1 million on lobbying and $522,000 on campaign contributions
in the 2014 cycle. CoreCivic, the second-largest
U.S. private-prison company after The GEO Group, last month retained the
lobbying services of The Vogel Group, an influential bipartisan lobbying firm
headquartered in Washington, D.C, as ITPI reported in its latest weekly
privatization report. The issue code on the lobbying registration paperwork?
Banking. The move expands CoreCivic’s
already-considerable lobbying operation. In 2018 alone, the company spent
over $1.2 million lobbying at the federal level, with that money split
between six prominent firms: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, the largest
U.S. lobbying firm by revenue; Gephardt Group, the Atlanta-based labor
consultancy of former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri; Greenberg Traurig,
another of the largest U.S. lobbying firms; Hobart Hallaway
& Quayle Ventures, whose partners include the son of former U.S. Vice
President Dan Quayle; Miller Strategies, whose CEO previously worked for
former Texas governor and current U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry; and Simmons
& Russell Group, whose principals have served as chiefs of staff for
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor
of Arkansas. The Vogel Group lobbyists who’ll be working with CoreCivic are CEO Alex Vogel, who previously lobbied for
the company from 2010 to 2014, and principal Brian M. Johnson. The two men
bring a wealth of conservative political connections and experience. Vogel
served as chief counsel for U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, a Republican who
represented Tennessee from 1995 to 2007. He also served as general counsel
for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and deputy counsel for the
Republican National Committee, according to LittleSis,
a database that tracks power networks. Vogel is married to Virginia state senator
and former Republican lieutenant governor candidate Jill Holtzman Vogel and
is a partnerin her law firm, Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky, which is currently embroiled in an
ongoing lawsuit over its role in wrongly accusing Democratic voters of felony
voter fraud in the 2016 North Carolina gubernatorial election. Johnson
previously headed federal relations for the American Petroleum Institute, a
leading oil and gas lobby, and for Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax
advocacy group founded and led by Grover Norquist, a prominent Republican
political operative who has said his goal is to bring America back to what it
was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax,
the death tax, regulation, all that.” Johnson also used to direct the
Alliance for Worker Freedom, now called the Center for Worker Freedom (CWF),
a project of Norquist’s group that opposes labor unions. In 2014, for
example, CWF led a public relations effort against the United Auto Workers
(UAW) effort to organize a Volkswagen manufacturing plant in Chattanooga,
Tennessee, using tactics that included billboards claiming the UAW is a cover
for the “United Obama Workers.” The union lost that vote, but the following
year a group of skilled trades workers at the plant voted to form a
micro-union, though the company has refused to bargain with it. A union foe
like Johnson would likely feel at home working on behalf of the private
prison industry, where few workers belong to unions and typically make much
less than workers in public prisons. The statement CoreCivic
released in response to JPMorgan’s announcement offers a hint of what the
industry’s messaging strategy might look like as the political fight over
private prisons continues. The company said that it is “disappointed” with
the bank’s decision, as Bloomberg reported, which it claimed had played “an
important role in creating better conditions for inmates entrusted in our
care.”
Mar 8, 2019 motherjones.com
The Private Prison Industry Just Suffered a Major Blow. And It Could Just
Be the Beginning.
An expert breaks down JP Morgan’s
latest move.
Last month on Valentine’s Day, dozens
of protesters gathered outside the Upper East Side apartment of Jamie Dimon with a mariachi band and signs urging the JP Morgan
Chase CEO to “break up with” private prisons. This week, he did. The largest
US bank confirmed to Reuters and Bloomberg on Tuesday that it would no longer
underwrite loans and bonds for private prison companies. JP Morgan Chase has
long been one of several major financiers of the industry, whose two leaders—CoreCivic and GEO Group—brought in a combined $4.16
billion in revenue last year. (Mother Jones has reported extensively on both
companies in the past.) The bank’s decision follows nearly a decade of
activism pushing for divestment from the US prison industry and marks the
first divestment by a major US bank at a time when some competitors,
including Wells Fargo, are also signaling their discomfort with private
prisons. It also comes a little more than a week after Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee,
called for oversight hearings for major US banks over their ongoing
investments in the private prison industry.
In addition to their longtime complaints about human rights in
for-profit lockups, protesters and activist shareholders had been pressuring
JP Morgan executives for months over CoreCivic and
GEO’s association with the Trump administration’s policy of separating
migrant families at the southwest border. (In statements to Reuters, both
companies complained that the role of their company in family separations had
been mischaracterized; CoreCivic and GEO’s
immigration detention centers did not hold children separated from their
families but did lock up separated parents, as well as immigrant families
detained together.) Steve Owen, spokesman for CoreCivic,
called the bank’s decision “disappointing,” but what does the news actually mean for private prison companies now and for the
future of the industry? To find out, I called up Lauren-Brooke Eisen, author
of Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass
Incarceration and a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. Here are
the key takeaways: It’s a big deal: JP Morgan and other big banks are vital
to the industry’s expansion. Back in
2013, CoreCivic and GEO restructured to become Real
Estate Investment Trusts, meaning the Internal Revenue Service considers them
real estate companies rather than traditional corporations. The arrangement
comes with huge tax breaks, but also certain rules—including that they must
pass 90 percent of their real estate income to shareholders. “They can’t keep
a lot of cash on hand,” Eisen explains. “That has pushed them into relying on
the big banks.” Without a “war chest” of amassed income, prison companies
have to go to banks like JP Morgan any time they want money to grow their
business—to build a new prison, for instance, or to acquire smaller
companies, like drug treatment centers and electronic monitoring businesses,
as the companies attempt to diversify. As of 2016, Eisen says, CoreCivic had borrowed $63 million from JP Morgan on a
more than $132 million line of revolving credit. But on its own, JP Morgan’s
decision won’t cripple the industry. The next time CoreCivic
and GEO need a loan, they will likely still have a lot of friends on Wall
Street, including major lenders US Bankcorp,
SunTrust, BNP Paribus, and Bank of America, according to Eisen. Wells Fargo
is another, though the bank has been rolling back its involvement with the
industry as well, reportedly because of an “environmental and social risk
management” process. Staying involved with the prison industry carries some
business risk for these banks, who may alienate investors with moral objections
to private prisons (like the celebrities associated with Real Money Moves) or
those who feel like the politically entangled industry is too risky an
investment. But at this point, “other banks may just say, ‘Well, we’ll
increase our line of credit,'” Eisen notes. “That’s what happens with
divestment: One company divests and another company
invests.” It could start a domino effect. Past campaigns to get companies,
local governments, and university boards to take their money out of private
prisons have set off a chain reaction. Prison divestment activism traces back
to at least 2011, when Enlace, a racial and economic justice group,
successfully pressured the Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund to
offload an estimated $196 million worth of shares in CoreCivic,
which was then known as the Corrections Corporation of America. Companies
like General Electric followed, along with government pension funds and
colleges like Columbia University, whose 2015 divestment decision preceded
the University of California system’s. Eisen argues that if history is any
indication, the announcement from JP Morgan could have repercussions at other
banks. “Jamie Dimon has a lot of influence with
other CEOs and the business community,” she says. “It is likely that other
investors will follow suit.” If enough do, that could lead to serious
financial consequences for prison companies. In the meantime, it’s a potent
symbol of changing attitudes. “[Divestment] isn’t just something that
university students and graduate students are clamoring for,” Eisen says.
“We’re seeing this not only on university campuses, but in city councils.
We’re seeing this with small money management firms, big money management
firms. Now we’re starting to see this with the big Wall Street banks who have
not, so far, staked this ground.”
Mar 6, 2019 newschannel5.com
U.S. Senators question Brentwood-based prison transportation company
United States Senators Cory Booker (D) New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren
(D) Massachusetts sent a scathing letter to the head of Prisoner
Transportation Services of America which is located in Brentwood. The letter
requested specific information from the company and raised questions about
the company's safety record. Congressman Ted Deutch
(D) Florida joined the Senators in signing the letter which was sent last
week. The lawmakers noted the for-profit company has a moral obligation to
avoid harming individuals in custody. According to the letter, "At least
5 individuals have died while in PTS custody since 2012, one man was
allegedly beaten to death by other prisoners as PTSA guards looked on."
But their concerns go well beyond the deaths. "Public reports have
documented inhumane and unsafe conditions in your transportation vehicles,
including unsanitary practices, gross negligence, physical and sexual
abuse...." adding that one PTSA employee was indicted last June
"for sexually assaulting a female prisoner in his custody." The
letter went on to state "The desire to slash costs in order to increase
profit margins may create perverse incentives for your company to jeopardize
the health and safety of your employees and the prisoners in your
care." The lawmakers asked the
company to provide information on all deaths that have occurred involving
inmates in their custody as well as all allegations of sexual assault against
its employees. In addition they asked for copies of
all contracts the company has to transport prisoners for both public and
private jails and prisons. NewsChannel 5 Investigates called the company for
comment, but the company has not responded.
Mar 1, 2019 themarshallproject.org
Members of Congress Seek Answers From Prisoner Transport Company
Three members of Congress are demanding
information about abuse and deaths aboard the private vans that transport
prisoners around the country. The written request was sent Wednesday from
senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker and Rep. Ted Deutch,
all Democrats, to Joel Brasfield, the president of the nation’s largest
private prisoner transportation firm, Prisoner Transportation Services LLC.
PTS is paid on a per-prisoner-per-mile basis, and its drivers travel in vans
packed with passengers, some of whom are on board for days or even weeks.
Some have medical issues. At least five people have died aboard PTS vehicles
since 2012, according to reporting by The Marshall Project in a follow-up to
an earlier investigation of problems in the industry. Every year, tens of
thousands of people are driven to face criminal charges in faraway
jurisdictions by for-profit prison transportation companies, which are
supposed to be regulated by the U.S. Department of Justice. The agency has
penalized one prisoner transport company—not PTS—after an inmate fled an
unlocked van and was found in a cornfield in 2011. The Congressional letter cites
reports of “inhumane and unsafe conditions” aboard PTS's vans, “including
unsanitary practices, gross negligence, physical and sexual abuse, and a
disturbing inattentiveness to the basic and urgent medical needs of
incarcerated persons in your custody.”
PTS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The letter
also requested PTS demonstrate compliance with federal regulations, provide
contracts with the governments it does business with, as well as furnish
documents and details regarding medical emergencies, deaths and reports of
sexual abuse. It requests a response by March 13. The letter to PTS
represents the latest call by lawmakers for increased scrutiny of the
industry. The initial Marshall Project story prompted then-U.S. Attorney General
Loretta Lynch to promise an investigation, but the status of that inquiry is
not clear. Both Deutch, D-Fla., and Booker, D-N.J.,
have previously called on Justice to probe whether the companies have
violated the law.
Feb 5, 2019 uk.reuters.com
National: JPMorgan pulls out of private
prison financing
NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase
& Co has decided to stop financing private operators of prisons and
detention centres, which have become targets of
protests over Trump administration immigration policies. “We will no longer
bank the private prison industry,” a company spokesman told Reuters. The
decision is a result of the bank’s ongoing evaluations of the costs and
benefits of serving different industries, he said. JPMorgan is one of several
banks that have underwritten bonds or syndicated loans for CoreCivic Inc and GEO Group Inc, the two major private
prison operators in the United States. In 2018, banks, including Bank of
America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co, raised roughly $1.8 billion in debt
over three deals for CoreCivic and GEO Group,
according to Refinitiv data. Wells Fargo said in January it was reducing its
relationship with the prison industry as part of its “environmental and
social risk management” process. “Our credit exposure to private prison
companies has significantly decreased and is expected to continue to decline,
and we are not actively marketing to that sector,” Wells Fargo said in its
“Business Standards Report” for 2018. Prison finance is a small business for
JPMorgan, the biggest bank in the United States by assets. JPMorgan was a
leader in 1,153 loan deals worth $354 billion across all industries,
according to Refinitiv data. Prison companies account for about 10 percent of
federal and state prison beds, according to Moody’s Investors Service. But
about two-thirds of people held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
are in private detention centres, S&P Global
Ratings estimated last year. Moody's and S&P Global have speculative
grade, or junk, credit ratings on CoreCivic and GEO
Group partly because their revenues are at risk to changes in government
policy and public scrutiny of companies profiting from detention.
(reut.rs/2H4JOf5) After the Obama administration in August 2016 directed the
Bureau of Prisons to phase out federal use of private prisons, shares of both
companies plunged more than 40 percent. One month after Donald Trump became
president, the order was rescinded and the stocks
rebounded. Activism against the financing of private prisons heated up after
revelations that undocumented minors were being separated from their adult
parents. The Trump administration reversed its separation policy after a
public outcry. CoreCivic spokesman Steven Owen
called JPMorgan’s decision “disappointing.” He said in an email that “decisions
like this are being based on false information spread by politically
motivated special interests, who completely mischaracterize our company.”
None of CoreCivic’s immigration facilities house
children who are not under the supervision of a parent, Owen said. A GEO
Group spokesman said in an email that the company “has never managed
facilities that house unaccompanied minors.” He added, “We welcome the
opportunity to have an open dialogue with all financial institutions to
address the common mischaracterisations of our
company’s role and record as a government services provider.” CoreCivic changed its name from Corrections Corporation
of America in October 2016. It said the rebranding was to highlight its
strategy to transform its business “from largely corrections and detentions centres to a wider range of government services.” In 2018
prisons and detention centres still accounted for
87 percent of CoreCivic’s net operating income,
according to a recent presentation from the company to investors. It had 72,833
beds in prisons and detention centres. JPMorgan’s
move away from the industry comes after activists have challenged Chief
Executive Officer Jamie Dimon at the bank’s last
two annual meetings over its financing of prison companies. Protest groups
have also appeared regularly outside of Dimon’s
Manhattan apartment. On Valentine’s Day, a group appeared with a mariachi
band and signs that begged the executive to “break up with prisons.” At the
May 2017 annual meeting, Dimon promised to look in
to prison finance. In June, Dimon and the Business
Roundtable, a group of CEOs that he chairs, issued public statements calling
for immigration reform and an end to the Trump administration policy of
separating minors from their parents. JPMorgan’s move could prove mostly
symbolic if other lenders or investors in prison companies do not take
similar steps. Activists learned that lesson last year after they pressured
financiers of gunmakers in the wake of a shooting at a Florida high school.
Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc and BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest
asset manager, last year said they were limiting business with gunmakers in
various ways. But others, including Wells Fargo, declined to follow suit and
filings show firearms companies retain access to a wide range of financing
options. (reut.rs/2Evd3nn)
Nov 18, 2018
warren.senate.gov
National: Sen Warren and others go after private prisons
Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along
with Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Kirsten
Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Mazie Hirono
(D-Hawaii), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), today sent letters
to GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two largest private
immigration detention contractors in the United States, to request
information about the companies’ compliance with federal immigration
detention standards following a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of
the Inspector General (OIG) report about unsafe conditions and mistreatment
of immigrants at a number of privately-run immigration detention
centers. The senators also wrote
separately to Nakamoto Group, a private company responsible for auditing
immigration detention facilities, about the company’s questionable record of
reviewing conditions at those facilities. U.S. Immigration and Customers
Enforcement (ICE) currently detains around 40,000 immigrants in 211 detention
facilities across the United States.
GEO Group and CoreCivic together house the
vast majority of immigrants held in privately-operated detention
facilities—and their role continues to grow under the Trump Administration,
which reversed an Obama-era policy to phase out the federal government’s
reliance on private prisons. In their letters to GEO Group and CoreCivic, the senators outlined how the companies’
aggressive lobbying efforts to promote immigration policies that boost their
profits have largely paid off, noting that the Trump Administration’s
immigration agenda has filled private facilities with migrant adults and
children. The senators also pointed out that GEO Group has received $560
million in federal contracts in the last two fiscal years, while CoreCivic has received contracts worth $225 million to
manage ICE immigration detention facilities since 2017. “The President’s
harmful and destructive immigration agenda has done immeasurable damage to
immigrants, their communities, and America’s standing in the world as a safe
haven for refugees and asylum seekers, but it has been lucrative for private
prison corporations that operate immigration detention facilities,” the
senators wrote. The senators also expressed deep concern with the findings of
a DHS OIG investigation into ICE’s oversight of immigration detention
facilities, which revealed that the private prison facilities it visited
“undermine[d] the protection of detainees’ rights, their humane treatment,
and the provision of a safe and healthy environment.” The OIG report also found that inspections
conducted by Nakamoto Group are potentially misrepresenting conditions in
these facilities or underreporting violations. “These reports and the results
of the OIG investigations indicate that the perverse profit incentive at the
core of the private prison business model has resulted in GEO Group and CoreCivic boosting profits by cutting costs on
expenditures including food, health care, and sufficient pay and training for
guards and prison staff,” the senators continued. In a series of questions,
the senators requested information about each immigration detention facility
operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic, their
inspection records and results of audits, information about deficiencies
cited in the reviews, as well as evidence that they have been or are being
addressed. The senators’ letter to
Nakamoto Group asked several questions about the company’s compliance with
its government contract and the effectiveness of its inspections. The
senators requested the information be provided no later than November 30,
2018.
Jan 31, 2018 newsweek.com
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION GIVING BOOST TO PRIVATE PRISON CAMPAIGN DONORS,
LEAKED MEMO SHOWS
The Trump administration has ordered the transfer of more inmates from
government-run facilities to private lockups, a leaked memo from the Bureau
of Prisons has shown. The move marks the latest boost given to the private
prison industry, which donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the
president's election campaign and his inauguration. The memo, published by
Government Executive on Thursday, orders federal prisons to submit “eligible
inmates” to move to private contract facilities. Eligibility is determined as
those prisoners who are low-security male non-United States citizens with 90
months or less remaining on their sentences. The transfers are intended to ”alleviate overcrowding” and “maximize the
effectiveness of the private contracts,” the memo states. Currently, there
are 11 private prisons in contract with the Bureau of Prisons, with most
housing immigrants who have been convicted of crimes. Of those, nine are
operated by CoreCivic and GEO Group, who gave
$250,000 and $475,000 to President Donald Trump's campaign and inauguration,
respectively. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued guidance
in scrapping an Obama administration policy to phase out private prisons. The
lockups have been shown to be more dangerous than government-operated
facilities. A 2016 inspector general report found that private prisons had
higher rates of assaults, confiscated eight times as many contraband cell
phones and endangered inmates’ security and rights. The same year, Deputy
Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Bureau to either end its contracts
with private operators once they expired or reduce their use to match the
declining inmate population. But Sessions reversed that move just weeks after
Trump took office, charging that Yates had changed course on a long-standing
Bureau policy and declaring that private prisons are needed in the federal
correctional system to meet “future needs.” The American prison population
has been on the decline, falling for the third year in a row in 2016, a
Bureau report showed. But Sessions and Trump have vowed to be "tough on
crime," a policy that typically lands more people behind bars as they
are locked up for low-level crimes. Under their contracts with the
government, private prisons receive the same amount of money no matter how
many inmates are housed in the facilities, in part to ensure that more people
aren’t being locked up to increase profits. The Department of Homeland
Security relies on the prisons to detain undocumented immigrants facing
deportation. Also on Thursday, the Bureau instructed facility administrators
in a conference call to prepare to cut 12 to 14 percent of their staff or
5,000-6,000 jobs, some of which are currently vacant. In the past, the
federal lockup unit has only staffed as many people as it needs to operate
its prisons safely. Low staff levels have been shown to leave both inmates
and guards more vulnerable to assaults.
Dec 19, 2017 grijalva.house.gov
Representatives sent a letter
over sexual assault in immigration detention.
Today, 73 Congressional representatives sent a letter
to DHS and DOJ demanding accountability over sexual assault in immigration
detention. Please see CIVIC’s joint
press release with Congresswoman Chu and Congressman Grijalva below. Warm
regards, Christina M. Fialho Co-Founder/Executive
Director Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)
Oct 17, 2017
.thestranger.com
Reps. Adam Smith and Pramila Jayapal Are Back in Seattle to Talk About
Ending Private Immigration Prisons
The House of Representatives isn't in session this week, so Reps. Adam
Smith and Pramila Jayapal are back in Seattle today to talk about a major
piece of legislation introduced at the top of the month. The "Dignity
for Detained Immigrants Act" would phase out the use of private prisons
for immigrant detainees. The bill, introduced by Congressman Adam Smith on
October 3, does much more than that, too. It promises an overhaul of the
nation's immigration detention system. For example, the bill ends the policy
of mandatory detention, whereby immigrants are automatically taken into
custody if they have a criminal conviction—as are asylum seekers if they
arrive without the proper paperwork. The American Civil Liberties Union has
repeatedly challenged the practice of mandatory detention, which they say has
greatly expanded immigrant detention and often sweeps up legal residents who
have successfully been living in the US for decades after already serving
sentences for offenses like drug possession. While immigrants today are
subject to long periods of detention while awaiting bond hearings as a matter
of policy (see the case of formerly detained DACA Dreamer Daniel Ramirez
Medina in Seattle earlier this year), Smith's bill would institute a practice
of immediate custody determinations in court, based on probable cause. The
bill also sets up inspections for private facilities that contract with
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), like private prison company GEO
Group's Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. The Northwest Detention Center
has long been the focus of hunger strikes from immigrant detainees and their
supporters aiming to improve access to medical care and adequate nutrition.
Reps. Smith and Jayapal will be speaking about the Dignity for Detained
Immigrants Act at 1 p.m., and we'll have more details this afternoon. Watch
this space for more.
Mar 4, 2017 charlotteobserver.com
Did companies’ donations buy a Trump change in private prison policy?
What does hundreds of thousands of dollars buy in Washington these days?
Potentially a lot of private detention centers by the Trump administration.
That’s the accusation two members of Congress have laid at the doorstep of
President Donald Trump and two of the nation’s biggest private prison
companies after newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions dismissed
extensive research into the problems of the private prison industry and –
with the swipe of a pen – overturned an Obama administration decision to
phase out its use. “That connection seems suspiciously evil,” said Rep.
Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. The swift action by Sessions after his confirmation
and the rapid blowback from Cleaver and Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill.,
highlight the sensitive concerns about the influence of money in Washington
and help explain why government contractors are not allowed to contribute to
presidential campaigns. The White House blasted the Democrats for implying
any kind of “pay-to-play” scheme. “This is just more partisan politics by
Democrats who have made clear they intend to ignore the priorities of the
American people and launch meritless attacks against this administration at
every turn,” said White House spokesman Michael Short. Steve Owen, a
spokesman for one of the companies, now known as CoreCivic
Co., said the company did not contribute to any presidential candidate or
campaign. He acknowledged that his company had contributed to this year’s inaugural
events but said it was consistent with past practice. He pointed out that the
company doesn’t lobby or take positions on proposals or policies that would
affect the duration of an individual’s detention. Pablo Paez,
vice president of corporate relations for the other company, GEO Group, which
is based in Boca Raton, Florida, defended his company’s $225,000 donation to
a pro-Trump political action committee, saying it was legal because it had
been made by a subsidiary, GEO Corrections Holdings Inc., that has no
contracts with any governmental agency. “Our contribution was fully compliant
with all applicable federal election laws,” Paez
said. "THAT CONNECTION SEEMS SUSPICIOUSLY EVIL." -- Rep. Emanuel
Cleaver, D-Mo. Private prisons became an important part of America’s
corrections system starting in the 1980s, as tough sentencing guidelines were
adopted to address the drug wars. The population has since dropped, and
private facilities are largely used to detain immigrants. Forty-six of the
roughly 180 facilities in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds
detainees are privately run, according to ICE. About 60 percent of its
400,000 annual detainees are held in privately operated facilities. They’re
being held for alleged crimes, while awaiting deportation or while fighting
asylum cases to remain in the country. The Justice Department announced last
August that it was phasing out its use of corporate-run prisons because of
cost and safety concerns for inmates. According to a report by the department’s
Office of Inspector General, inmates in several private facilities received
bad food and poor medical care. Staffing levels were inadequate. The
conditions contributed to security problems. The private prisons saw 28
percent more inmate-on-inmate assaults. Eighty-six percent of the private
facilities had lock-downs, in which inmates had to be confined to their
cells, compared with 43 percent of government-run prisons, the report found. CoreCivic, then known as Corrections Corp. of America,
and GEO Group saw their stock shares plummet when the inspector general’s
report was published. Advocates hailed the Obama’s administration’s decision
to move away from private prisons as a positive step toward ending mass
incarceration. But that was six months ago, an eternity in a political
landscape that changed dramatically with Trump’s election. Trump made
campaign statements supporting private prisons, and the companies’ stock shot
back up after he was elected. Trump then signed an executive order
authorizing the construction of a wall along the border with Mexico, the
hiring of 15,000 more immigration agents and the detention of everyone who
could not be immediately deported. Then, soon after Sessions was confirmed,
the attorney general signed a new memorandum ending the Obama
administration’s initiative to phase out the use of private prisons. Trump
had received little support from major corporations when he was running for
the White House, but the GEO Group was a rare publicly traded corporation
that made contributions to a pro-Trump super political action committee,
according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission reports by Ciara
Torres-Spelliscy, a law professor at Florida’s
Stetson University who’s a fellow at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice
at New York University Law School. Spelliscy noted
that 45 percent of GEO’s revenue came from operating 26 prison centers for
the federal government. “From the outside, what you see is what looks like
some pay-to-play behavior, where you have spending by someone who is a
federal contractor who is interested in a particular policy outcome, spending
money in an election and then after the election their winning candidate does
the policy that they wanted all along all,” Spelliscy
said. “It certainly looks suspicious.” Damon Hininger,
president and CEO of CoreCivic, noted in an
earnings call that Trump’s order immediately allocated resources to the
construction, operation and control of additional detention facilities. “When
coupled with the above-average rate crossings along the Southwest border,
these executive orders appear likely to significantly increase the need for
safe, humane and appropriate detention bed capacity that we have available in
our existing real estate portfolio, as well as an increased demand for our
detention facility design, development and facility maintenance expertise,” Hininger said. GEO Group, which operates 64 correctional
facilities in the United States, was named in a complaint to the FEC as
violating a prohibition on campaign contributions from government contractors
over its $225,000 contribution to the pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America.
Cleaver said he didn’t have a problem with CoreCivic
and Geo making money. But he said it was unseemly how the government appeared
to be partnering with the companies so they could profit by building more
detention centers. Cleaver and Gutiérrez accused the companies of advocating
policies that “deprive people of their liberty” to increase profits. “With
the massive increase in deportations and criminalizing people planned by
Trump, prisons are looking at a fat windfall from the sorrow of others,”
Gutiérrez said. “We just wanted to put these companies on notice that the
American people are watching and that profiting from incarceration has moral
consequences.” Paez said the company welcomed the
opportunity to meet with Cleaver and Gutiérrez “to dispel the myths” about
it. He said his company’s focus was on helping reduce “recidivism and helping
individuals successfully re-enter society.” While the Justice Department
conducted an extensive investigation last year before announcing the changes,
Sessions didn’t give much information about why he was reversing course. In
four sentences, he said the Obama policy had changed long-standing policy and
practice and had impaired the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ ability to meet
future needs. That led groups like Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit
campaign-finance watchdog group, to ask questions and ultimately file the FEC
complaint against GEO. “There is no indication that the reversal of the prior
policy was similarly based in any sort of research,” said Brendan Fischer,
associate counsel for the Campaign Legal Center. “A reasonable person might
then start to look at what other factors might have influenced this decision.
And $225,000 to a super PAC and additional contributions to the inaugural
committee certainly could be factors in that decision.”
Aug 24, 2016 tampabay.com
Behind Marco Rubio, a powerful ally: Private prison operator Geo Group
The federal government’s decision to stop using private prisons puts a
spotlight on one of Geo Group’s favorite politicians: Marco Rubio. Few
candidates in the country have gotten more help from the Boca Raton based
company, including $80,400 in the last month alone. Geo Group employees and
political action committee contributed $30,400 to Rubio’s Senate campaign
while the PAC gave $50,000 to the super PAC supporting Rubio, records show.
That’s on top of nearly $190,000 in support Rubio has received dating to his
time as speaker of the Florda House, when Geo Group
landed a major contract with the state, to his presidential run. Rubio said
Monday that he hadn’t read the Justice Department report citing cost and
safety concerns at private prisons. Geo Group stock plunged but was on the
rise Monday as company officials downplayed any significant harm to their
bottom line. “I’ll look at the report and what they found and if the findings
are such that justify their decision, then it will be justified,” Rubio told
the Tampa Bay Times on Monday while campaigning in Tallahassee. “At the end
of the day, contractors are supposed to save us money, not cost us money.”
The campaign declined to answer a follow-up question about why Rubio has
gotten so much attention from the country’s second-largest private prison
operator. Geo Group runs a federal immigration detention center in Broward
County that has been the subject of protests and six Florida state prisons.
As the Times/Herald recently reported, it is poised to benefit from
expansions of state contracts relating to inmate mental health treatment,
juvenile detention and electronic monitoring. The company and other private
prison operators have long been major political players, using contributions
and lobbying heft to expand its footprint. Since 2004, Geo Group has given
about $1.7 million to federal candidates, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics. It has spent $4.7 million on lobbying in the same time,
including hiring Navigators Global, which employs founding partner Cesar Conda, Rubio one-time chief of staff. Conda
has said he did not lobby on Geo Group matters. Florida candidates are among
the most frequent recipients of Geo Group money. Rubio’s Democratic rival in
the Senate race, Patrick Murphy, got $1,000 in 2014. Democratic Sen. Bill
Nelson has taken money. Geo Group gave $100,000 to Right to Rise USA, the
super PAC that supported Jeb Bush’s presidential bid. It has invested heavily
in the political careers of Florida Republicans Rebecca and Joe Negron, some
$288,000 in all. But Rubio stands out, and Geo Group has been quick to
support his 2016 Senate run, with employees giving $30,400. It also gave
$50,000 to Florida First Project, the super PAC backing Rubio. When Rubio was
running for president, Geo Group gave $100,000 to Conservative Solutions
super PAC. Geo Group also supported Rubio in his House days, pouring $50,000
into Floridians for Property Tax Reform, the committee Rubio used to push his
proposals and travel the state, gaining key exposure that helped him in the
2010 Senate run. While Rubio was House speaker, Geo Group gave more than
$100,000 to the Republican Party of Florida. His connections to Geo Group
have come up in recent years. Last year in Iowa, a writer for the watchdog
blog, Governing Under the Influence, asked Rubio about the largess. “I don’t
invest in other people’s agenda,” Rubio replied, “they invest in my agenda.”
Aug 9, 2016 cnsnews.com
Clinton: 'I Have Proposed an Office of Immigrant
Affairs for the White House'
(CNSNews.com) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary
Clinton says she would create a new office of Immigrant Affairs in the White
House to help her achieve her goal of comprehensive immigration reform with a
pathway to citizenship. Speaking to a joint gathering of black and hispanic journalists on Friday, Clinton said she would
start working on immigration reform "immediately" if she wins in
November. "I will defend DACA and DAPA while I work vigorously for
immigration reform," Clinton said. "I have proposed an Office of
Immigrant Affairs for the White House so that we are able to answer questions
and provide information and help people. "I will take a very hard look
at the deportation priorities. My priorities are violent criminals, people
suspected of any kind of connection to terrorism, not hard-working mothers
and fathers and people who go to work, help support this economy, pay $12
billion a year into Social Security, so we will take a hard look at that.
"We will close private detention centers, just like I want to end private
prisons. We're going to close private detention centers. So, I have a very
active agenda and we're going to be moving on it and I believe -- and you
know, obviously it depends upon the outcome of this election - which is why
it's so important to register more voters." Clinton described the
upcoming election as a referendum on immigration: "I am hoping that the
outcome of the election, which I am working hard to ensure a victory, will
send a clear message to our Republican friends that it's time for them to
quit standing in the way of immigration reform," she said. "If you
remember, after the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee did what
they called an autopsy of their loss and concluded that they could not
continue to deny the importance of immigration reform, and they urged
Republicans running for office to get on board. Now, that hasn't turned out
the way that they seemed to have hoped. We have, instead, a Republican
nominee who has been virulently anti-immigrant. "But there's nothing
like winning to change minds." Clinton said if the U.S. Senate returns
to Democratic control and Democrats pick up seats in the House, she views the
"political landscape as increasingly favorable" to passing
immigration legislation that will make it legal for millions of foreigners to
stay in the country. "So, I have a very active agenda and we're going to
be moving on it and I believe - and you know, obviously it depends upon the
outcome of this election - which is why it's so important to register more
voters. "My campaign is trying to register 3 million more voters,
convince people to turn out, because we're going to start early and we're
going to be tenacious and absolutely committed to getting a positive result.
I think the chances, once we win, will improve dramatically."
Aug 4, 2016 politico.com
CCA: Could this be the beginning of the end?
Immigration authorities are looking at possible changes to family
detention practices following a federal appeals court ruling clarifying the
government's options, according to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Last month, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
rejected a key part of the Obama administration's interpretation of a
long-standing settlement regarding immigration detention for minors. The
Justice Department argued that the nearly-two-decade-old deal requiring quick
release of children in most circumstances only applied to children traveling
across the border alone and had no impact on those crossing illegally with
relatives, usually their mothers. However, the appeals court found the 1997
settlement in Flores v. Reno does apply to accompanied minors, forcing
immigration officials to find a way to get such children out of immigration
detention quickly. "On an operational level....we're looking now at what
impact that has," Johnson told reporters Wednesday at a breakfast
discussion organized by the Christian Science Monitor. "We are looking
at whether to change the practice in any way in light of the 9th Circuit
ruling." Johnson defended his agency's creation of "family residential
centers" for family border crossers, saying the facilities are necessary
to handle increased numbers of families illegally crossing the U.S. border
from Mexico since 2014. "The practice has reformed considerably since 2
years ago when we first opened these things up, but I think that we need to
continue the practice, so we’re not just engaging in catch-and-release on the
border," Johnson said. While the appeals court said most minors have to
be released quickly, the judges clarified that the 1997 agreement does not
apply to the detention of parents or other adult family members. So, in
theory, the Department of Homeland Security could seek to release kids to
relatives other than the one they crossed into the U.S. with. However, one
immigrant rights advocate said he doesn't expect much change because so many
of the families crossing the border illegally are passing the government's
initial test for claiming asylum and being promptly released at that point.
"There's now about an 80-percent approval rate on the credible fear
determination," said Peter Schey, who's
leading the effort to enforce the Flores settlement. "Detention has gone
from an average of 60-plus days to an average of about 10 days." Schey said the high release rate and short stays for most
families left him puzzled by Johnson's claim that the family detention
centers were needed to prevent a "catch-and-release" policy.
"The notion that this is a deterrent is a complete joke," the
advocate said. "They've modified the program to the point I think it's a
magnet......What's the point?" Schey said he
and other lawyers are still pursuing some complaints under the settlement,
including claims that conditions in Border Patrol stations where kids and
families stay up to three days are inadequate and require some children to
sleep on concrete floors. He also said that detention is too long for
children not found to have a "credible fear" of persecution in
their homeland, with authorities making little effort to get those children
released. Beyond Johnson's comments, there are other indications federal
authorities are rethinking family detention efforts, while not giving up on
the concept. In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement sought new
proposals for "family residential servcies."
And on Wednesday, the same day Johnson discussed the issue with reporters,
the for-profit prison company running the ICE family facility in Dilley,
Texas warned investors that it could make less money on that contract or lose
it altogether. "ICE engaged us to consider modifying the scale and cost
of services currently performed at the South Texas Family Residential Center
for the purpose of achieving a more cost-effective solution in light of
various policy changes that have occurred since the commencement of the contract,"'
Corrections Corporation of America said in a quarterly earnings release.
"We have submitted a proposal to ICE for our South Texas Family
Residential Center in response to its request with respect to family unit
detention reflecting a lower cost to ICE. Further, we continue to engage ICE
in discussions regarding our scale and cost of services, but can provide no
assurance that we will be awarded a new contract for family unit detention,
will successfully renegotiate our existing contract with ICE, or will be able
to maintain the margins we currently generate under the contract," the
company said.
Jul 19, 2016
truth-out.org
Senate Bill Would End Tax Breaks for Private Prison Companies
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced legislation last week that would
make it tougher for private prison companies to take advantage of federal
rules that provide massive tax breaks for special real estate firms, a move
that racial justice and prison divestment activists say is an important step
toward confronting the corporations that control around 8 percent of the
nation's prisons and immigrant jails. As Truthout has reported, the nation's
two largest prison firms, GEO Group and Corrections Corporations of America
(CCA), avoided a combined $113 million in federal taxes in 2015 alone. Large
portions of the companies are allowed to file with the IRS as Real Estate
Investment Trusts, or REITs, which enjoy a special tax status designed to
encourage real estate investment. The bulk of CCA and GEO Group's
multibillion-dollar revenue stream comes from taxpayers, but both companies
have seen their corporate tax rate plummet by 30 percent or more since they
secured REIT status in 2012, according to annual financial reports. CCA,
which owns 66 jails and prisons nationwide and runs an additional 11
facilities on behalf of the government, reported a net income tax benefit of
nearly $138 million in 2013 alone. Federal law requires the bulk of these tax
benefits to be paid out to shareholders in the form of dividends, so the extra
cash is not reinvested into programs and resources for prisoners and jailed
immigrants, or to pad the salaries of private
prison guards, who can earn wages as low as $15 per hour. Activists also say
these dividends encourage wealthy investors to profit from mass incarceration
and lobby for the racist policies that drive it. "Private prisons are
one part of a larger system of mass criminalization that has to be fought on
many fronts," said Amanda Aguilar Shank, an organizer with the racial
and economic justice group, Enlace. "Part of dismantling this system is
recognizing the huge economic investment we are making in criminalizing and
locking up enormous sectors of our community, and finding ways to divest and
reinvest those resources into life-giving services like housing, education
and health care." Established as a special tax status more than 50 years
ago, REITs were originally intended to be passive investment vehicles,
allowing groups of investors to put money into real estate properties without
actually buying and servicing them, much like mutual funds. REITs are
required to distribute 90 percent of their taxable income back to
shareholders annually in the form of cash or stock dividends, which in
turn are tax-deductible for the REIT. REITs are supposed to stick to the real
estate business, but CCA and Geo Group provide dozens of
(non-real-estate-related) services and products to jails, prisons, immigrant
jails and the people held captive in them. Both companies also run entire
facilities. The IRS has allowed companies to break themselves up in order to
meet REIT requirements and enjoy the tax breaks, so CCA and GEO Group spun
off sections of their companies that provided services, such as education and
health care, or incorporated them as "subsidiaries" of the REIT.
These spin-offs are supposed to pay federal taxes, but both companies have
convinced the IRS that the bulk of their business is essentially renting
space out to the federal and state governments to house prisoners, so the
majority of their income is now tax-exempt. Wyden's legislation would close
this loophole by preventing "active business activities" from
filing as REIT subsidiaries. "This legislation would significantly
weaken the for-profit prison industry," Shank said, "and it would
divest resources from tax subsidies for private prisons, freeing up millions
of dollars that could be reinvested in services that actually keep our
communities safe." Wyden blamed a "broken-down tax code" for
allowing private prison firms to take advantage of REIT status, but he made
it clear that the bill is not just about taxes. With the nation roiling over
racist police violence, Wyden noted that the bill is part of a broader effort
to reform a criminal legal system that has disproportionately negative impacts
on immigrants and people of color. "As part of rethinking our criminal
justice system, particularly as it results in the mass incarceration of
low-income and minority individuals, the tax rules for REITs must be changed
so that we are not encouraging companies to unjustly profit from prison
detention services," Wyden said in a statement. Meanwhile, prison
corporations are not happy about the bill. CCA spokesman Steve Owen told
Truthout that the "rationale for this bill is deeply misguided" and
Congress has better things to do "than legislating winners and losers in
an independent, IRS-driven REIT qualification process that is already
time-tested, rigorous and fair." "The fact is, we provide
problem-solving alternatives that help our government partners address some
of their biggest corrections challenges, such as dangerous overcrowding and
skyrocketing costs," Owen said. "Our company has made significant
public commitments to help inmates successfully re-enter society, including
helping thousands of people earn a GED." Critics of the industry,
however, say prisons run by private companies are more violent than public
prisons and have higher rates of recidivism among prisoners. Plus, private
companies that provide telecommunications and other services to prisoners
make business decisions that increase the likelihood that incarcerated people
will become returning customers, such as banning in-person visits with family
members despite research showing that maintaining family ties reduces
recidivism. "Because private prison profits come from people spending
time behind bars, it's no surprise the companies make business decisions
resulting in higher recidivism," said Donald Cohen, executive director
of In the Public Interest, a watchdog group that recently published a brief
on the subject. It's unclear at this point whether Wyden's bill will make it
out of committee, but Shank said that grassroots pressure to reform the
criminal legal system and abolish private prison is only building, so
lawmakers should decide whether they want to be on the right side of history,
or not. "We are living in an era of mass incarceration, immigration
detention and police brutality," Shank said. "Grassroots movements
like Black Lives Matter and Not1More deportation have exposed this violence
and provided a unified direction for a growing number of people of all races
that are committed to fighting criminalization in all of its forms." The
push to end the REIT tax breaks is just one part of the National Prison
Divestment Campaign, an effort spearheaded by Enlace, community groups, and
unions seeking to divest public resources from prisons and reinvest them into
services that prevent poverty and violence, such as housing, health care,
education and community-based safety strategies.
Jul 16, 2016 yubanet.com
Details of Private Prison Corporation Immigration Contracts Not Exempt
from Freedom of Information Act, Judge Rules
NEW YORK, NY, July 15, 2016 - Last night, in a case seeking documents
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding the detention bed quota
in immigration detention facilities, a federal judge ruled that the details
of government contracts with private prison corporations are not exempt from
public release under FOIA. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had argued that the contracts were
“confidential commercial information” and releasing them would harm the
competitive advantage of the private prison companies, claims roundly
rejected by the court. At a time when medical neglect and deaths in
immigration detention are receiving increasing attention, the Court also
rejected the government’s attempts to keep secret the staffing levels of
medical and social service personnel. “ICE has increasingly utilized private
prisons over the years, making the system less transparent to the public and
unaccountable to immigrants whose lives are impacted by detention,” said
Silky Shah, Co-Director of Detention Watch Network, which brought the
lawsuit. “However, with this ruling it is clear that ICE’s tactics to keep
the detention system secret and hidden have failed. Rather than wasting
advocates’ time and energy on lengthy FOIA litigation, ICE should immediately
make all information pertaining to detention contracts publicly accessible
and transparent.” “Today’s ruling is important both for the freedom of
information and for efforts to curb the undue influence of private prison
corporations on immigration detention practices,” said Center for
Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Ghita Schwarz. “The Court has
made clear that ICE and private prison contractors may not keep their
contractual arrangements secret. The Freedom of Information Act obligates the
government to inform the public of the details of its immigration detention
system, and ICE can’t hide behind private prison corporations to evade its
public reporting obligations.” Attorneys praised the Court for holding ICE
accountable to the public. Professor Jenny-Brooke Condon, Director of the
Seton Hall Law School Equal Justice Clinic and co-counsel in the litigation
said, “The ruling is a resounding victory for democratic transparency and
accountability: it preserves the public’s essential role in checking
government abuse, waste and dysfunction in an era of increasing privatization.”
Detention Watch Network and CCR filed the FOIA litigation to obtain
information about the workings of the detention bed quota, which requires the
funding of 34,000 immigration beds at any given time. The information ICE
sought to keep secret is crucial for illuminating the financial incentives
behind prison contracting as well as the social and medical resources
available to immigrants detained within the system. In June, Detention Watch
Network (DWN) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released a
report, Banking on Detention 2016 Update, showing the extent to which ICE
grants financial benefits to private and public entities that detain
immigrants through government contracts requiring ICE to pay for guaranteed
minimums at detention facilities. The report argued that this has rendered
immigrants, including children and families, a source of profit for
contractors. The case is Detention Watch Network et al. v. ICE et al. Read
today’s ruling here. The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to
advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States
Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966
by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a
non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use
of law as a positive force for social change.Industry:
Court rules in favor of transparency
Jul 12, 2016 themarshallproject.org
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch Will Probe Private Prisoner Transport
Industry
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told lawmakers Tuesday her office
would investigate apparent lapses in federal oversight of private prisoner
transportation companies, the subject of a recent Marshall Project
investigation that revealed a pattern of deaths and abuses in the industry.
Under questioning by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.),
Lynch told the House Judiciary Committee that she was unfamiliar with the
industry, which the Justice Department is tasked with monitoring under a 2000
law that has been enforced only once. At a key moment in the questioning,
Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) interrupted to insist that Lynch “look into
this in depth, and report back to the committee.”“We
would very much require that,” he added. Also on Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker
(D-N.J.) urged Lynch in a letter to probe possible abuses on for-profit
transportation vans, which carry tens of thousands of people every year
across millions of miles. “It is critical that the Justice Department uncover
whether abuse of prisoners and conditions of confinement violations by
private prison transport companies and their officials violated laws and
regulations within the Department’s jurisdiction,” Booker wrote. The Marshall
Project story, published July 6 with The New York Times, was the result of a
seven-month investigation into private transport companies used by 26 states
and countless localities to extradite suspects and fugitives.A
review of thousands of court documents, federal records and local news
articles and interviews with guards and executives revealed a pattern of
deaths, neglect, escapes and accidents in the industry. Four people have died
since 2012 on vans run by the largest company in the business, Prisoner
Transportation Services. Among them was Steven Galack,
whose story Deutch recounted during the committee
hearing. Galack was living in Florida when he was
arrested for failing to pay child support and placed on a private van for
extradition to Ohio. He grew agitated on the trip, and two prisoners said a
guard on the van directed the other prisoners to beat him. Mr. Galack was found dead in Tennessee. His cause of death
was undetermined. Deutch asked why a 2000 law
intended to regulate the industry has been enforced by the Justice Department
only once in 16 years.“General Lynch,” he said,
“I’d just ask what else can be done for us to focus on an issue that we were
so concerned about here in Congress 16 years ago that we passed legislation,
but that legislation seemingly goes unnoticed or certainly unenforced.”Lynch responded that all prisoners should be
treated humanely and fairly and offered to review the issue, which she said
was new to her. At that point, Goodlatte interrupted. Reached later by phone,
Deutch called the chairman’s intervention pivotal.
“The chairman going on record to ask that the Attorney General provide a
report to us — that elevates this issue into a priority for the House
Judiciary Committee,” Deutch said. The committee
hearing focused primarily on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Deutch’s office plans to send follow-up questions
to Lynch’s office, including examining the four deaths. Steven Galack’s brother Robert said he was struck by news of the
hearing.“Who would ever
imagine something positive would come of this?” he said. “For a guy who died
penniless on a prisoner transport van to be mentioned before Congress, that
is almost vindication.”
Feb 10, 2016 ASSOCIATED PRESS
Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton Accepted Almost the Same Amount of Prison
Lobbyist Donations
One little-known fact this year is that Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio
have benefited from prison lobbyist money. In fact, they've taken almost the
same amount of contributions from major prison lobbyists. Clinton's campaign
has received $133,246 while Rubio's campaign accepted $133,450 from the
prison lobby. According to a Vice News piece titled How Private Prisons Are
Profiting From Locking Up US Immigrants, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio have
taken virtually the same amount of donations from the two most influential
prison lobbyists in the U.S.: VICE reviewed federal campaign disclosures and
found that lobbying firms linked to GEO and CCA have already contributed more
than $288,300 to three of the leading candidates. Clinton's Ready for Hillary
PAC received $133,246 from lobbying firms linked to GEO and CCA. Rubio's PACs
and campaign have taken a total of $133,450 from private prison companies or
groups that lobby on their behalf. Bush's campaign and his Right to Rise
Super PAC have received $21,700 from lobbying groups affiliated with GEO and
CCA. "These companies are investing their money for a reason," said
Bob Libal, the executive director of Grassroots
Leadership, a group that fights to end for-profit incarceration. "That
reason is to maintain policies that benefit them." Rubio's home state of
Florida has recently faced a crisis with its corrections system and has the
11th highest incarceration rate in the nation. While Hillary Clinton expects
to receive the majority of the African American vote among Democrats, mass
incarceration has targeted African Americans at a higher rate than any other
demographic. Thus, Clinton's willingness to accept money from the prison
lobby runs contrary to the interests of a core constituency. According to the
NAACP, national statistics show black citizens targeted at alarming rates by
the prison system: African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the
total 2.3 million incarcerated population African Americans are incarcerated
at nearly six times the rate of whites Together, African American and
Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African
Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US
population According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics
were incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail
populations would decline by approximately 50%. One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends
continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in
prison during his lifetime 1 in 100 African American women are in prison. Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44% of
youth who are detained, 46% of the youth who are judicially waived to
criminal court, and 58% of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center on
Juvenile and Criminal Justice). 5 times as many Whites are using drugs as
African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses
at 10 times the rate of Whites African Americans represent 12% of the total
population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and
59% of those in state prison for a drug offense. What's most startling is
that African Americans on average vote around 90% Democrat in presidential
elections, yet Hillary Clinton accepted money from major prison lobbyists,
even as "African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate
of whites." As for the reaction from Latino and African American civil
rights organizations, these groups pressured Clinton to stop taking the
prison lobby's money, as illustrated in a Huffington Post article titled
Hillary Clinton Says She'll End Private Prisons, Stop Accepting Their Money:
Lobbying firms that work for two major private prison giants, GEO Group and
Corrections Corporation of America, gave $133,246 to the Ready for Hillary PAC,according to Vice. Those companies operate a number
of criminal and immigrant detention facilities, some of which have been
plagued by allegations of abuse and poor treatment of detainees. Immigrant
and civil rights groups have urged Clinton to stop accepting contributions
from donors with ties to GEO and CCA. Earlier Thursday, in announcing its
co-founder Cesar Vargas was moving to the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.), the advocacy group Dream Action Coalition singled out Clinton for
accepting those contributions. Sanders recently introduced a bill to ban
government contracts for private prisons, including immigrant detention
centers. It's unknown if Clinton would have still accepted prison lobbyist
contributions had these groups not pressured the former Secretary of State.
What's also surprising is that Jeb Bush actually received less money
($21,700) than Clinton, from the same interests that target a key voter base
among Democrats. In contrast to Clinton, Rubio, and Bush, Senator Bernie
Sanders has been outspoken in his desire to ban private prisons, as stated in
a USA Today piece titled Bernie Sanders seeks to ban private prisons: Sen. Bernie
Sanders said he hopes to end the "private, for-profit prison
racket" with the introduction Thursday of bills to ban private prisons,
reinstate the federal parole system and eliminate quotas for the number of
immigrants held in detention. The Vermont independent, who is running for the
Democratic presidential nomination, introduced the "Justice is not for
Sale Act" with Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Keith Ellison
of Minnesota and Bobby Rush of Illinois. It would bar the federal government from
contracting with private incarceration companies starting two years after
passage. "The profit motivation of private companies running prisons
works at cross purposes with the goals of criminal justice," Sanders
said. "Criminal justice and public safety are without a doubt the
responsibility of the citizens of our country, not private corporations. They
should be carried out by those who answer to voters, not those who answer to
investors." In 2016, Bernie Sanders has been the leading voice among
presidential candidates on the issue of banning private prisons. With the
Democratic race heating up and both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton close
in the polls, the issue of prison lobbyist donations will factor into the
Democratic primaries. Bernie Sanders has never taken money from the prison
lobby, while The Intercept wrote last year that Private Prison Lobbyists Are
Raising Cash for Hillary Clinton. In addition, Bill Clinton's recent apology
for his role in making mass incarceration "worse" will also be a
key issue in the 2016 Democratic Primary. The Los Angeles Times writes that
"The federal and state prison populations rose more under former
President Bill Clinton than under any other president." This year,
Hillary Clinton could be linked not only to her acceptance of prison lobbyist
money, but also Bill Clinton's role in mass incarceration.
October 23, 2015 correctionsone.com
Hillary Clinton stops accepting
donations from private prisons
Says she wants to "end the era of
mass incarceration"
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton, currently
running for the democratic presidential nomination, announced Thursday that
she would no longer be accepting campaign contributions from private prison
companies in an effort to back up her pledge to end the practice. The Huffington
Post reports that Clinton said all previous donations would be given to
charity. Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokesperson for Clinton, said that Clinton
promised to end private prisons and private immigrant detention centers when
she is president. “She believes we should not contract out this core
responsibility of the federal government, and when we’re dealing with a mass
incarceration crisis, we don’t need private industry incentives that may
contribute – or have the appearance of contributing – to over-incarceration,”
Hinojosa said in a statement Thursday. GEO Group and Corrections Corporation
of America donated $133,246 to Hillary PAC. Both operate a number of criminal
and immigrant detention facilities, some of which have been plagued by
allegations of abuse and poor treatment of detainees.
Jun 25, 2015 politicalnews.me
Federal: Powerful Sen Chairman calls for investigation in overbilling
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Chuck Grassley is calling on the Bureau of Prisons to explain how
approximately $2 million in questionable spending was allowed in one of its
largest prison management contracts. A recent Justice Department Inspector
General audit of a Bureau contract for management of the Reeves County
Detention Center uncovered that the Bureau improperly paid $1.95 million in
fringe benefits at the contractor’s request. The inspector general was
reviewing the Bureau’s contract with Reeves County, Texas, and its
subcontractors for compliance with terms relating to billing and staffing requirements
as well as oversight and monitoring. Both the Bureau’s and the contractor’s
failure to understand the applicable law led to the improper use of funds,
according to the inspector general’s audit. The audit further determined that
the Bureau should reduce the monthly payout to the contractor by $41,088 to
prevent additional waste of $945,024 throughout the remainder of the
contract. The improper spending was compounded by findings that the prison
consistently failed to meet minimum contractual standards and received too
many notices of concern. Further, one of the subcontractors, the GEO Group,
did not adequately respond to the inspector general’s inquiries. In a letter
to the Bureau, Grassley is asking for a detailed explanation of its oversight
practices as well as whether the Bureau has taken steps to remedy the
concerns raised by the inspector general’s audit. A signed copy of Grassley’s
letter can be found here. Full text of the letter is below.
June 12, 2015
The Honorable Charles E. Samuels, Jr.
Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20534
Dear Director Samuels:
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has
contracted with counties and private contractors to manage 14 prisons that
house criminal aliens. One of those contracts was awarded to Reeves County,
Texas to operate the Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC). This contract has
an estimated value of $493 million and is BOP’s second largest contract.
Reeves County subcontracted with the GEO Group (GEO), a corporation that is
also a primary contractor in four federal correctional facilities. Reeves
County also subcontracted to Correct Care Solutions, LLC (CCS), to provide
comprehensive health care services. In April of 2015, the Department of
Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audited BOP’s contract with
Reeves County for compliance with contract terms and conditions relating to
billings, staffing requirements, and contract oversight and monitoring. OIG
found substantial waste and abuse. Specifically, OIG found that “Reeves
County improperly requested and the BOP improperly paid $1.95 million in
fringe benefits it was not entitled to receive, including $175,436 in payroll
taxes and workers’ compensation insurance[.]” In addition, CCS improperly
requested $74,765 in fringe benefits that were unsupported by payroll
documentation. OIG further noted that the unallowable reimbursements have “a
compounding effect over time” and therefore in addition to the aforementioned
unallowable reimbursements, BOP “should reduce the contract’s monthly price
by $41,088 to ensure the contractor will not improperly charge BOP an
additional $945,024” through the life of the contract. OIG concluded that the
unallowable reimbursements were able to occur because both the BOP and the
contractors failed to understand the requirements of the Service Contract
Act. In addition, between February 2007 and December 2014, the RCDC was rated
“deficient” or “unsatisfactory” in 6 of 12 award fee evaluation periods.
According to OIG, RCDC struggled immensely to adequately perform under the
contract, including: “[RCDC] consistently struggled to meet or exceed baseline
contractual standards, received an unacceptable number of deficiencies and
notices of concern; was unresponsive to BOP inquiries; struggled with
staffing issues in health services and correctional services; and frequently
submitted inaccurate routine paperwork, including erroneous disciplinary
hearing records and monthly invoices. In addition, the BOP reports repeatedly
described RCDC I/II’s quality control program as minimally or marginally
effective.” This is concerning. As the oversight authority, BOP ought to have
more control over entities that it contracts with so as to ensure adequate
performance. According to the OIG, it appears that RCDC was often totally
unresponsive to BOP inquiries all while BOP was paying for unallowable
reimbursements valued in the millions of dollars. According to the OIG,
$2,028,847 in BOP expenditures under the contract were “Questioned Costs”
which are defined as “expenditures that do not comply with legal, regulatory,
or contractual requirements, or are not supported by adequate documentation
at the time of the audit, or are unnecessary or unreasonable.” If BOP does
not reduce the contract’s price to recoup the unallowable costs, $945,024
will be spent unnecessarily bringing the total amount of unnecessary
expenditures to just under $3 million dollars. BOP’s apparent lack of
command, control and oversight over the legal requirements of contracts
awarded to private entities to manage prisons is cause for serious concern.
One must wonder what degree of mismanagement is occurring, or has already
occurred, at other prisons.To ensure that
taxpayer dollars are used efficiently, please answer the following:
1. OIG noted, “[t]hroughout
the course of this audit, the OIG has on several occasions requested the GEO
Group provide documentation on its interpretation so we could review and
consider its position, but GEO Group officials did not provide us with
documentation.” What role does BOP play in ensuring that parties to a BOP
contract are sufficiently cooperating with an OIG audit? Was that role
fulfilled with the current audit? Please explain.
2. BOP’s Privatization Management
Branch (PMB) is responsible for managing and overseeing the operation of
secure contract facilities. The PMB maintains at a minimum two full time
staff at each private facility including the Senior Secure Institution
Manager (SSIM) and Secure Oversight Manager (SOM). Do you believe the SSIM
and SOM at RCDC performed up to the standards expected of them by the
taxpayer? Please explain.
3. Please describe the oversight and
accountability mechanisms in place that BOP uses to ensure that SSIM’s and
SOM’s within the PMB are properly managed to reduce contract waste and abuse
at privately contracted prisons.
4. Has BOP remedied the $1,954,082 in
net unallowable costs that Reeves County incorrectly claimed for Health &
Welfare benefit-related price adjustments and the $175,436 in incorrectly
claimed price adjustments for payroll taxes and workers’ compensation? If so,
has BOP provided OIG with that documentation? If it has not been remedied,
why not?
5. Has BOP remedied the $74,765 in
unsupported costs for CCS since they were unable to provide records
supporting the cost of providing benefits to employees from 2007-2009? If so,
has BOP provided OIG with that documentation? If it has not been remedied,
why not?
6. GEO is a subcontractor for RCDC and
is a contractor for Criminal Alien Requirement Privately-Managed Contract
Facilities as of February 19, 2015. The OIG report indicates that GEO, in
conjunction with BOP, did not properly comply with the Federal Acquisition
Regulation and Service Contract Act. In light of these troublesome claims,
has BOP taken steps to ensure that similar improprieties are not occurring at
other privately managed facilities, including those managed by GEO? If so,
please explain the steps taken. If not, why not?
7. Has BOP removed the $41,088 in
unallowable and unsupported costs from the Monthly Operating Plan to remedy
the $954,024 for Funds Put to Better Use?
8. Has BOP performed a review to identify
unallowable questioned costs related to price adjustments that Reeves County
was not entitled to receive for RCDC III (Contract No. DJB1PC003)?
9. Has BOP created and implemented
policies and procedures that strengthen responsible officials’ understanding
of Service Contract Act rules and regulations? If so, please explain. If not,
why not?
10. Has Reeves County updated its
quality control policies and procedures requiring the retention of all
records related to the contract? If so, please explain. If not, why not?
11. What, if anything, has BOP done to
remedy the problem RCDC had with frequently submitting inaccurate routine
paperwork, including erroneous disciplinary hearing records and monthly
invoices? If nothing has been done, why not?
Mar 19, 2015 nashvillescene.com
Earlier this month, 55 organizations
focused on criminal justice and civil rights submitted a letter asking U.S.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee to reintroduce the Private Prison Information Act.
The Texas Democrat introduced the bill last year, but only at the end of the
year when legislators were fighting over how to keep the government running
and go home for the holidays. The legislation — the PPIA — would extend the
requirements of the Freedom of Information Act to private prison corporations,
like Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, who hold federal
prisoners in their facilities. Currently, companies like CCA or GEO Group are
not covered by the FOIA. In 2013, private prisons held 19 percent of the
entire federal prison population, according to a report by Mother Jones. That
same report noted that CCA, the nation's largest for-profit prison operator,
collected more than $584 million from the federal government. The private
prison industry has lobbied heavily against versions of the PPIA in the past.
The letter, signed by organizations like The Sentencing Project and the
Association of Alternative Newsmedia (of which the
Scene is a member), makes the case that private prisons which can only exist
through public funding should be subject to the same standards of
transparency as government agencies. If private prison companies like CCA and
GEO would like to continue to enjoy taxpayer-funded federal contracts, then
they must be required to adhere to the same disclosure laws applicable to
their public counterparts, including FOIA. Why should private prison firms,
which are funded exclusively with taxpayer dollars, be any less accountable
to the public than federal corrections agencies such as the Bureau of Prisons
or ICE? We contend that because the for-profit private prison industry relies
almost entirely on taxpayer support, and performs
the inherently governmental function of incarceration—depriving people of
their liberty—the public has a right to access information related to private
prison operations. In short, the government should not be allowed to contract
away the public’s right to know with respect to housing federal prisoners and
detainees in privately-operated facilities. You can read the whole letter,
along with an accompanying press release from the Human Rights Defense
Center, here. Pith asked Nashville Congressman Jim Cooper if he would support
the legislation were it to be reintroduced. He sent along this statement: “We
need transparency in our prisons to be sure they’re running properly. Better
oversight will take time and cooperation from all levels of government, but
it’s an achievable goal. If this bill is reintroduced, I will review whether
it’s part of the solution.”
Dec 17, 2014 themarshallproject.org
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know
About Private Prisons......is none of your damn business. Last week,
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, tried yet again to shine
some light on the opaque system of private prisons that house over 31,500
federal inmates. For the sixth time, she introduced the Private Prison
Information Act to make private correctional facilities subject to the same
federal public records laws as government-run prisons. It will not have an
easy run, given the fierce resistance of private prison companies. The
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest for-profit prison
company, has spent at least $7 million lobbying against the bill since 2005,
according to a tally by disclosure advocates. Others who oppose the proposal
say it would set a “dangerous precedent” of applying public record law to
private companies, and raise the cost of private contractors by increasing
legal fees and record-keeping staff. In an email, CCA spokesperson Steve Owen
said the bill was unnecessary. “The Department of Justice, the Bureau of
Prisons and the Department of Homeland Security already have in place
explicit procedures for making applicable information available to the
public,” he wrote. “The result could be a breakdown in the now collaborative
process between private sector contractors and the federal government to
determine what information is appropriate for release.”There
has been a bit more transparency on the state level, where several state
courts have ruled that private prisons accepting public money should comply
with disclosure requests. In September, a district court judge in Texas found
that CCA prisons counted as a “government body” and would have to comply with
the state Public Information Act. Judges in Vermont, Tennessee and Florida
have issued similar decisions. But the federally funded private prisons,
holding mostly immigrants awaiting deportation, remain a black box. Lawyers,
advocates and investigators have tried to piece together a picture of how
they run, but large swaths of the industry remain a mystery. Here are a few
of the big questions about private federal prisons, that might be answered if
Rep. Jackson Lee’s bill ever got out of limbo:Do
they actually save money?The main argument in favor
of private prisons housing federal inmates is that they can save taxpayer
dollars. But without detailed data on exactly how private facilities spend
public money, it is impossible to know whether they are in fact cheaper or
more efficient. A 2007 report from the Government Accountability Office found
that “without comparable data, [the Bureau Of Prisons] is not able to
evaluate and justify whether confining inmates in private facilities is more
cost-effective than other confinement alternatives such as building new BOP
facilities.” The BOP rejected their recommendation to collect more detailed data.How safe are they?We cannot say how many people detained in private
facilities file complaints or grievances and how many of them are sustained.
That data is hard to procure and incomplete for public prisons. But for
private prisons, it is nonexistent. Incident reports that detail fights
between detainees or attacks on officers are also secret. What research has
been done on this subject has been inconclusive. A 2012 study in Mississippi found
privately-run prisons in the state had assault rates three to five times
higher than the public facilities. But a 2005 study from the Bureau of
Prisons found “being an inmate at the private prison seemed to reduce the
probability of violent misconduct.” Without legal action, it is also hard to
track how inmates are treated inside specific facilities. A recent string of
lawsuits against private state prisons uncovered conditions that a federal
judge described as “a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts.”How do they use solitary confinement?Private
facilities do not have to report how many inmates they hold in isolation or
provide to the public policies dictating who gets put there. The use of
isolation was largely a mystery until the ACLU interviewed hundreds of
immigrants detained in private prisons for a 2014 report. “We found people
were being put in solitary confinement on intake and kept there for days or
weeks because there were beds available in the solitary confinement units but
not in general population,” said staff attorney Carl Takei of the ACLU’s
National Prison Project. “It required going in and interviewing scores of
prisoners that were able to speak about their experiences. [The Bureau of
Prisons] didn’t produce any documents in response to our FOIA request.” The
interviews also found inmates were sent to solitary for reasons ranging from
filing a complaint to asking for new shoes. “The combination of inadequate
BOP oversight and the lack of transparency created by this FOIL loophole make
it essentially impossible for the public to know what’s going on,” Takei
said. This post has been updated to include a comment from CCA.
Dec. 16, 2014 motherjones.com
Will Private Prisons Finally Be Subject
to the Freedom of Information Act? Anyone can use the
federal Freedom of Information Act to request records about prisons owned and
operated by the government. Information about prisoner demographics, violent
incidents, and prison budgets are all obtainable. But privately run
facilities—even those that hold federal prisoners—are exempt from the law.
Last week, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) introduced legislation to change
that. On December 10, she introduced a new bill, the Private Prison
Information Act. If passed, it would force any nonfederal prison holding
federal prisoners to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. In 2013,
41,200 federal convicts—19 percent of the entire federal prison
population—were housed in private facilities. That year, Corrections
Corporation of America, the largest prison contractor in the United States,
collected more than $584 million from the federal government. Passing Lee's
bill will be difficult, if not impossible. From 2005 to 2012, Democrats
(including Lee) introduced five separate bills that aimed to apply FOIA to
private prisons. All of them failed. With the GOP—which has been generally
friendly to the prison industry—controlling both houses of Congress beginning
next year, the new bill will likely meet a similar end. Meanwhile, increasing
numbers of prisoners are locked up in facilities that are legally immune to
open-records requests. From 2000 to 2009, the number of people locked up in
private facilities at every level of the justice system increased 37 percent,
to 129,336, according to the Department of Justice. By the end of 2013,
133,000 inmates—about 8 percent of the entire US prison population—were
housed in private prisons. The figure is on par with the entire California
prison population at that time.
July 29, 2013 abcnews.go.com
On a recent day at a migrant shelter in
the Mexican border town of Nogales, Luis* was waiting for a call from his
guide informing him they would be crossing the desert into the United States.
The 34-year-old had been in the city, just an hour's drive south of Tucson,
Arizona, for nearly two weeks and said he missed his family, especially his
two young daughters. Luis had worked at a farm in Arizona and was the primary
provider in his household. He was determined to go back and care for his
children. "I don't want to undo the life that they have," he said.
See Also: Immigrants Get Assembly-Line Justice in Federal Court. This was
Luis' third deportation. The first time was four years ago when he was caught
by Border Patrol and imprisoned for a month and a half through a program
known as Operation Streamline. The program sends as many as 70 migrants
before a judge at one time, and has an almost mechanical conviction rate of
99 percent, according to a study by the Warren Institute. Defendants are
given up to six months in a federal prison, often privately run. The threat
of jail time lay heavy on his mind, but Luis said he was prepared to risk
incarceration to return to his children. "If I cross back over they can
give me time," he said. "But, no matter what, I will return."
Luis isn't the only one. Many other deportees are struggling to reunite with
their families, according a University of Arizona report. The drive for
family reunification not only means people like Luis end up in prison, it
means that the companies that run those prisons will profit. If an
immigration reform bill passes in Congress this year, it could increase those
profits even more. For example, a comprehensive bill that passed in the
Senate in late June would authorize funding to triple the number of Streamline
prosecutions in the Tucson district, the southern border's busiest Border
Patrol sector. When you combine the powerful draw of family reunification
with a criminal justice program like Streamline, you get a renewable source
of income for Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a private prison
company with facilities in Florence, Arizona. Under current laws, Streamline
defendants charged with a felony for reentry receive a maximum of six months
in a federal prison. But in an additional boon for private prisons, the new
bill would double that maximum sentence from six months to one year.
Subsequent reentry prosecutions would constitute two to three years in
prison. All that could translate into more profits for prison companies like
the CCA and GEO Group. Both companies run prisons in Arizona where many
migrants like Luis are held. In addition, CCA owns around 60 facilities in
the U.S. and earned $1.7 billion 2012, according to The Nation. Nearly a
quarter of the company's profits are from Immigration and Customs Enforcement
contracts. A spokesperson for CCA responded in an email stating, the CCA
"does not take positions on, lobby for or in any way promote policies
that determine the basis for an individual's detention." Meanwhile GEO
Group owns 56 facilities and brought in $1.4 billion in revenue. Both
companies have grown significantly with the increase in incarceration of
migrants. GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment. Some of the
senators who drafted the immigration bill -- John McCain (R-Ariz.) Jeff Flake
(R-Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) -- have received donations from some of
the largest private prison companies in the U.S. McCain is among the top
recipients, having received over $127,000 in contributions from private
prisons since he was elected, according to The Nation. A request for comment
from McCain's office was not returned at the time of publication. CCA and GEO
Group combined have spent more than $45 million to influence state and
federal government, The Nation found. Not everyone in the criminal justice
system supports Operation Streamline, however. Isabel García was a former
federal public defender and is currently a Pima County legal defender in
Tucson. She has long been an outspoken opponent of the program, and now its
expansion. García said Operation Streamline erodes the faith people had in
U.S. courts. "I oppose not only the expansion," she said in a
recent phone interview, "but the existence of Operation Streamline as a
total mockery of our criminal justice system." Within the program,
"there is a lack of any real humanity, and any meaningful process,"
García said. "Most federal public defenders see that this is really an
outrageous expenditure of money." *We only used Luis' first name due to
the sensitivity of his U.S. legal status.
July 5, 2013, online.wsj.com
Congressional
efforts to rewrite the nation's immigration laws represent a potential payday
for an industry already getting a boost from the current crackdown on illegal
immigration: privately operated prisons. The two biggest companies,
Corrections Corp. of America and the GEO Group Inc., GEO +0.67%owe a big
chunk of their recent growth to a drive by the federal government to lock up
people who are in the U.S illegally. Legislation approved by the Senate would
increase the federal prison population further, by 14,000 inmates annually,
according to the Congressional Budget Office. The price tag would be $1.6
billion over the next decade. "The private sector would stand to benefit
the most because the feds have turned to them to meet their immigration
needs," said Kevin Campbell, a senior research analyst at investment
firm Avondale Partners, who is recommending CCA and GEO Group. He thinks
private contractors could snag 80% of the additional inmates. This boon represents
just one example of how business and the economy could be changed by the
first major rewrite of the country's immigration laws since the 1980s.
Technology companies stand to get more visas for high-skilled foreign
workers. Farmers would have more access to immigrant labor through an
expanded visa program and new protections for farm workers already in the
country illegally. Congress is a long way from passing an immigration
overhaul, and the prospects for a bill are dimmer in the House than the
Senate. If the House succeeds, however, most observers expect its legislation
to focus even more than the Senate's on clamping down on illegal immigration.
"Any compromise bill will need to throw additional spending at border
security, " said Stephen Myrow, managing
director of ACG Analytics, Inc., an investment research firm that advised
clients that immigration reform will boost revenue at privately operated
prisons. This would more than overcome a challenge to the prison business
embedded in the legislation. By granting temporary legal status to millions
of undocumented immigrants currently in the country, the legislation would
decriminalize a population that represents a growing share of the federal
prison system. Company executives have been cautious about the impact of an
eventual bill. In February, GEO Group Chief Executive George Zoley told Wall Street analysts he didn't expect any
measure to change the number of beds filled each day by the U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agency. Congress currently requires ICE to keep
34,000 beds filled at all times. CCA Chief Executive Damon Hininger said the same month that ICE officials believe
"there's always going to be demand for beds." The two companies
have spent millions lobbying Congress and the administration on
prison-related issues, according to the Senate disclosure database. In the
2012 election season, CCA and its executives contributed more than $950,000
in campaign donations to governors, candidates for federal office and the two
main political parties, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The
GEO Group and its executives contributed $418,500. Spokesmen for CCA and the
GEO Group said the companies don't lobby Congress to influence immigration
policy; rather, they promote their services. "One of the most important
benefits we provide our government partners is the flexibility to manage
their changing needs," said CCA spokesman Steve Owen. For years, critics
argued that privately operated prisons don't save money and often house
prisoners in substandard facilities. Many of these opponents are pushing
lawmakers to limit detentions to illegal immigrants who also commit serious
crimes. Immigration cases accounted for the largest share of federal criminal
convictions in each of the past four years, making up 32% of all convictions
last year, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. In 2000, roughly
13,000 people served more than a year in federal prison for
immigration-related offenses, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
By 2011, that number had jumped to 22,100. ICE contracts have caused a jump
in revenue for both companies since 2005 after the US started bringing
criminal charges against far more illegal immigrants. GEO Group generated
roughly a quarter of its revenue from federal contracts in 2005, with just 5%
coming from ICE, according to its annual report. Last year, that number rose
to 40% of $1.4 billion in revenue from federal contracts, with 14% from ICE.
At CCA, ICE contracts provided $206 million of its $1.7 billion in total
revenue last year, according to its 2012 annual report. Both companies are
opening new facilities and offering additional services. GEO Group in 2011
acquired a company with an exclusive ICE contract to monitor immigrants who
face deportation but not criminal charges. The company successfully lobbied
to include that alternative detention program in the Senate bill.
June 4, 2013 thenation.com
Detainees inside a holding cell at the
Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Wash. The facility is operated by The GEO
Group Inc. under contract from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and
houses people whose immigration status is in question or who are waiting for
deportation or deportation hearings. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Earlier this
year, one of the largest private prison corporations in the country sent out
a statement to reporters claiming that it would not lobby in any way over the
immigration reform debate. A new disclosure shows that the company, the Boca
Raton–based Geo Group, has in fact paid an “elite team of federal lobbyists”
to influence the comprehensive immigration reform legislation making its way
through Congress. The Geo Group currently manages several immigrant detention
facilities for the federal government, and has faced questions about its role
in shaping policies that may lead to more incarceration. In February and
March, Pablo Paez, the Geo Group’s vice president
of corporate relations, told media outlets, including the Financial Times and
The Nation, that his firm would steer clear of immigration reform politics.
See statement below (emphasis added): “The GEO Group has never directly or
indirectly lobbied to influence immigration policy. We have not discussed any
immigration reform related matters with any members of Congress, and we will
not participate in the current immigration reform debate.” Geo Group’s
quarterly lobbying disclosure tells a different story. A disclosure filed in
April shows that the company turned to Navigators Global to lobby both houses
of Congress on “issues related to comprehensive immigration reform.”
Navigators Global, a corporate government affairs firm founded by several
Republican aides, has been retained by the Geo Group since 2011, though
previous lobbying disclosures show the firm primarily worked on federal
appropriations. The latest disclosure, however, shows that their scope of
work on Capitol Hill shifted in the first three months of this year to
include the immigration bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in
May. See screenshot of the disclosure below: The private prison industry has
developed close ties to leading members of Congress, including those in the
so-called Gang of Eight leading the immigration reform discussions. Senator
Marco Rubio, who is perhaps the most visible Republican on the issue, has
received generous campaign donations from the industry, including from Geo
Group. The new disclosure suggests an even greater bind to the company
because Cesar Conda, Rubio’s chief of staff, was
the founding partner of Navigators Global. As we reported, he has continued
to receive payments from the firm through a stock buy-out agreement reached
after Conda entered work for Rubio. Demands for an
“enforcement-first” approach to immigration reform could dramatically benefit
private prison operators. Conservative lawmakers have called for new criminal
penalties for immigrants, mandates to local law enforcement to check the
status of those suspected of being undocumented, and an expansion of current
guidelines classifying undocumented immigrants as “criminal aliens”—all
policies that could lead to more people being detained in private prisons,
thus more profit for the industry. It’s no wonder Geo Group is now directly
lobbying on the bill.
Feb 8, 2013 forbes.com
It can be difficult to obtain
information about how prisons operate. Prison administrators often have
legitimate security reasons for withholding, say, a map of a prison’s inner
sanctum, or the home addresses of correctional officers working in solitary
confinement units, or information about a murder behind bars that hasn’t yet
been solved. But since prisons operate in service of the justice system — and
thus in service of U.S. citizens — there are also legitimate reasons why
someone might like to know, say, the number of abuses reported against
prisoners over a certain period of time at a certain prison, or the context
of civil rights lawsuits filed against certain staff members or, as in this
Idaho case, the number of hours COs work in a row without a break. To
accommodate these legitimate reasons for withholding and/or disclosing
information, each state and the U.S. federal government have systems in place
to evaluate whether a requested piece of information should be viewable to
the public or not. As it turns out, the federal disclosure system — the
federal Freedom of Information Act — doesn’t apply to private prisons. So if
a private prison company doesn’t explicitly reveal information, FOIA won’t
force them to. In other words, if serious questions arise about the 27,970 or
so prisoners in privately managed federal lockups or the approximately 16,500
federal immigration detainees held in privately-operated facilities under
contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, there’s no legal
remedy in place forcing those questions to be answered. There is a movement
of prisoner rights advocates and nonprofits, however, who would like to
change that. They have rallied around Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee
(D.-Houston.) to reintroduce the Private Prison Information Act, a bill that died in Congress two years ago. Put simply, this
bill would, ensure that “[e]ach applicable entity shall be subject to … the
Freedom of Information Act … in the same manner as a Federal agency operating
a Federal prison or other Federal correctional facility would be subject to
[FOIA].” Those advocates — most actively, Alex Friedmann of Prison Legal
News, and Christopher Petrella, a doctoral student in U.C. Berkeley — hope
that Rep. Jackson Lee will reintroduce the bill again this year. They outline
their reasons in this open letter, released late last year: We are deeply
troubled by the secrecy with which the private corrections industry presently
operates. Whereas the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and state departments of
corrections are subject to disclosure statutes under the Freedom of
Information Act and state-level public records laws, private prison firms
that contract with public agencies generally are not,” the joint letter
submitted to Rep. Jackson Lee noted. “This lack of public transparency is
indefensible in light of the nearly $8 billion in federal contracts that
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group (GEO) – the
nation’s two largest private prisons firms – have been awarded since 2007.” Read
an interview with Friedmann and Petrella here. Rep. Jackson Lee has yet to
announce if she’ll reintroduce the bill. UPDATE: The Blog of Legal Times has
some information about CCA’s lobbying efforts. From the post: CCA spent
$970,000 on federal lobbying in 2012, according to congressional records. For
its advocacy efforts, the company used its own staffers, as well as lobbyists
at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, McBee
Strategic Consulting and Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti.
The company operates 67 facilities, 47 of which it owns, according to its
website. The facilities, which have more than 90,000 beds, are located in
D.C. and 20 states. For the first nine months of 2012, CCA received $570.2
million from the U.S. government, the company’s most recent quarterly
financial report shows.
January 9, 2012 Salon
The Obama campaign is keeping mum on the role senior advisor Broderick
Johnson played in lobbying for the 2008 Wall Street bailout when he worked as
a hired gun for the country’s largest financial services companies. Johnson’s
past work as a lobbyist was noted in the press when he was appointed a top
Obama surrogate in late October, but not the details of his extensive and
lucrative work for the financial services industry. Johnson’s hiring despite
his recent work for Wall Street strikes a dissonant note in view of the Obama
camp’s reported strategy of “channeling anti-Wall Street anger” as a way to take on the Republicans. Records show that in
2008, as an employee at Washington law firm Bryan Cave, Johnson lobbied for
the $700 billion TARP bailout on behalf of the Financial Services Forum,
which is composed of the CEOs of the 20 biggest financial institutions doing
business in the United States. Forum members include big names like Goldman
Sachs, UBS, AIG, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank. From 2007 through the
first quarter of 2011, Johnson and a handful of other Bryan Cave lobbyists
were paid $450,000 by the Financial Services Forum, records show. Johnson and
a small number of colleagues brought in a total of $1.3 million to Bryan Cave
from the financial services industry over the past five years. That includes
work he did for Fannie Mae, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, the
Electronic Payments Coalition and the investment firm J.C. Flowers. Asked for
details about Johnson’s work on the bailout, an Obama campaign spokesperson
responded only that “Broderick is no longer a lobbyist — he deregistered in
April — and he will not discuss any matters related to his clients with the
campaign or administration.” Because of the campaign’s reticence, we don’t
know many of the details of Johnson’s work for the Financial Services Forum
beyond the fact that at the height of the fall 2008 crisis, he lobbied on the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, which created the $700 billion TARP
program. After the House narrowly defeated the first version of the bill in
late September 2008, Financial Services Forum executive Rob Nichols sounded
the alarm. “Just as the cardiovascular system is the essential,
life-sustaining system of the body, the financial system is the essential
basis upon which the growth and vitality of all other sectors of the economy
depend,” Nichols said. “We believe this legislation is critically important
and should be enacted into law at the earliest possible time in order restore
market stability and increase credit availability for Americans.” Resentment
over the bailouts lingers across the political spectrum, from the Tea Party
to the Occupy movement. Supporters of the program point to the fact that much
of the money has been paid back with interest; critics argue that it failed
Main Street and that, in the words of Elizabeth Warren, the money given to
banks had “no strings attached, no accountability, no transparency.” The
Obama campaign declined to comment when asked whether the hiring of a former
bailout lobbyist undercuts Obama’s critical message on Wall Street. Johnson
is known as an extremely well-connected Democratic operative. The husband of
NPR’s Michele Norris, he has been through the revolving door a few times,
working variously as a Capitol Hill staffer, lobbyist and Clinton
administration official. Mary Beth Cahill, campaign manager for John Kerry’s
2004 presidential bid, told the Hill in 2008 that in his work for that
campaign Johnson possessed a “smooth and adept way of managing crises” and
“knew everybody.” In February 2009, just as the new administration was
getting underway and with Johnson fresh off his stint as an informal advisor
to the Obama campaign, he touted his connections with the White House in an
interview with Roll Call. “We are seeing growth across the board,” he said.
“Health care, energy and financial services are key issues in 2009 where we
have both expertise and strong relationships on the Hill and in the new
administration.” Johnson has lobbied for a lengthy roster of large corporate
clients. His work for TransCanada, the company that wants to build the
controversial Keystone XL pipeline, has already been explored in the media.
In the past five years, he has also worked for Shell; Verizon; Anheuser
Busch; Microsoft; Comcast; the Biotechnology Industry Organization; the trade
group for the cable TV industry; private prison giant the GEO Group; and the Talx Corp., which specializes in helping employers fight
unemployment claims and which has been criticized for shoddy and unfair
practices.
October 25, 2011 Open Secrets
OBAMA CAMPAIGN'S REVOLVING DOOR ADDITION: K Street and Capitol Hill
veteran Broderick Johnson is joining the re-election campaign of President
Barack Obama as a senior adviser. Johnson clocked more than a decade of
experience in the U.S. House of Representatives, as an attorney, during the
1980s and 1990s. Between 1998 and 2000, he served in senior roles in the
Clinton White House, including acting as the president's principal liaison to
the House. And after working for President Bill Clinton, Johnson became a top
lobbyist for BellSouth Corp. and AT&T. During his time in the private
sector in Washington, Johnson has also worked for Wiley, Rein & Fielding,
the Oliver Group, Bryan Cave Strategies, Bryan Cave LLP and the
Collins-Johnson Group, according to research by the Center for Responsive
Politics. In addition to AT&T, Johnson's clients over the years have
included numerous political heavy weights, federal lobbying records show,
such as Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, Comcast, Fannie Mae, FedEx, Ford, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft,
Shell Oil, Time Warner and Verizon. Federal records indicate that he has also
lobbied on behalf of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the GEO Group (the
private prison industry giant) and TransCanada Corp. -- although TransCanada
spokesman Terry Cunha told Politico Monday that the company's
"government relations operation did not look to and receive lobbying
support from Broderick Johnson," despite what lobbying records show, as
the energy company has sought Obama administration approval for its
controversial Keystone XL pipeline project.
September 1, 2010 AP
Prison operator Corrections Corp. of America spent $240,000 lobbying federal
officials in the second quarter. That's down slightly from the $250,000 it
spent on lobbying in the first quarter of 2010 and the $260,000 it spent
lobbying in the second quarter of last year. The company said it lobbied on issues
related to the private prison industry and on all provisions of the Safe
Prisons Communications Act of 2009 and the Private Prison Information Act of
2009, among other topics. Aside from Congress, Corrections Corp. also lobbied
the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S.
Immigration & Customs Enforcement in the April-to-June quarter, according
to a report filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on July 20.
March 27, 2010 Texas Observer
Henry Arroliga lives in South Texas' Port Isabel
Detention Center, one of the nation's largest immigration detention
facilities. After 17 years of living illegally in the United States, he's
bracing himself to return to his native Nicaragua. Although Arroliga could very well be deported within the next
month, the 2010 U.S. Census will count him as a resident of Los Fresnos, in Cameron County. His short stint at Port
Isabel will pay dividends to the city, county, and state for the next decade.
Arroliga is one of more than 30,000 immigrant
detainees who will be counted in this year's census. Four hundred billion
dollars in federal funding over the next 10 years will be distributed based
on the count, making detainees worth thousands of dollars to cities,
counties, and states where they are briefly detained. The government will
allocate more than $100 million in additional funds to places where
immigrants are detained. More than funding is at stake: The composition of
legislative districts, county board districts, and city council districts
could be skewed by soon-to-be-deported prisoners. Census data are used on the
state and national levels to determine the sizes and shapes of these
districts. The inclusion of detainees in the count means fewer eligible
voters per elected official in places like Cameron County. It also violates
the principle of "proportional representation." For decades, the
government has included prisoners in the census, regardless of their
immigration status. In the past, the impact of immigrant detainees has been
slight. This is the first decennial census since the re-organization of immigrantion agencies and the subsequent boom in
immigration detention. Immigration prisons have expanded from 7,500 beds in
1995 to more than 30,000 in 2010. About one-third of the nation's immigrant
detainees are held in Texas. That doesn't count undocumented immigrants in
the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service awaiting deportation
proceedings--thousands in Texas alone. Carl Caulk, the U.S. Marshals
assistant director for prisoner operations, says that recent Border Patrol
crackdowns like Operation Streamline have sent the number of immigrants in
Marshals' custody through the roof. Operation Streamline mandated that
charges be filed against virtually every person caught crossing the border
illegally. Like ICE detainees, these immigrants will be counted in the 2010
census. The Census Bureau's inclusion of immigrant detainees has received
little notice. It comes at a tense time in the immigration debate, with
reform advocates facing a challenging political climate. This year's
population count points to an often ignored irony: The country's detention
facilities are concentrated in districts represented by some of Congress'
most outspoken advocates of reform--including several South Texas congressmen
who will benefit from counting immigrant detainees. U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz,
a Corpus Christi Democrat, introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill
in the House this spring. Yet with about 5,000 beds for immigrant detainees,
his South Texas district stands to see millions of additional tax dollars
allocated on the basis of the census. In response to questions from the
Observer, Ortiz issued a statement reading: "The U.S. Census Bureau is
mandated by the United States Constitution to count every resident regardless
of citizenship status. I can assure you that it is in everybody's best
interest to get as many people as possible counted." Until this census,
the count had never identified exactly where "group quarters" like
prisons are and how many people occupy them. For the first time, this census
will let states decide whether to count detainees in local populations. By
excluding prisoners, states would get a more accurate population count and
would ensure that funds are not distributed according to locations of large
detention centers. The amount of federal funding directed to the state would
not change. Counting prisoners--residents or immigrants--is against Texas
state law. "A person who is an inmate in a penal institution or who is
an involuntary inmate in a hospital or eleemosynary institution does not,
while an inmate, acquire residence at the place where the institution is
located," reads Texas Election Code Section 1.015. Nevertheless, the
census counts them as residents. "There's a clear discrepancy between
state law and the Census Bureau's methodology," said Peter Wagner of the
Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based research group. Congressman
Ortiz had no comment on how detainees could affect federal funding and redistricting.
Some of his former supporters see his willingness to profit from his
district's immigrant detainees as evidence of hypocrisy. "I can't think
of anything more two-faced," said the Rev. Miguel Rivera, president of
the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, and an
advocate for immigration reform. To the Census Bureau's dismay, Rivera has
urged undocumented immigrants not to fill out the census forms. "It's
our greatest bargaining chip," he said. "The states and counties
want the funding, and we want the legalization." Rivera's campaign has
received considerable attention, and while many Latino leaders disagree with
his approach, he is convinced that threatening to withhold the instruments of
federal funding is the way to attract politicians to the table. Within
facilities like Port Isabel, detainees likely won't be able to opt out of the
census. According to Census Bureau officials, for the last month detention
center employees have been completing census forms on behalf of inmates like
Henry Arroliga. "They're using them to secure
federal funding and political power, and then they're shipping them out of
the country," Rivera said. "It's an insult." The issue has
made Rivera and U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, unlikely
bedfellows. Vitter, along with several other conservatives in Congress,
supported an unsuccessful effort last fall to exclude noncitizens from
apportionment and redistricting counts. "I don't believe noncitizens
should be counted in congressional reapportionment," Vitter told
Congress last fall. "I don't think states which have particularly large
noncitizen populations should have more say and more clout in Congress, and
that states like Louisiana that don't should be penalized." Or, if you
follow the logic, that states like Texas should be rewarded. In Raymondville,
a rural city 100 miles south of Corpus Christi, the census count is buzzing
along. The Census Bureau has a booth outside City Hall. Local TV stations are
advertising the importance of filling out the forms. People have been hired
to distribute forms, part of a 1.2 million temporary work force nationwide
that will make up the largest civilian mobilization of Americans in history.
In Raymondville, the conversation isn't about the scale of the government's
undertaking. It's about the Willacy Detention Center, the country's largest
detention facility, holding up to 3,000 prisoners. When the census came up at
the last City Council meeting, a councilman asked city secretary Eleazar
Garcia: "What about the detainees? Do we get to count them?" If its
population exceeds 10,000 in the census, Raymondville would be in the running
for a panoply of state grants. The only way that could happen is if the
city's immigrant detainees are included in the count. "Overall, we would
benefit if we could hit that mark," Garcia said. So would La Villa, just
north of McAllen. The 2000 census found its population to be 1,305. Just a
year later, the Louisiana-based private prison company LCS Corrections
Services Inc. opened the East Hidalgo Detention Center, which houses up to
990 immigrant detainees. According to its warden, the facility is almost
always full. After the 2010 Census is tallied, the detention center will
nearly double La Villa's population on paper, potentially doubling its
federal funding allocation distributed by the state according to population.
(The facility, run by the U.S. Marshals, is already a boon to the local
government, which receives $2 per prisoner per day.) The distribution of
funds based on immigrant detainee populations "points to a flaw in the
way the population counts are used," said Audrey Singer, a demographer
at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. "The fact
that ICE detainees are geographically concentrated will have an effect on the
count." In Washington, there appears to be confusion about the inclusion
of immigrant detainees in the census. Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Laredo
Democrat, represents a district that includes the 1,900-bed South Texas
Detention Center and the 450-bed Laredo Contract Detention Facility. He
defended the inclusion of immigrant detainees: "Vitally important
funding that supports these facilities relies, in part, on census data."
Experts say Cuellar is wrong. "Immigration prisons are funded by the
Department of Homeland Security, not formula grants" based on census
data, said Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative. Like Rep. Ortiz, Cuellar
is a longstanding advocate of immigration reform. His attitude about
immigrant detainees in the census has disturbed immigration-reform advocates
in his district. One reason Texas' congressmen and state representatives
might be looking the other way is that 375,000 Texans were not counted in
2000, according to a Census Bureau study. That cost the state a huge amount
of federal dollars. The main culprit, experts agree, was the difficulty of
getting undocumented immigrants--including an estimated 150,000 in the Rio
Grande Valley alone--to participate. This year, the Census Bureau has spent
millions on a campaign to convince minorities, including undocumented
immigrants, to get themselves counted. Still, community organizers and
activists along the border say the effort faces considerable challenges.
"The census worker shows up and expects people to be compliant," said
Michael Seifert of the Equal Voice for America's Families Network. "Much
laughter is heard in the cantina around that idea." During the 2000
census, Seifert said some immigrants distrusted and feared the government--a
fear then inspired by President Bill Clinton's 1996 immigration enforcement
bills. "I find it so sweetly ironic that those who have been caught up
in the biggest dragnet of a civilian population in American history--the
detainees--will be included in the census count, and therefore serve as a
'corrective' to all of those people who will ignore the census request,"
Seifert said. The issue could be resolved if Texas decides to remove
immigrant detainees from the count before distributing state funds and
addressing redistricting. The Census Bureau has agreed to release data on
inmate populations earlier than usual to let states and localities consider
it in apportioning districts for 2011 and 2012 races. It's an issue that
could be broached in the 2011 legislative session. Bills to make such adjustments
are already pending in New York, Maryland, Illinois, Florida and Wisconsin.
So far, including immigrant detainees in Texas' census count has been a
non-issue. "It's hard to believe that the victims of our inhumane
immigration detention system are being used like this," Rivera said,
"like pawns in a game of state and national politics." Kevin Sieff lives in Washington, D.C. and is a contributing
writer for The Texas Observer, where this originally appeared.
January 29, 2010 TPMMuckraker
The four conservative activists arrested for tampering with the phones of
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu earlier this week have been linked to the
Pelican Institute, a conservative New Orleans think tank. Pelican is a
relatively new organization, but it appears to have strong ties to members of
the state's Republican elite, most notably Representative Charles Boustany.
Though only one of the tamperers is from Louisiana,
Pelican appears to have been the group's home base there. The apparent
ringleader, James O'Keefe -- also the activist behind last September's ACORN
videotape -- spoke at a Pelican Institute luncheon last week. Another one of
the four, Robert Flanagan, is a paid blogger for Pelican (Flanagan is the son
of the acting US attorney in Shreveport, Bill Flanagan). Pelican's founder,
Kevin Kane, blogs at BigGovernment, the site where
O'Keefe first posted the ACORN video. TPMMuckraker
has found that Pelican "enjoys a prominent voice in Louisiana political
circles." A close look at its board of directors helps explain why this
is the case. Pelican listed three board members on its 2008 990 (available
from Guidestar): founder Kevin Kane, lawyer Stephen
Gele, and one "J LeBlanc." A LinkedIn
page reveals that the listing refers to Jennifer LeBlanc, a Republican fundraiser
who chaired the Louisiana finance committee of presidential hopeful Rudy
Giuliani in 2008. LeBlanc is extremely tightly linked to Representative
Charles Boustany, who was a close friend of her late husband, Patrick
LeBlanc, before he died in a 2008 plane crash. LeBlanc was a top Boustany
donor, as well, and he and Jennifer hosted a high-profile fundraiser for his
Congressional campaign in 2005. Vice president Dick Cheney was the featured
guest. The LeBlancs, Boustany, and Senator David
Vitter all endorsed Rudy Giuliani's campaign for president in 2007. Boustany
and Cheney. Boustany also endorsed LeBlanc during his unsuccessful run for
state representative that year. That bid was undone by ongoing scandals
related to LeBlanc's prison operation and construction business, LCS
Corrections. The company operates private prisons throughout the southeast
and Texas, and has been investigated by the FBI for "contracting
irregularities" related to possible bribery schemes. Boustany's
brother-in-law, Christopher Edwards, was LeBlanc's attorney during his
campaign, and threatened to sue LeBlanc's opponent over a negative ad.
Edwards is the nephew of disgraced Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards. When
Patrick LeBlanc died, Boustany released the following statement: "Pat
was my dear friend, a loving family man and a leader in the Lafayette
community. It is a terrible loss, and my thoughts and prayers are with
Jennifer and his children. Bridget and I will miss him greatly."
Boustany and Pelican were both out in front of the ACORN scandal in August
and September. Boustany was one of the first members of Congress to react to
news of the ACORN videotape last September. The day after the news broke, on
September 11, 2009, he called for a House Oversight investigation of the group's
tax prep activities. TPM has reported that Pelican published an investigative
report on ACORN in August 2009, one month before the O'Keefe videotape was
released. The report alleged that ACORN had evaded federal taxes on a number
of occasions. Was there coordination between Boustany, BigGovernment,
Pelican, and O'Keefe? What role does Jennifer LeBlanc play at the Pelican
Institute? Who funds the organization? There's still a lot more to learn
here, but this is shaping up to be a very interesting scandal.Leia
and WileECoyote have done awesome work updating
information on the various networks behind O'Keefe and Pelican. Pelican
appears to have strong ties to the Reason Foundation, and Pelican founder
Kevin Kane and Breitbart's relationship deserves closer examination, among
other things. Let me know if you want to get deep into the Louisiana muck.
January 26, 2010 Reporters Committee
for Freedom of the Press
Proposed legislation that would apply existing public records laws to all
prisons housing federal inmates was discussed during a congressional briefing
on Monday. The bill, H.R. 2450, was crafted to extend the Freedom of
Information Act to private prisons that contract with government agencies. If
the bill is passed, publicly financed private prisons, which house more than
100,000 federal inmates, would be subject to the same reporting standards as
the Bureau of Prisons. The companies that run private prisons say they are
not required to disclose basic information about the facilities or the
inmates -- except for reports issued upon an inmate's death -- under existing
FOIA law because while they receive taxpayer money, they are not public
agencies. A panel of specialists at the briefing spoke about the need for
more transparency. "If they do answer the requests, all the documents
are redacted and they cite 'trade secrets' as the reason they can't
disclose," said Tom Barry, senior analyst at the Center for
International Policy, of his experiences getting information about inmates in
private facilities from the Bureau of Prisons. David Shapiro, an attorney for
the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, put the
scope of the issue in perspective, noting "over 70 percent of the
prisoners we represent are in for-profit prisons."
December 11, 2009 TPM Muckraker
A party planning side business run by three current and former
congressional staffers raked in over $20,000 last year from lobbyists holding
events to honor Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) -- whose own communications
director is co-founder of the firm. The apparent arrangement between Thompson
and the business, Chic Productions, at once allows private interests to get
closer to the congressman's office and gives the staffers a way to dip a
straw into the river of outside money flowing through Capitol Hill. Chic
Productions offers "high style events with simple elegance" and
advertises its previous work executing "congressional events and
fundraising parties." One of Chic's principals was quoted in 2007 saying
congressional events make up roughly 90 percent of the firm's business. The
three women who run Chic are: Dena Graziano, Thompson's communications
director since 2006; Michone Johnson, chief counsel
for the House Judiciary Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee; and
Michelle Persaud, formerly of the House Judiciary Committee, now corporate
counsel at T-Mobile. Graziano's bio on Chic's Web site says she has
"straddled the fine line between politics and entertainment as an event
and communications strategist to some of the nation's most well known personalities." Johnson's boasts that,
"As a lawyer, Michone has honed her planning
skills by executing everything from intense negotiations and member briefings
to happy hours birthday parties, and staff retirement parties." A Chic
floral display with the congressional seal at '07 Thompson eventThe extent of the business Chic has done for
Thompson remains unclear because lobbyist disclosure statements that reveal
the arrangement have only recently been required, and comprehensive data is available
only for 2008. But besides the lobbyist receptions, Chic has put on at least
six other Thompson-linked events. Lobbyists spend millions of dollars each
year wining and dining lawmakers at receptions held in their honor. The
events serve many purposes, among them gaining valuable access to members of
Congress and staffers, and building good will in a relaxed social format. But
actually paying staffers to organize events to honor their bosses is a new
twist on the old practice. As chair of the Committee on Homeland Security,
Thompson is among the most powerful Democrats in the House. He has been under
an ethical cloud since last week when the Washington Post reported on
allegations by Homeland Security Committee staffers that he held a hearing on
credit cards to squeeze donations out of industry lobbyists. One committee
staffer said she was fired for raising objections to "inappropriate
lobbyist requests." Thompson denies the allegations, which are under
investigation by the House ethics panel. Thompson at Chic "Chairman
Reception" in 2007In a six-week period in late 2008, four companies paid
Chic $22,500 to plan events to honor Thompson, according to lobbying
disclosures reviewed by TPMmuckraker. The companies
were private prison contractor Corrections Corporation of America ($10,000),
lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs ($5,000), Pepsico
($5,000), and software giant Oracle ($2,500).
March 30, 2009 Nashville Post
Nashville attorney Gregg Ramos has been interviewed by members of
President Barack Obama's administration for vacancies on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 6th Circuit and U.S. District Court, Middle District of
Tennessee, according to NashvillePost.com sources. The vacancies on the
courts were created when 6th Circuit Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey
took senior judge status on Jan. 1 and when Memphis based Judge Robert L.
Echols took senior judge status in 2007. Echols' slot had been the focus of
much controversy when then-President George W. Bush nominated Nashvillian Gus
Puryear to fill the seat in June of 2007. Puryear, general counsel for
Corrections Corp. of America, was the subject of an intense lobbying effort
that eventually doomed his nomination.
November 14, 2008 Nashville City
Paper
Tennessee Democrats had a losing record this election season in the
state, but they are likely about to see a pack of federal appointments in the
legal system roll their way. With the changing of the guard from President
George W. Bush’s administration President-elect Barack Obama’s in 2009,
appointments for a federal judgeship in the U.S. District Court for Middle
Tennessee and the positions of U.S. Attorney and U.S. Marshall for the same
region are on the table. Currently filling those posts are U.S. Attorney Ed
Yarbrough and U.S. Marshall Denny King. The spot that is open on the U.S.
District Court has been publicized not because who was once in the seat, but
who was nominated for it — Gus Puryear. Puryear, who is the executive vice
president and general counsel for Nashville based Corrections Corporation of America,
was nominated for the bench by President George W. Bush in June of 2007.
Although Puryear did get a nomination hearing, the U.S. Senate, which has
final say on these lifetime appointments, never voted on his appointment.
Puryear’s nomination suffered from negative press reports about his ties to
Belle Meade Country Club as well as the alleged practices of CCA in its
prisons. Puryear was also targeted by an organization opposed to prison
privatization. The Florida group had ties to organized labor that represents
state corrections officers. Traditionally, when openings for a federal
judgeship occur, the U.S. Senators from that state tell the president whom
they want and he nominates them. When the Senators are from an opposing
party, as is the case of Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, that courtesy falls
to Democratic members of the U.S. Congress, in this case primarily
Congressmen Jim Cooper and Bart Gordon. Because Cooper was such an early and
strident supporter of Obama’s, he likely will have the upper hand. Protocol
would dictate that Alexander and Corker would be given advance notice of the
nomination and as a courtesy they would say if they had any major objections
to the nomination.
September 24, 2008 Nashville Scene
Yesterday, Lamar Alexander, the lead water-carrier for judicial nominee Gus
Puryear, read the campaign its last rites. Alexander's statements are the
last nail in the coffin for Puryear, lead counsel for private prison giant
Corrections Corporation of America. They're also an unofficial acknowledgment
of the power of the one-man campaign. No matter where your loyalties lie,
it's tough to argue that anyone deserves more of the credit (or blame) for
Puryear's failed nomination than Alex Friedmann. Getting the locals to care
about who swings a gavel in Middle Tennessee is one thing. Getting pub from
national outlets is another. Now with the campaign over, Friedmann is a stick
without a spoke. He says he'll continue working on the humdrum elements of vigilanteism and may even aim his scope at larger
targets. "There's always Palin," he jokes. We here at Pith,
however, think Friedmann's bandwagon should be steered elsewhere. Trudging
through the muck of rancorous politics during this election season has left
us exhausted. It's time all of Nashville had a cause worth championing.
Something fun and family-friendly that makes us forget about the world while
alternately making us worry about the cleanliness of our undergarments.
September 24, 2008 Tennessean
Nominations of two Tennesseans — Gus Puryear of Nashville to be a federal
judge and Susan Williams of Knoxville to be a TVA board member — have been
derailed by political squabbles. Several prison rights and civil rights
groups have objected to the nomination of Puryear, general counsel for Corrections
Corporation of America, the private prison giant based in Nashville. CCA had
been hammered by allegations of underplaying serious incidents in its jails
and misrepresenting the circumstances of in-custody deaths. Sen. Lamar
Alexander, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, said Tuesday that
neither nomination would be approved before the end of the year. That means
the nomination process for both slots will begin again after a new president
takes office in January. "That's another example of the Democratic
Congress not approving a qualified nominee," Alexander said of Puryear's
choice by President Bush to be a judge in the Middle District of Tennessee.
Democrats opposed both -- Puryear was caught in an election-year political
fight. Republicans have tried to gain approval for as many of Bush's nominees
as possible before the end of his term. Reasons cited by opponents as to why
Puryear should not be confirmed include: a lack of trial and judicial
experience, his role as chief lawyer for the country's largest private prison
company, and the company's handling of the 2004 death of Estelle Richardson
while she was in the Metro Detention Facility in Nashville. Democrats, who
control the Senate, say they have treated the president's nominees as well as
Republicans did near the end of Bill Clinton's presidency. But they have
slowed the process, hoping they will be able to fill the vacancies if their
nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, wins the presidency. Williams' nomination to the
TVA board was a casualty of a battle between Alexander and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid held up her nomination and that of Bishop
William Graves of Memphis because he wants a Democratic representative on the
TVA board. In June, Reid let Graves' nomination go through after Alexander
and Sen. Bob Corker blocked a nomination Reid wanted. In response to
Alexander's comments, Puryear released a written statement through CCA.
"I was honored to be nominated and understand fully how election-year
politics works in Washington. I am very happy in my current job and look
forward to continuing to work with my friends in Nashville to make our city
and state a better place." Alex Friedmann, vice president of Private
Corrections Institute, coordinated much of the opposition to the Puryear
nomination, which Bush made in June 2007. "Mr. Puryear was an
unqualified, inexperienced, conflicted and controversial nominee for a
lifetime appointment to the federal bench. The citizens of Middle Tennessee
deserve better and hopefully will receive a more qualified candidate during
the next administration," Friedmann said in a statement.
September 23, 2008 Tennessean
The nominations of Gus Puryear of Nashville to be a federal judge and Susan
Williams of Knoxville to the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority are dead
for this year, Sen. Lamar Alexander said this morning. "That's not going
to happen," Alexander said at a briefing with Tennessee reporters,
referring to the nomination of Puryear for a federal judgeship in the Middle
District of Tennessee. "That's another example of the Democratic
Congress not approving a qualified nominee." The nomination by President
Bush of Puryear, general counsel for Corrections Corporation of America, had
been criticized by prison rights and civil rights organizations because of
his role in representing the largest private prison company in the country.
Williams' nomination has been stalled because Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nevada, wants a Democratic representative on the TVA board. Puryear
issued a statement through CCA. "I was honored to be nominated and
understand fully how election-year politics works in Washington. I am very
happy in my current job and look forward to continuing to work with my
friends in Nashville to make our city and state a better place."
August 31, 2008 Murfreesboro Post
Four years ago, Estelle Richardson, 34, was murdered in a Nashville jail
run by Corrections Corporation of America. That's a tangential issue in the
legal career of Gustavus A. Puryear IV, just one of the things that has
caught the attention of Alex Friedmann, an ex-con gone good and now an editor
of Prison Legal News, an organization devoted to digging out mistreatment and
maltreatment of prisoners. Charges were filed against four guards who were
accused of beating Richardson to death. But their conviction foundered on a
technical matter involving time of death. It is one of the things that
troubles Friedmann (once a convict himself) about Puryear's nomination for a
lifetime appointment to the federal district court in Middle Tennessee.
Puryear is chief lawyer of Corrections Corporation of America that is
headquartered in Nashville. "CCA is the defendant in scores and scores
of lawsuits each year. It is difficult to see how Puryear could ever serve as
presiding judge in a trial involving his old bosses." The
nomination---presented before the Senate Judiciary Committee by Republican
Senators Corker and Alexander---came about the way most do: Puryear has been
a worker in the vineyards for Tennessee and national Republicans. He gave
important money to Corker and Alexander and coached up Dick Cheney for the
'00 vice presidential debates. He worked for Fred Thompson. He's been named a
"Republican heavyweight" by a Nashville newspaper. Unhappily, his
qualifications for a federal judgeship are wanting. Friedmann says Puryear
has been personally involved in only five federal cases and two trials over
his entire legal career, and lost one of those. "He has not served as a
practicing attorney for years," Friedmann says. Republicans answer that
Puryear has been rated as "qualified" by the American Bar
Association. "Well," Friedmann says, deconstructing the
classification methodology. "ABA rates lawyers Qualified, Unqualified,
or Well Qualified. Seventy-five percent of all lawyers get the Well Qualified
classification. Puryear, therefore, is in the bottom 25 percent." But
Friedmann's great objection to Puryear's appointment remains his conflicted
position. He's a CCA man and has been their chief lawyer for years. He says
he'll recuse himself from their cases for five years. "Well, CCA's in
the courts all the time. And what about after five years? He doesn't say what
he'll do after that." In typical Republican fashion of the past seven
years, Puryear's record was great from a political standpoint but wanting for
professional creds. Today, the nomination is being held up in the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which indicates it failed to get pro forma approval, a
bad indicator for the state's Republican senators and party. There is a
chance that Puryear won't be approved in the Senate committee. This would, in
effect, kill the nomination.
August 15, 2008 AP
Private prison company Corrections Corp. of America spent $240,000 lobbying
the federal government on legislation dealing with prison spending and
policy, according to a recent disclosure form. The Nashville, Tenn.-based
company lobbied on legislation dealing with private prisons and public
safety, as well as on issues involving immigration, labor and more. Besides
Congress, Corrections lobbied the Department of Homeland Security, Justice
Department, Office of Management and Budget, and the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, according to a report filed July 18 with the House clerk's office.
August 14, 2008 AP
Had this been like most nominations for federal judgeships, the chief
lawyer with Corrections Corporation of America might have been packing up his
office and heading for the courthouse by now. But a determined opponent — a
former prisoner at a Corrections Corporation of America facility in Clifton,
Tenn. — has worked tirelessly to see that would not happen. And he may have
succeeded. More than a year after President Bush nominated Gustavus A.
Puryear IV to become a U.S. district judge in Nashville, the 40-year-old's
appointment appears to be in serious trouble, thanks in no small part to Alex
Friedmann, a convicted armed robber turned inmate advocate. Friedmann, 39,
contends Puryear is unqualified because he lacks experience in federal courts
— he's been involved in only two federal trials — and might have a potential
conflict of interest in hearing cases that involve CCA. On his Web site,
http://www.againstpuryear.org, Friedmann also has detailed Puryear's ties to
powerful Republicans like Dick Cheney, whom he helped prep for a 2000 debate,
and portrayed Puryear as someone who got the nomination because of his
connections rather than his qualifications. The Senate Judiciary Committee
held a hearing on Puryear's nomination in February but has yet to vote on
whether to send his name to the full Senate. Erica Chabot, the press
secretary for committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, said Puryear is one of only
three people who have been nominated for district judgeships since January
2007 and have had hearings before the committee but have not had their nominations
voted on. Leahy, D-Vt., has said the panel will not consider any more
nominees this session without the consent of leaders from both parties.
"I understand they have put Puryear in the 'controversial'
category," said Brian Fitzpatrick, who once worked for Republican Sen.
John Cornyn of Texas defending Bush's Supreme Court nominees and is now an
assistant law professor at Vanderbilt University. "It's very rare for a
district court nominee to become controversial. Usually they just fly
through." The Senate typically defers heavily to the senators from the
nominee's home state, and Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of
Tennessee solidly support Puryear. But the opposition has been unusually
committed. Multiple organizations, including the left-leaning Alliance for
Justice and the National Lawyer's Guild, have
challenged Puryear's nomination, all of them using research that originated
with Friedmann, occasionally quoting it verbatim. Friedmann says he learned
of the nomination because he keeps track of Nashville-based CCA, which
manages 66 facilities around the country. He looked through dockets and court
cases, contacted former co-workers and made Freedom of Information Act
requests. To get the word out, he relied on the nonprofit Private Corrections
Institute, for which he serves as vice president, and a group he formed
called Tennesseans Against Puryear. Puryear did not return calls from The
Associated Press for this story. White House spokesman Blair Jones said the
White House suggests that nominees not speak to the media, prior to
confirmation, out of respect for the deliberative process of the Senate.
"Groups can attack a nominee, but you'll never see (the nominee) respond
to anything except at hearings," said Puryear's friend Ed Haden, an attorney
in Birmingham, Ala. Haden said the obstacles to Puryear's nomination are
political, and don't mean he is not qualified for the job. "As far as
his qualifications go, he was at the top of his class in law school, he
clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals, he has legislative experience in the
U.S. Senate, he manages litigation for a big Fortune 500 company, and the ABA
(American Bar Association) rated him as qualified," Haden said.
"Gus realizes this is a lame duck year in politics," he added.
"It's true for all nominees — whether you're in the deal or not is
beyond your control." Puryear's nomination remains active until Congress
adjourns, and he could still be confirmed. The most likely scenario for that
would be a deal struck between senators. "At the end of the session,
it's, 'Who wants a bridge in Vermont?'" said Haden, who has worked with
two U.S. senators on judicial nominations. Meanwhile, Friedmann is continuing
his opposition campaign in the hopes of making a last-minute deal less
likely. "I'm glad the Judiciary Committee is taking a closer look at Mr.
Puryear as a candidate because the issues we raised are legitimate
issues," he said. "But," he added, "I'm definitely not
claiming victory."
July 21, 2008 First Amendment Center
A bill before Congress would extend the Freedom of Information Act to
require private prisons contracted by the federal government to release
records under the same standards as federal prisons. The Private Prison
Information Act of 2007 (H.R. 1889), introduced by Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa.,
would require private prisons and other correctional facilities under
contract with federal agencies to house federal prisoners to make their
records accessible under the same FOIA requirements that govern federal
prisons. An identical bill was introduced in the Senate (S. 2010) by Sen.
Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. Prison privatization has increased rapidly in the
face of growing concerns over overcrowding, safety and poor health care in
public institutions. Desire to control costs has also led to an increase in
privatization. However, privately owned and operated facilities are not
subject to the same FOIA scrutiny as public agencies. Although the press and
public can retrieve information about privately run prisons from the
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and other government agencies, private prisons remain largely
outside the scope of FOI laws. Of the almost 1.6 million prisoners in the
United States in June 2007, 7.4% of them were held in privately operated
correctional facilities, according to the June 2008 Bureau of Justice
Statistics bulletin. At last count, in 2000, the BJS reported 264 private
facilities under state and federal contracts used to house prisoners. And
there were 5.4% more prisoners in private facilities in June 2007 than in
June 2006, according to BJS. Private detention centers are also used to house
immigrant detainees. Two lawsuits filed in the last two months aim to force
private prisons to release records, including one filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union investigating the deaths of immigrant detainees in federal
custody. In May 2008, The Washington Post ran a four-day series investigating
medical conditions in immigrant prisons. "Careless Detention" explored
the deaths of 83 prisoners and detainees in custody between March 2003 and
May 2008. "Our correctional system is broken. It is overcrowded and
unsafe," said Mike Flynn, director of government affairs for the Reason
Foundation. "Contracting with private prisons gives us an ability to
better manage outcomes. I think contracts should require certain benchmarks,
like treatment programs, continuing education and job training." The
Reason Foundation is a nonprofit think tank that promotes "libertarian
principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of
law," according to its Web site. The largest private
corrections-management service in the U.S. is Corrections Corporation of
America, which is headquartered in Nashville. CCA posted $35 million in profits
during the first quarter of 2008, according to a company press release. CCA
and other private corrections companies have seen rapid growth from contracts
with states and the federal government. The Los Angeles Times reported in
August 2007 that California state officials had signed a contract with CCA to
hold about 4,000 prisoners for $63 per prisoner, per day. It would cost the
state an average of $123 per prisoner, per day in a state prison. As private
corrections companies grow, so do questions about their methods, success and
profitability. The recent lawsuits seek answers to some of those questions.
The ACLU filed an FOI lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security
last month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after DHS
failed to turn over documents related to the deaths of immigrants held in
public and private detention centers. The lawsuit also named Immigration and
Customs Enforcement and the Office of the Inspector General for DHS.
"DHS must not be allowed to keep information about in-custody deaths
secret," said Elizabeth Alexander, director of the ACLU National Prison
Project, in a press release. "It is imperative that ICE be held publicly
accountable." Prison Legal News, a monthly magazine that covers prison
issues, filed a lawsuit against CCA in a Tennessee court on May 19 after CCA
did not respond to a public-records request. The lawsuit, Friedmann v. CCA,
argues that CCA performs a public function, and its records should be public.
In 2002, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that a private company performing
a public function must make its records available to the public under the
Tennessee Public Records Act. In Memphis Publishing Company v. Cherokee
Children & Family Services, the court ruled that a nonprofit social
service agency under state contract had to turn its records over to the
Memphis Commercial Appeal because it was the "functional
equivalent" of a government agency. "Public agencies cannot
contract away the public's ability to review records that otherwise would be
publicly accessibly under the state's open records law," said Paul
Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, in a press release. "The public's
right to know is not delegable to private corporations." One FOI expert
applauded the congressional bills that would make private-prison companies
accountable to the federal FOIA. "I think that is a long-overdue
fix," Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of
Information coalition, said of the Private Prison Information Act of 2007.
"This is a problem on the state level. This would fix it at the federal
level in a way that would bring a whole lot of otherwise private operations
into public scrutiny. We've seen lots of anecdotal evidence over the past
decade for the need for public oversight and scrutiny." Some aspects of
private-prison contracts are already accessible under FOIA, however. Flynn of
the Reason Foundation argued that those provisions provide enough
information. "The federal agencies that manage the contract with the
private company are subject to the FOIA process. The agencies engage in
regular and ongoing oversight of the contract, usually having [their] own
employees in the facility full-time. All reports and studies from these
monitors are subject to the FOIA process. Terms of the contract with the
private company are subject to FOIA. Their progress in meeting any benchmarks
detailed in the contract are subject to FOIA," said Flynn. "If
there is relevant information that isn't available, it can be [added to] terms
of the contract and then be subject to FOIA. There is no limit to what can be
required to be disclosed to the agency, which would then be subject to
FOIA." Davis agreed that FOIA's coverage of contracts between the
government and private-prison companies was important, but said it didn't go
far enough. "The contract piece is important and FOIA does do a good job
with that," he said. "The contract data is just a sliver of the
overall picture of what people should rightly have access to … . The vast majority of the information isn't
covered." Davis mentioned "inspection reports, incident reports
involving inmate violence, and just about any narrative report documenting
inmate treatment." If the ACLU's or Prison Legal News' lawsuit succeeds
in extracting records from private-prison corporations or if Congress passes
the Private Prison Information Act, an increase in information from these
prisons could bring light to a host of new issues. Some of these may well
involve the First Amendment. U.S. courts frequently address issues related to
access to publications, religious material, special diets and other claims of
First Amendment violations from prisoners. "I think you could get better
protections," said Flynn when asked about the First Amendment rights of
prisoners in private facilities, "because they can be detailed in a
contract with the private company. These protections can be mandated into the
contract rather than litigated later." "The best part about having
this information is that we would be able to act on it. Private companies can
be fired. Public facilities cannot," Flynn said. Said Davis, "When
you start getting the human narrative of incident reports, what's going on in
these prisons on a day to day basis, they could be rife with corruption or
running like a Swiss cruise ship."
July 15, 2008 The Daily Cougar
As Sen. Barack Obama wages his presidential campaign across the United
States with political gusto, he's attracted names such as Vice President Al
Gore and Sen. John Edwards. University of Houston Associate Professor of Law
Tony Chase has also temporarily shifted his duties as a professor to become a
member of the National Finance Committee of Obama's campaign. "I've
known (Obama) for quite some time, and I was one of the people he asked
whether if he should run," Chase said. "Because of that, this is
very personal, and I genuinely believe he is best for this country."
Aside from teaching, Chase is chairman and CEO of ChaseCom
L.P. and Chase Radio Partners. He is also chairman and co-founder, together
with SBC Communications Inc., of The Telecom Opportunity Institute, an
organization that provides technical literacy training at no cost to at-risk
communities. He serves as a director of Leap Wireless International Inc. and
Cornell Companies Inc., and is chairman of the Houston Zoo Development Board.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a director
of the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast and Houston Parks. Chase began
teaching communications law and contracts at the UH Law Center in 1990 and
received the Edith Baker Faculty Award in 1994. On July 8, he stepped down as
the director of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank to dedicate more time to the
campaign. "I can't pick out a certain experience, but teaching graduate
law and undergraduate classes has been particularly helpful in preparing me,
because students are the future and full of ideas that in turn help me think
about today's issues," Chase said. "My experience at the University
helps me by being part of the excitement and interest among young and
potential voters." As for his motives, he believes that the nation, in
its current state, needs Obama as president. "I've known Barack and
Michelle for a long time, and based on that, I believe he is a transcendent
political figure," Chase said. "I know him well and his integrity
and how he responds to pressure, but also how he will be an excellent
leader." As the member of the National Finance Committee for the
campaign, he helps make decisions on how the campaign will utilize its funds
and how the fundraising will be run. He also performs special projects such
as arranging meetings with constituents and senior advisors. "The
experience I gain from the campaign will only help the way I try to bring
practical experience to the classroom, and this is actually quite relevant to
what I teach at the University," Chase said. Chase will return to teach
in the fall and resume his usual duties for his organizations. "I will
still do what I can to accommodate my teaching responsibilities and campaign
duties and continue to voice my support for Barack Obama," Chase said.
June 13, 2008 Tennessean
A year ago today, Gustavus "Gus" Puryear IV was nominated for a
federal judgeship in Nashville and appeared headed to an easy confirmation.
Now Puryear's confirmation seems unlikely. In addition to questions raised
about his qualifications and actions as general counsel for Corrections
Corporation of America, Puryear's fate is now caught in intense election-year
battles between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate over lifetime
judicial appointments. Senate Democrats are looking to approve as few of
Republican President Bush's appointments as they can before his term expires,
hoping Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois wins the presidency.
Republicans did the same during the final months of the Democratic Clinton
administration. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., a longtime member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which vets nominees, said at a committee hearing
Thursday that this practice is simply the "fact of the matter."
"It is legitimate," Biden said. "These are lifetime
appointments." Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., said at
the end of the hearing, which included approval of three judicial nominees,
that no more judges would be confirmed unless there is agreement among him
and ranking committee Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and the
Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate. Even Tennessee's two
Republican senators, who signed off on Puryear's nomination, acknowledge his
confirmation is in trouble. "Gus Puryear is a qualified nominee who
deserves an up-or-down vote in the Senate, and we're continuing to pursue
every option to that end," Sen. Bob Corker said in a written statement.
"The current atmosphere in the Senate makes his confirmation more
difficult — not impossible, just increasingly more difficult as we approach
the fall elections." Sen. Lamar Alexander said he was still hopeful.
"But the Democrats have slowed confirmation of President Bush's nominees
to a ridiculous extent," Alexander said in a recent interview. CCA
spokesman Steve Owen, responding to a request for Puryear to comment, said
the company has "no way of knowing what the outcome of the confirmation
process will be. We continue to believe that Mr. Puryear would make an excellent
federal judge. He has served the company admirably and with great integrity
as general counsel." The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Puryear's
nomination in February but has not scheduled a vote on whether to send his
name to the full Senate for a vote. Reasons cited by opponents as to why
Puryear should not be confirmed include: a lack of trial and judicial
experience, his role as chief lawyer for the country's largest private prison
company, and the company's handling of the 2004 death of Estelle Richardson
while she was in the Metro Detention Facility in Nashville. Among those
opposing Puryear's confirmation are: The Alliance for Justice, an umbrella
group of national civil rights and other organizations, Private Corrections
Institute Inc., which opposes prison privatization and the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
May 7, 2008 Nashville Post
A series of articles by the New York Times have Washington, D.C. insiders
saying that Gus Puryear should keep his day job. Puryear, executive vice
president and general counsel for Nashville based Corrections Corporation of
America, was nominated by President George W. Bush last year to serve on the
U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee. Since the nomination, Puryear has been
attacked here and in Washington for everything from his handling of CCA legal
matters, his membership in the Belle Meade Country Club, to his lack of
experience outside of corporate law. While the nomination of Puryear has not
moved due to objections of U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy and Diane Feinstein, he
still has had hope of being confirmed to the bench. Now, a number of
NashvillePost.com sources are saying that hope is even in more jeopardy.
Democratic insiders in Washington contacted by NashvillePost.com say that
what hope Puryear had was effectively killed by a series of articles
published this week by the New York Times. Republican insiders acknowledge
that the articles have made Puryear's bid "more complicated" and
there is no momentum to push him forward at this time. While the articles
don't mention Puryear by name, CCA is sharply criticized for their handling
of the death of Boubacar Bah and the labeling of his inmate file as
"proprietary information - not for distribution." Bah was 52-year-old
tailor from Guinea who had overstayed a tourist visa. While incarcerated, Bah
had fallen and hit his head and became incoherent. According to the NYT,
"documents detail how he was treated by guards and government employees:
shackled and pinned to the floor of the medical unit as he moaned and
vomited, then left in a disciplinary cell for more than 13 hours, despite
repeated notations that he was unresponsive and intermittently foaming at the
mouth." He was eventually transported to a hospital, but his family was
not notified of his whereabouts for five days. He died four months later. The
Times also ran an editorial on this matter yesterday.
April 25, 2008 Nashville Scene
State Rep. Mike Turner has fired off a missive to Tennessee Department of
Correction Commissioner George Little about the spate of questionable
practices and incidents that have landed Corrections Corporation of America
in the news. CCA, as you'll recall, contracts with Tennessee (along with many
other state and federal authorities) to run their prisons and jails. In his
April 16 letter, which Pith obtained this morning, Turner mentions the Time
magazine story that alleges CCA counsel Gus Puryear allegedly whitewashed
incident reports on escapes and unnatural deaths, so as not to alarm the company's
clients. He also cites The Tennessean piece on an inmate at a
Metro-controlled, CCA-run correctional facility who went nine months without
a shower, as well as the recent Nashville Scene article that reported how
guards at that same facility falsely claimed a jail-cell surveillance camera
wasn't working—just one day after an inmate was found in her cell with a
broken skull, according to the detective who wanted to review the footage. In
other words, it's just another day in the life of CCA and Gus Puryear—who, we
should add, is called out in the upcoming issue of the National Law Journal
for being one of Bush's most controversial judicial appointees.
March 26, 2008 Tennessean
Add women’s rights groups to the list opposing the federal judicial
nomination of Gus Puryear IV, the embattled general counsel for the
Corrections Corporation of America. Puryear’s membership to Nashville’s Belle
Meade County Club is under fire by the women’s rights organization who say
women are unable to vote or hold office at the private golf club. National
Organization of Women, the National Council for Women’s Organizations and the
Women’s Equal rights Legal Defense and Education Fund have sent a letter to
the Senate Judiciary Committee. Puryear’s nomination ignited a debate whether
the general counsel of CCA, the for-profit prison giant, is suited for the
bench in light of allegations that he encouraged misleading incident reports.
Private Corrections Institute, an advocacy group that opposes prison
privatization, has been an outspoken critic of Puryear's nomination. The
Alliance for Justice and the National Lawyers Guild are among the opposition.
There’s also a website, www.againstpuryear.org, is part of the opposition
campaign. The hearings were held last month and the committee has not voted
on his nomination. President Bush nominated Puryear last June to serve as a
federal judge for the Middle District of Tennessee.
March 21, 2008 Nashville Scene
Yesterday I talked with Rob McGuire, the local prosecutor who brought
charges against four CCA guards in the death of inmate Estelle Richardson,
who in 2004 was found in her solitary cell with a broken skull and four
cracked ribs. McGuire ultimately dropped the case, after doctors for both CCA
and Richardson's family determined that her head injuries might have been
sustained before she was placed in solitary confinement. Now, though, the
Richardson case has taken center stage in the nomination hearings of Gus
Puryear, the CCA general counsel who was nominated by President George W. Bush
to a federal judgeship in Tennessee's Middle District. The Senate Judiciary
Committee has grilled Puryear about his statements about the case—he falsely
claimed the guards were “exonerated”—and how his company handled the
investigation. On that count, McGuire has a rather interesting story to
share. And now we're going to have to jump. McGuire says that when a Metro
homicide detective began to investigate Richardson's death, he asked to see
videotape of the extractions—i.e., those times when an inmate is ushered in
and out of her cell. Instead, guards told him the camera had mysteriously
malfunctioned. Wouldn't you know it, the detective was told, there's no
footage available—which is not much different than when the suspect tells
Lennie Briscoe he doesn't remember what he was doing the night of the murder.
At that point, the detective examined the camera and could find nothing wrong
with it. “He turns it on and it appears to be working just fine,” McGuire
says. “That was a significant problem for us; it did not help their cause.”
Of course, McGuire ultimately had to drop the case when it appeared that any
number of different people—from inmates to guards—could have caused
Richardson's head injuries. And because she was heavily medicated at the
time, it was certainly possible that the inmate could have endured a serious
injury without realizing until it was too late. But none of this lets CCA off
the hook. First, there's the issue that, no matter how you look at it,
Richardson was almost certainly killed in a CCA facility, which Puryear
glosses over in his correspondence with members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary
Committee. In fact, Puryear makes her death out to be a veritable mystery,
even though it's ludicrous to imagine how someone could break their skull and
crack their ribs by simply slipping on the floor. So if—and we're using the
word “if” lightly here—she was killed in jail, that doesn't reflect well on
CCA. Then, of course, there's McGuire's fresh anecdote about the supposedly
malfunctioning camera, which makes you wonder if CCA took an awkward stab at
a cover-up. CCA and Puryear are already under fire for last week's Time.com
report, in which a former prison manager accused the company of lying to its
government clients about the safety of its prisons. Is there a pattern here?
It's next to impossible to gleam objective data from CCA, even though it
manages public facilities across the country. But with Puryear likely to face
additional additional questions from the members of
the judiciary committee about the Richardson case and other CCA matters, a
little more transparency might be in order. Developing....
March 14, 2008 Nashville Scene
Once thought to be a sure thing, Gus Puryear's nomination to the federal
bench is now in serious trouble. A devastating story published on Time
magazine's website yesterday alleged that the young attorney whitewashed
company reports in his role as corporate counsel for Corrections Corporation
of America (CCA). The story revolves around Ronald T. Jones, a former CCA
prison manager described as a loyal Republican like the judicial nominee
himself. Jones claims Puryear oversaw a reporting system in which the company
basically lied to its public-sector clients, minimizing outbreaks of prison
disturbances in the jails it operates. In theory at least, CCA is supposed to
provide thorough and objective reports to the government agencies who have
outsourced the management of its jails to the private company. But Jones says
his ex-boss Puryear masked or omitted details that could result in
litigation, fines or bad press. That aside, he behaved admirably. “When
Puryear felt there was highly sensitive or potentially damaging information
to CCA, I would then be directed to remove that information from an audit
report,” Jones told Time.com. Today, The Tennessean published a well-reported
front-page story that included additional details, including how in 2005 a
CCA official once had the temerity to issue a memo with potentially damaging
information about a prison incident. That led to a change in company
policy—in which any reports to be made public had to be cleared by the office
of the general counsel. The Private Corrections Institute, which has led the
charge against Puryear, issued a press release calling on the Senate
Judiciary Committee to summon the nominee back to Washington for yet another
hearing. The group may well get its wish. It's been a dismal week for
Puryear—right as he tries to explain his membership in the historically
discriminatory Belle Meade Country Club, he now will likely have to defend
himself against serious charges of turning CCA’s cold, hard facts into
creative fiction. It's still possible for Puryear to survive this latest
onslaught of bad press and go on to become a good judge. But considering how
much trouble he's had so far convincing people he's up for the job, couldn't
the Bush administration have just plucked someone else? There are plenty of
intelligent Republican attorneys in Nashville. How many of them have
Puryear's baggage?
March 14, 2008 Tennessean
A former Corrections Corporation of America manager is accusing the
company's general counsel and federal judicial nominee Gus Puryear IV of
overseeing a practice that produced misleading reports about safety incidents
at its prisons. Ronald T. Jones, who until last year worked as a senior
manager in quality assurance at the Nashville-based prison operator, said
that Puryear directed him and other staff to classify incidents such as
escapes, unnatural deaths and disturbances as less serious to make its performance
look better in reports to government agency clients. Reports prepared for
internal use, meanwhile, included more details about the specific incidents,
Jones said. Private Corrections Institute, an advocacy group that opposes
prison privatization and has been an outspoken critic of Puryear's
nomination, Thursday urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold another
round of hearings at which Jones could testify and Puryear be asked more
questions about his actions. "Alternatively, we support the position of
not bringing Mr. Puryear's judicial nomination forward for a committee
vote," said Alex Friedmann, a former inmate at a CCA prison and the
group's vice president. At a Feb. 12 hearing before the Judiciary Committee,
Puryear faced tough questions on the 2004 death of a woman at the Metro
Detention Facility, possible conflict of interest with cases involving CCA
and its executives that are often filed in Middle Tennessee District, where
he would serve, and his membership in the exclusive Belle Meade Country Club.
In response, Puryear said that he would recuse himself for at least five
years from all cases involving CCA and its executives: said there were
disagreements among medical experts about what happened in the death of
Estelle Richardson at the detention facility; and promised to resign from
Belle Meade if he found its membership policies violated the code of judicial
ethics. Committee staff said any action on Puryear's nomination is unlikely
until April at the earliest. The committee has no more business meetings this
week and Congress is on Easter break for the next two weeks. The Judiciary
Committee usually does not hold additional hearings with the nominee and
other witnesses. Instead, the senators rely on written responses to questions
and the transcript of the original hearing when discussing and voting on a
nominee. Puryear couldn't be reached last night for comment. CCA denies
allegations -- Louise Grant, a CCA spokeswoman, called Jones' allegations
inaccurate and added that it paints a false picture of CCA's quality
assurance process and of Puryear's role. "We question the motives of
this former employee, who was not in a leadership position in quality
assurance and resigned in lieu of termination," Grant added. "If
our interest was in under-reporting or not finding quality issues, we simply
would not have created this (quality assurance) department or its programs in
the first place." Jones denies that he faced termination at CCA. He now
lives in Detroit and said he left CCA to pursue a legal career. He said in
his job he was responsible for tracking information on events such as unusual
deaths, disturbances and audit findings and that the misleading practices
began in early 2005, when the quality assurance department was put under
Puryear as general counsel. A CCA staff member in 2005 provided a report
containing potentially damaging information about an incident at a prison to
a government client without corporate approval, Jones said. That incident,
according to Jones, led to a new policy in which any reports that could be
made public needed to be cleared by the office of the general counsel.
"Mr. Puryear then directed me, and other quality assurance department
staff who process audit report finding, to create two reports for distribution
of audit findings," Jones wrote in a statement sent to the Senate
Judiciary Committee. "I would prepare one report with all of the audit
findings and auditor comments in it for "internal purposes only"
and a separate more generic report that contained only general information
about audit results as a whole." In a separate interview with The
Tennessean, Jones added that the more information that could potentially
damage the company if it was released publicly, the more that its operations
and financial status could be affected. In the corrections industry, the
number of incidents such as prison escapes, riots, and sexual assaults are
among variables often used to determine bonuses for employees from wardens to
chief executives, industry observers said. If a prison contract provides for
a bonus, such incidents also would be taken into account by a client
government agency in determining the award. CCA is required to file reports
with the state on incidents such as inmate-on-inmate assaults or
inmate-on-staff assaults, disturbances and a daily census of inmates at its
prisons that house state inmates, said Dorinda Carter, a spokeswoman for the
Tennessee Department of Corrections. The department has onsite contract
monitors and other designated employees at the prisons that report daily on
incidents and another division that conducts annual audits of the CCA
prisons, she said. "We feel pretty sure that we're finding out about
incidents as they happen," Carter said. She added that CCA is required
to follow the same policies as the 13 prisons run by the state and that
officials are confident in their monitoring of the company.
March 13, 2008 Mother Jones
Most ambitious lawyers know that if they want to become a federal judge,
they have to fulfill several key requirements. First, they must schmooze the
right people, sit on the right bar committees, and make the requisite
political contributions. Then, above all, they must 1) pay nanny taxes, and
2) wait until after securing a lifetime appointment to join an exclusive, discriminatory
country club. Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV, Bush's choice for a trial court
seat in the middle district of Tennessee, had ticked off most of the items on
the list by the time he was nominated last summer. He'd given money,
befriended Dick Cheney's son-in-law, and even prepped Cheney for the
vice-presidential debates in 2000 and 2004. But he forgot about rule number
2, an oversight that might be his undoing. As a prison company lawyer with
virtually no litigation experience, Puryear's resume offers any number of
reasons why he shouldn't be confirmed. But inexperience has never stopped the
politically connected from ascending to the bench. Country club memberships,
however, are a different matter. And Puryear happens to be a member of the
exclusive Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville, a club whose racist history
is so well known that even former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had the
good sense to quit the club before running for office. After Puryear's
surprisingly contentious confirmation hearing last month, several senators
asked him to provide additional written answers to their questions. According
to the Nashville Scene, Puryear's responses aren't likely to win him any
friends with the Democrats on the committee, particularly Ted Kennedy, who
sent Puryear four sets of questions regarding the club, including one about
its racial diversity. Puryear replied in legalese, writing, “I am advised
that the club does not track its members based on race, nor does it respond
to such requests. I am personally aware that there are minority members, but
I do not myself know the number,” he wrote. The number of black members of
the Belle Meade Country Club is an open secret in Nashville, largely because
the number is exactly one. Belle Meade didn't allow black members until 1994,
when they admitted one guy, a lawyer from Atlanta. Today, that same guy
remains the only black member of the club. So either Puryear is being
incredibly disingenuous, or he is a lot dumber than his supporters claim.
(The Nashville Scene had no trouble figuring out how many black members the
club had, after all, so it's hard to believe Puryear, who's actually a
member, couldn't do the same.) It's rare for the Senate to see confirmation
fights over trial court judges, but Puryear could be the exception. His
country club membership has caught the attention of women's groups, who are
mounting some opposition. Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred has written a letter
to the Judiciary Committee raising questions about Puryear's nomination. She,
too, doesn't buy his claim of ignorance about the club's discriminatory
practices, noting that the club's "entire voting membership is male,
"Lady members" are not allowed to vote, and no women have been
proposed for Resident Member status that would afford voting
privileges." As a trial court judge, Puryear would preside over a fair
number of sexual and racial discrimination trials, which is another reason
women's groups are worried about his nomination. If Puryear can't see the
blatant, longstanding discrimination going on in his own country club, can
you imagine what he'd be like in the courtroom? Egads!
March 13, 2008 TIME
As the top lawyer for America's biggest private prison company, Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA), Gus Puryear IV, is known to sport well-pressed
preppy pink shirts, and his brownish mop of hair stands out among most of
President Bush's graying nominees to the federal bench. A favorite of G.O.P.
hardliners, Puryear, 39, prepped Dick Cheney for the vice presidential
debates — both in 2000 and 2004 — and served as a senior aide to two former
senators and onetime presidential hopefuls, Bill Frist and Fred Thompson.
Political connections, though, may not be enough to get Puryear a lifetime
post as a federal district judge in Tennessee. Puryear recently confronted
tough questions about his conduct, experience and potential conflicts of
interest from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which must approve
him before a full Senate vote. Now, a former CCA manager tells TIME that
Puryear oversaw a reporting system in which accounts of major, sometimes
violent prison disturbances and other significant events were often masked or
minimized in accounts provided to government agencies with oversight over
prison contracts. Ronald T. Jones, the former CCA manager, alleges that the
company even began keeping two sets of books — one for internal use that
described prison deficiencies in telling detail, and a second set that Jones
describes as "doctored" for public consumption, to limit bad
publicity, litigation or fines that could derail CCA's multimillion dollar
contracts with federal, state or local agencies. CCA owns or operates 65
prisons, housing some 70,000 inmates across the U.S. According to the
company's website, it has a greater than 50% share of the booming private
prison market. CCA is also a major contributor to Republican candidates and
causes, and spends millions of dollars each year lobbying for government
contracts. (Puryear enjoys a friendship with Cheney's son-in-law, Philip
Perry, who lobbied for CCA in Washington before serving as general counsel
for the Department of Homeland Security, which has millions of dollars in
contracts with CCA, from 2005 to 2007.) The company has likewise given
financial support to tax-exempt policy groups that support tough sentencing
laws that help put more people behind bars. Like other prison companies, CCA
has faced numerous lawsuits that stem from allegedly inadequate staff levels
that can be a cause of high levels of violence in the prisons. Though
hundreds of such lawsuits are often pending at any given time, many brought
by inmates in its own facilities, CCA under Puryear has mounted an especially
vigorous defense against them, refusing to settle all but the most damaging.
Jones knows CCA intimately. Until last summer, the longtime Republican was in charge of "quality assurance" records for
CCA prisons across the U.S. He says that in 2005, after CCA found itself
embarrassed on several occasions by the public release of internal records to
government agencies, Puryear mandated that detailed, raw reports on prison
shortcomings carry a blanket assertion of "attorney client
privilege," thus forbidding their release without his written consent.
From then on, Jones says, the audits delivered to agencies were filled with
increasingly vague performance measures. "If the wrong party found out
that a facility's operations scored low in an audit, then CCA could be
subject to litigation, fines or worse," explains Jones. "When Mr.
Puryear felt there was highly sensitive or potentially damaging information
to CCA, I would then be directed to remove that information from an audit
report." Puryear would not comment on the allegations. Jones resigned
from CCA last summer to pursue a legal career. According to Jones, Puryear
was most concerned about what CCA described as "zero tolerance"
events, or ZT's — including unnatural deaths, major disturbances, escapes and
sexual assaults. According to Jones, bonuses and job security at the company
were tied to reporting low ZT numbers. Low numbers also pleased CCA's
government clients, as well as the company's board, which received a regular
tally, and Wall Street analysts concerned about potentially costly lawsuits
that CCA might face. In 2006, for example, Jones says CCA had to lock down a
prison in Texas to control rioting by as many as 60 inmates. Despite clear
internal guidelines defining the incident as a ZT, Jones says he was ordered
not to label it that way. Instead it was logged as, "Altered facility
schedule due to inmate action". And this was not unusual, says Jones:
"Information was misrepresented in a very disturbing way concerning the
company's most important performance indicators, which included escapes,
suicides, violent outbreaks and sexual assaults." Companies often try to
show their best face to customers, and safeguard internal records with
"attorney-client privilege." But according to Stephen Gillers, a leading expert on legal ethics at New York
University, CCA's use of that privilege seems like "a wholesale,
possibly overreaching claim," similiar to the
blanket assertions of major tobacco companies that tried to keep damaging
internal documents from public view. Those assertions of privilege have been
rejected by federal judges as an attempt to improperly conceal their internal
data on the dangers of smoking from customers, the courts and legal
adversaries. CCA could also be in legal trouble if it minimized the tally of
serious prison incidents and, by implication, its possible financial
liability. As chief legal counsel, Puryear would have also had an obligation
to ensure his board had all the information it needed, good or bad, to make
decisions. If Puryear's reporting system had the effect of withholding
information relevant to official prison oversight, that could bear on his
suitability as a federal judge by suggesting his "disdain for the proper
operation of an important function of government," notes Gillers. Contacted by TIME, CCA says that Puryear,
"has served the company well and honorably as general counsel and will
be an outstanding judge." The company denies allegations that it keeps
two sets of books, saying: "A final audit report is made available to
our customers. Appropriate information gathered in the audits is separately
provided to our legal department." The company adds that "CCA has
produced all relevant, non-privileged documents in litigation," that its
board is regularly apprised of the most serious prison incidents, and that
"all appropriate" information is given to the financial community.
President Bush recently called Puryear and his 27 other judicial nominees
facing Senate confirmation "highly qualified." Whether or not the
Senate agrees on Puryear, Bush is likely to leave the White House with fewer
judges approved than Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan, both two-term chief
executives.
March 5, 2008 Tennessean
The accuracy of testimony by Gustavus "Gus'' Puryear IV at his
confirmation hearing to be a federal judge is being questioned by four
Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Puryear is general
counsel of Nashville-based private prison giant Corrections Corporation of
America and was nominated by Republican President Bush. After the February
hearing, he provided written answers to additional questions about the
company's handling of the death of an inmate at a company-run facility in
Nashville, potential conflicts of interest he would face as a judge and his
membership in the Belle Meade Country Club. The sometimes-pointed questions
and Puryear's responses again raise the stakes in his confirmation. Once
thought to be routine, Puryear's nomination is being fought by a coalition of
civil rights, labor and other groups spearheaded by the Private Corrections
Institute, which opposes prison privatization. Puryear's responses were
released Thursday. Inmate death testimony -- Judiciary Committee Chairman
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, along with Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts,
Dianne Feinstein of California and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin questioned the
testimony Puryear gave last month about the 2004 death of Estelle Richardson.
Richardson died at the Metro Detention Facility after she was forcibly
removed from her solitary confinement cell by four guards. She had a
fractured skull, broken ribs and liver damage. The state's medical examiner
ruled the death a homicide and the four guards were charged, but the
indictments eventually were dropped. Later, a civil suit brought by
Richardson's family was settled out of court when experts representing the
family and the CCA concluded the skull fracture occurred before she was
extracted from her cell. At his Feb. 12 hearing, Puryear testified it was not
clear how Richardson received her head injuries and that they could have been
self-inflicted. He said CPR done in an attempt to revive Richardson could
have caused her broken ribs and liver damage. All four senators questioned
that testimony, citing a letter sent to the committee from Dr. Bruce Levy,
Tennessee's chief medical examiner, who conducted the autopsy on Richardson.
He reiterated that the death was a homicide caused by blunt force trauma that
was not self-inflicted. Levy called "misleading at best'' Puryear's
comment about CPR causing injuries. Puryear responded by citing a letter to
the committee from David Smith, attorney for the Richardson family, who wrote
that the "the circumstances and causes of Ms. Richardson's tragic death
were complex and debated ... our own experts attributed the death to a
seizure.'' "There were also issues on whether CPR may have caused the
liver and rib injuries,'' Smith wrote. Puryear said the company's expert, Dr.
William McCormick, former deputy chief medical examiner for Tennessee, wrote
that the rib and liver injuries were "almost certainly'' caused by CPR
and cited medical research to back his claim. Promises made -- Puryear
expanded on a promise made during testimony that he would recuse himself for
at least five years from CCA cases and would also not take on personal cases
involving company executives. He said at the hearing he also would sell all
of his CCA stock. Puryear also wrote that he would resign from the Belle
Meade Country Club if he discovered that the club's membership practices
violated the judicial code of conduct. Kennedy wrote that the club did not
allow blacks to join until 1994 and does not give women the right to vote on
club business. Puryear said there are no women who are "resident members,''
the class allowed to vote, but that he knows of no policy that restricts
women from being recommended for that category. "I am not aware ... that
any woman has been proposed or has sought to be proposed as a 'resident
member,' " he said. Judiciary Committee spokesman Erica Chabot said the
committee would likely not deal with the nomination until April at the
earliest because members may want to ask follow-up questions and Congress is
out of session the last two weeks of March. The full Senate must confirm the
nomination once it is out of committee.
February 25, 2008 Tennessean
Gustavus "Gus" Puryear IV is the top attorney for Corrections
Corporation of America, the Nashville-based private prison giant. He
graduated with honors from law school, is a deacon in his church and serves
on the boards of numerous community organizations. Now President Bush has
nominated him to be a federal judge for the Middle District of Tennessee. But
Puryear has never been a judge, has little trial experience, and works for and
holds stock in a company enmeshed with the federal government through
campaign donations, lobbying and huge contracts. And the company he
represents gets sued a lot, many times in federal court in Nashville. Civil
rights and prison rights advocates and others say those and other concerns
make Puryear a poor choice to be a judge in the very court where his company
is often a defendant. And his answers at his confirmation hearing earlier
this month are raising questions among some senators and the state's top
medical examiner. What appeared to be a routine confirmation process has
suddenly become complicated. "During that hearing, a lot of red flags
were raised," said Erica Chabot, spokeswoman for Sen. Patrick Leahy,
D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "You can bet there
are some follow-ups." Senators on the committee were given two weeks to
submit additional questions that will be sent to Puryear for written
responses. Puryear, 39, declined to comment on questions about his fitness
for the bench while the confirmation process is ongoing, said Steve Owen,
spokesman for CCA. Trial experience lacking -- Letters opposing Puryear were
sent to the committee by Private Corrections Institute Inc., which opposes
prison privatization; the Alliance for Justice, an umbrella group of dozens
of national civil rights and other organizations; and the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees. Among their arguments: Puryear
doesn't have the proper legal qualifications. Puryear spent less than three
years in private practice in Nashville before signing on as counsel for the
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, headed by then-Sen. Fred Thompson.
Next, he served as legislative director for former Sen. Bill Frist for about
three years before becoming general counsel and vice president at CCA in
January 2001. Puryear's lack of trial experience is a greater concern than
his role as a corporate lawyer and his lack of judicial service, said Douglas
Laycock, a professor of the University of Michigan Law School. "District
court judges have to run a trial and run it efficiently. It's just a
different skill set," Laycock said. An analysis of a database of the
nearly 1,200 sitting and senior federal judges shows slightly more than
one-third served as judges prior to their appointment. Only 18 served as
general counsels or assistant or associate general counsels for private
companies. Puryear's lack of trial experience is probably why he received a
"qualified" rating by the American Bar Association, instead of the
higher "well qualified," Laycock said. Of the 67 judges nominated
by President Bush since January 2007, 14 received a unanimous or majority
"qualified" rating. The rest had unanimous or majority
"well-qualified" ratings. Alex Friedman, vice president of Private
Corrections Institute, said conflict of interest is a major reason not to
confirm Puryear because lawsuits against the company and its executives are
often filed in the court on which he would serve. Friedman served six years
in a CCA-run facility in Tennessee. Puryear told the committee he would sell
off all his CCA stock and recuse himself from cases involving the company.
Laycock said "that CCA gets sued a lot is not a problem" because
the number of cases would be relatively small and could be picked up by other
judges. CCA and Puryear have strong connections to the federal government.
Puryear gave $3,000 to Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker's campaign in 2005-06 and
$1,000 to Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander in 2005. CCA executives and its
political action committee have given $48,950 to Alexander since 1989,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Corker has received $27,250
from CCA and its executives. Puryear is a registered lobbyist for CCA and the
company spent more than $3 million in 2007 lobbying the federal government,
according to lobbying reports. It has received nearly $1.2 billion in federal
contracts since 2004, according to a database of federal contracts compiled
by the Office of Management and Budget. Nashville death cited -- Another
complaint is the company's handling of the 2004 death of Estelle Richardson
in the Metro Detention Facility in Nashville. Puryear testified at his
confirmation hearing that her broken ribs and liver injuries could have been
caused by CPR attempts to revive her. Tennessee's Chief Medical Examiner, Dr.
Bruce Levy, who conducted the autopsy on Richardson, said in an e-mail that
Puryear's "statement that the rib fractures and liver damage could have
been caused by CPR is in error and is not based on sound forensic
medicine." Levy has contacted the judiciary committee. But Dr. William
McCormick, the state's former deputy chief medical examiner, concluded in a
report prepared for attorneys defending the company in a civil lawsuit that
the injuries were "almost certainly" caused by the CPR, said Joe
Welborn, one of the attorneys. Four CCA guards were charged, but the charges
were dropped and Richardson's family ultimately settled a lawsuit against the
company. Both Tennessee Republican senators, Alexander and Corker, released
written statements last week repeating their support for Puryear. "The
American Bar Association investigated all allegations raised by liberal
interest groups, but still concluded that Mr. Puryear was qualified to serve
on the federal bench," Alexander said. The Senate Judiciary Committee is
not likely to hold a second hearing on the nomination, said Chabot,
spokeswoman for chairman Leahy. The committee will rely on the record of the
first hearing and answers to written questions to vote. It is not clear when
that vote will take place.
February 22, 2008 National Lawyers
Guild PR
On June 13, 2007, President Bush nominated Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV for a
position on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Mr.
Puryear currently serves as vice president and general counsel for
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest for-profit
private prison company. If appointed he would serve as a federal judge in the
same jurisdiction where CCA is headquartered. Since 2000, at least 260
federal lawsuits naming CCA, company subsidiaries or CCA employees have been
filed in the Middle District of Tennessee. Such cases would constitute a
conflict of interest for Mr. Puryear, and assigning them to other judges would
not be an effective use of judicial resources. Of greater concern is that Mr.
Puryear lacks familiarity with the federal courts and has little trial or
litigation experience. By his own admission he has tried only two cases to
verdict; he has been personally involved in only five federal cases, most
recently a decade ago. He is not admitted to practice before the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals, which is over the Middle District of Tennessee, and
received only a "qualified" rating from the American Bar Association
rather than a "highly qualified" rating. Both Tennessee Senators
Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker strongly support Mr. Puryear's nomination.
Neither Senator has acknowledged the substantial financial contributions
received from Mr. Puryear and his employer, CCA – which include over $80,000
to Senator Alexander and $27,000 to Senator Corker since 2004. Further, Mr.
Puryear mentioned in disclosure statements that he is a member of the
Nashville-based Belle Meade Country Club. The fact that Mr. Puryear maintains
membership in an exclusive, predominately white club that did not admit its
first minority member until 1994, and reportedly does not afford voting
privileges to female members but only to male members, is a matter of
significant concern for a federal judicial nominee. In an Associated Press
national wire article concerning Mr. Puryear's nomination, Vanderbilt
Professor Stefanie Lindquist was quoted as saying his judicial appointment
"might slide through as a compromise." The National Lawyers Guild
does not believe the people of Tennessee should have to compromise or settle
for a less-than-qualified federal judge to represent their interests in U.S.
District Court. The National Lawyers Guild calls on the Senate Committee on
the Judiciary to vote down this unqualified, conflicted and controversial
judicial candidate.
February 21, 2008 AP
A private prison company executive nominated to become a federal judge has
run into a determined opponent — a former inmate. President Bush in June
nominated Gustavus A. Puryear IV, chief lawyer with Corrections Corporation
of America, to become a U.S. district judge in Nashville. That led Alex
Friedmann, who spent six years at the company's prison in Clifton, Tenn., to
investigate Puryear's qualifications. He looked up every case where Puryear
was listed on the docket as counsel. The prisoner-turned-inmate advocate
found only five instances where Puryear was the attorney of record. By his
count and Puryear's, the judicial nominee has been involved in only two
federal court trials during his career. That's just one more case than
Friedmann himself has handled in federal court. Convinced that the
well-connected Puryear was unqualified to be a federal judge and might face a
conflict of interest overseeing litigation involving his former employer,
Friedmann began a public relations campaign against the nomination that led
all the way to the Senate. He formed the group Tennesseans Against Puryear
and enlisted the help of the liberal Washington-based Alliance for Justice
and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, both of
which sent letters opposing the appointment. Puryear, a 1993 graduate of the
University of North Carolina law school, didn't respond to several phone and
e-mail requests left at his home and office for an interview with The
Associated Press. At a Feb. 12 hearing of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Diane
Feinstein, D-Calif., questioned Puryear about several issues originally
raised by Friedmann and the nonprofit Private Corrections Institute, a group
opposing private prisons that Friedmann helps run. Puryear told the Senate
committee he already was selling off his stock in the company, according to
reports in The Tennessean newspaper. He owned CCA shares valued at just under
$1.3 million as of Feb. 1, according to Lionshares.com, an online database of
stock ownership. He also pledged to recuse himself from cases involving CCA
even after he no longer holds a financial interest. The committee also
questioned Puryear about whether the volume of lawsuits against
Nashville-based CCA — the nation's largest for-profit private prison company
— would burden other judges who would have to hear the cases when Puryear
recused himself. Puryear said it would not be a significant burden.
Friedmann's campaign against Puryear continues. He plans to send a letter to
the Committee on the Judiciary pointing out what he contends are inaccuracies
in Puryear's answers. The two men have never met. Although Friedmann learned
of the nomination because he keeps tabs on CCA, he insists his crusade is
based on Puryear's lack of qualification and not because he's a CCA
executive. Friedmann sued CCA and several employees in 1996 while
incarcerated for six years for armed robbery. Serving as his own lawyer,
Friedmann eventually won a $6,000 judgment against a former prison unit
manager for a civil rights violation. Puryear's legal resume includes
significant political work — serving as counsel to former Senate Majority
Leader Bill Frist and junior counsel during the U.S. Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee investigation of campaign finance abuse led by former Sen.
Fred Thompson. He also was a debate adviser for Dick Cheney in 2000. Stefanie
Lindquist, an associate professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt
University, said courtroom experience is good but not essential for federal
judge nominees. She sees more significance in the American Bar Association
rating of Puryear as "qualified," instead of "well
qualified" to be a judge. "A 'qualified' rating is relatively weak.
That's going to hurt him," Lindquist said. Lindquist said Friedmann's
efforts are unusual for even temporarily disrupting what should be a routine
confirmation. There are about 180 Bush nominations pending as the
administration and Democratic-controlled Senate tangle over some sharply
contested nominees. Of the Puryear nomination, Lindquist said: "If there
are other, more controversial nominees, this might slide through as a
compromise."
February 20, 2008 Mother Jones
In October 2000, Dick Cheney faced off for a debate with Connecticut Sen.
Joseph Lieberman. The 60-year-old Cheney appeared comfortable discussing the
ins and outs of policy and made good-natured jokes about Lieberman's singing
abilities, or lack thereof. Cheney's smooth performance reflected his many
years in public service. But the aspiring vice president also had a strong
debate-preparation team made up of longtime friends and GOP loyalists. Among
them was Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV, a legislative director for Tennessee
senator Bill Frist, who was on contract with the Bush/Cheney campaign.
Puryear apparently did such a good job prepping Cheney that he was called in
again in 2004 to help him gear up for his debate with Democratic
vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. Puryear's efforts on behalf of the
Bush administration paid off last June when the president nominated him to be
a federal trial court judge for the Middle District of Tennessee. Puryear
certainly isn't the first judicial nominee selected primarily for his
political service, but still, his resume is remarkably thin on the practice
of law, a basic prerequisite even for the best-connected political hacks.
Puryear got his start in politics in the mid-1990s working as counsel to the
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, then chaired by Fred Thompson, as
it investigated the Clinton fundraising scandals. From there he went to work
for Frist. Beyond a brief stint in private practice for a corporate law firm
when he was fresh out of law school, Puryear has spent more time inside an
executive suite than a courtroom. And it's that corporate work that makes him
an especially questionable candidate for the federal bench. Puryear was in
Washington last week for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, where Senators Arlen Specter (D.-Pa,) and Dianne Feinstein
(D.-Ca.) both put his resume under a microscope, noting his conspicuous lack
of trial experience. At one point Specter asked him point blank, "How
many cases have you actually tried?" To which Puryear answered: Two.
Indeed, according to his written questionnaire for the committee, of the two
cases he has tried in the entirety of his legal career, he was lead counsel
on one of them. The last time he litigated a case in federal court was more
than a decade ago. Puryear has spent the bulk of his legal career at the
Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest
private prison company. As its general counsel since 2001, Puryear has made
millions of dollars working for a company that profits from the country's
incarceration boom, particularly through his recent sale of more than $3
million worth of the company's stock. (His financial disclosure form shows a
net worth of more than $13 million.) His employer creates enormous conflicts
for Puryear as a potential federal judge, as the CCA gets sued all the time,
often in the very district where he hopes to preside as judge. Since 2000,
roughly 260 cases have been filed in that court against the CCA, its
officers, and subsidiaries. In addition, Puryear's current job involves
overseeing the CCA's defense against inmate litigation, a prison staple that
he has publicly dismissed as a nuisance, even though such litigation has led
to significant verdicts and settlements against the company. For instance, in
2000, a South Carolina jury hit the CCA with a $3 million verdict for abusing
juveniles. Other successful suits have alleged that the company's employees
abused inmates and provided negligent medical care. Yet in a quote he no
doubt now regrets, in 2004 Puryear said that, "Litigation is an outlet
for inmates. It's something they can do in their spare time." Inmate
lawsuits typically account for more than 10 percent of the docket in
Tennessee's Middle District, meaning that Puryear will see his share of them
if he gets confirmed. During his confirmation hearing last week, Puryear told
the committee that he would recuse himself from any cases involving the
CCA—at least, he said, for some time after he's divested all of his stock in
the company. He dismissed concerns about his conflict of interest by noting
that the CCA cases make up a small part of the court's workload and that his
recusals would not create problems for the other judges. But his promises to
recuse still don't get to the heart of a fundamental conflict: To the CCA,
inmates are a revenue stream warehoused at the cheapest price. This not
exactly the view of the criminal justice system you want from a judge if you
are a defendant. A trial court judge in Tennessee's Middle District can expect
to handle more than 60 criminal cases a year. Every person Puryear sends to
prison is a potential money-maker for his former employer, which contracts
with the federal government to manage 15 detention facilities, and also holds
federal prisoners in other CCA institutions that house state and local
prisoners when the need arises, according to Steve Owen, the company's
director of marketing and communications. The number of inmates coming from
Tennessee may be relatively small, but still, it seems fair to ask whether
Puryear's conflict of interest runs so deep that he might have to recuse
himself from criminal cases entirely. Thus far, Puryear has largely escaped
media scrutiny, as the activist groups that monitor the federal courts tend
to focus mostly on appellate courts and the occasional Supreme Court battle
rather than on trial court nominees. Puryear's CV also doesn't signal fights
on many of the hot-button social issues that usually set off a confirmation
battle. He doesn't sound—or look—like Robert Bork. He's young, patrician, a
model member of the exclusive Belle Meade Country Club, and director of the
Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville. But for his deep voice he could be
Niles on "Frasier." Nonetheless, Puryear might be in for an unexpected
fight, due in part to his decision to publicly dis jailhouse lawyers. Alex
Friedmann was one of those jailhouse lawyers. He spent six years inside one
of the CCA's prisons in Tennessee for attempted murder and armed robbery.
Friedmann actually sued the CCA while incarcerated for retaliating against
him for his comments to a reporter for The Nation. Representing himself, he
took another case all the way to a jury trial, where he mostly lost, though
he won a default judgment against a former unit manager. He also appealed a
different case against the state, over censorship, that went all the way to
the Sixth Circuit court of appeals where he won. "In that regard, I'm
more qualified than [Puryear] is," he observes, noting that Puryear
isn't even admitted to practice in the Sixth Circuit. Now out of prison nine
years, Friedmann is an editor for Prison Legal News, which is how he first
learned about Puryear's nomination. After doing a little checking on him,
Friedmann ran across Puryear's quote about inmate litigation, which didn't
sit too well with him, and he set out to torpedo Puryear's nomination. As a
former CCA inmate and a board member of a Florida nonprofit group that
opposes prison privatization, Friedmann readily admits that he's not a
disinterested party in the nomination battle. Nonetheless, his political
instincts are sound. He is cobbling together a coalition to oppose Puryear's
nomination, including the American Federal State and Municipal Employees
Union, which opposes private prisons for their anti-labor positions.
Friedmann's currently at work trying to enlist the real powerhouse of liberal
judicial activists to join the coalition: women's groups. Friedmann has
compiled stats from the federal court docket on the CCA's lawsuit history in
order to highlight the potential conflicts of interest Puryear might face,
and he picked apart Puryear's resume and his responses to the Senate
Judiciary Committee's questions last week. For instance, when pressed on his
view of criminal defendants and prison inmates, Puryear pointed to his
service as a commissioner on the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission.
Skeptical, Friedmann checked out Puryear's attendance record with the
commission. He says the commission held eight public hearings between 2005
and 2007—and Puryear missed at least four of them. "If the gentleman
does have a genuine concern about inmates, why did he miss half the
meetings?" he asks. Friedmann is also raising significant questions
about Puryear's response to questions about the death of a female inmate at
the CCA's facility in Nashville. The medical examiner ruled that 34-year-old
Estelle Richardson was beaten to death while in the company's custody. She
suffered a skull fracture, broken ribs, and liver damage. Prosecutors
indicted four CCA guards in 2005, but later dropped the charges after being
unable to determine the time of death. So far, no one has been held
responsible for Richardson's death, although the CCA settled a private
lawsuit filed by her family. When Sen. Feinstein asked Puryear about the
case, Puryear disputed the medical examiner's findings and claimed that
Richardson's death might not have been a homicide at all. He suggested that
the broken ribs and liver injury may have been caused by CPR. It's
"common" for people to suffer such injuries from CPR, Puryear said,
to which a dumbfounded Feinstein exclaimed, "Common?" Apparently
not satisfied with Puryear's answers, Feinstein asked him to provide the
committee with further written information about the case. Meanwhile, after
the hearing, Friedmann called the Tennessee medical examiner who worked the
case, who he says reaffirmed the original finding that Robinson's death was a
homicide and that there was nothing to suggest her injuries were caused by
resuscitation efforts. Friedmann also spoke with the lawyers who represented
Richardson's family and he says that they told him that the CCA never raised
CPR injuries as a defense in the litigation. Puryear's comments to the
committee, says Freidmann, are "not supported
by the medical record," which makes him skeptical about Puryear's
judgment as a lawyer—and his credibility. Friedmann seems to recognize that
prison inmates are not the stuff of judicial confirmation fights, so he has
also homed in on another issue that might provide more traction, not to
mention the interest of powerful women's groups: Puryear's country club. The
tony Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville is so exclusive that you have to
be a member just to access its website. It didn’t admit a single black member
until 1994, a racist history so potent that even Puryear's mentor, former
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, quit the club in 1993 when he first ran
for office. While Belle Meade admits women, Friedmann has heard that it still
won't give "lady members" voting rights. (Troy Cunningham, the
controller of the club for the past 17 years, wouldn’t respond to questions
about women's voting rights, saying that "all questions flow through the
members," meaning that someone will have to put the question to Puryear
himself.) But if Friedmann can stir up controversy over Puryear's country
club membership, he might actually have a shot at scuttling his nomination.
February 20, 2008 AP
Corrections Corp. of America spent almost $2.5 million in 2007 to lobby on
legislation and regulations related to the private prison industry. The
prison management company spent more than $1.1 million in the second half of
2007 to lobby the federal government, according to a disclosure form posted
online Thursday by the Senate's public records office. The company lobbied on
the privatization of Bureau of Indian Affairs prisons and on the Public
Safety Act, which would outlaw private prisons, as well as the Private Prison
Information Act, which would force private prisons to make public the same
information government jails must provide. Corrections Corp. spent more than
$1.3 million in the first six months of 2007 to lobby on similar issues. In
addition to lobbying Congress, the company also lobbied the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department
of Labor and Office of Management and Budget. Corrections Corp. lobbyists
included Bart VerHulst, previously chief of staff
for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Mike Quinlan, former
director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons; and Gus Puryear, previously
counsel to Frist and an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. Lobbyists are
required to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive
and legislative branches, under a federal law enacted in 1995.
December 12, 2007 All American
Patriots
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today co-sponsored the Private Prison
Information Act of 2007, legislation introduced by Senator Joe Lieberman to
increase transparency and accountability at private prisons. The Private
Prison Information Act of 2007 will help to prevent abuse and neglect at
private prisons by requiring public disclosure of information about their
operations. “As the federal government continues to contract out the
incarceration of federal prisoners, it is essential that there be public
disclosure about the operation of these private prisons,” Senator Clinton
said. “Right now, the public does not have the same right of access to
information about private prisons as it has for federal prisons. There is a
lack of accountability into how tax dollars are being spent, which can place
the safety of correctional officers, surrounding communities, and prisoners
at risk. This legislation will help to ensure that citizens and elected
officials can properly assess the performance of private prisons and, if
necessary, hold them accountable for misconduct.” Currently, federal law does
not require private prisons that house federal prisoners to disclose
information to the public about the daily operation of their facilities, and
many private prisons do not submit reports to the federal government. This
legislation will require private prisons that house federal prisoners to
provide the same information available to the public that federal prisons are
required to provide under the Freedom of Information Act. Approximately
27,000 federal criminal prisoners are serving time in private prison
facilities. Additionally, more than 40,000 of the immigrants and asylum
seekers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains each year are held
in private detention centers. Studies have shown that correctional officers
at privately run prisons are paid less, receive less training, and experience
higher turnover rates than those at prisons run by government agencies. These
differences can lead to greater rates of assaults on staff, inmate on inmate
assaults, and escape attempts. The bill is supported by a broad coalition of
associations representing correctional officers and law enforcement officers
and public interest and advocacy groups, including Corrections USA; the
Sheriff Officers Association of Nassau County, NY.; the Suffolk County
Correctional Officers Association, N.Y.; the Westchester County Correctional
Superior Officers Association, N.Y.; the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); the American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE); Amnesty International USA, and the Center for
Constitutional Rights.
November 12, 2007 AP
Private prison operator Corrections Corp. of America paid Sisco
Consulting Inc. $140,000 in the first half of 2007 to lobby the federal
government, according to a disclosure form. The form, which was posted online
Nov. 7 by the Senate's public records office, did not indicate any specific
initiatives the lobbying firm worked on. The Nashville, Tenn.-based company,
which designs, builds and manages prisons, jails and detention facilities,
previously indicated it spent $1.3 million lobbying so far this year on
issues related to prison privatization. The company owns 40 facilities, but
also operates in another 25 facilities across the nation. Lobbyists are
required to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive
and legislative branches, under a federal law enacted in 1995. They must register
with Congress within 45 days of being hired or engaging in lobbying.
November 11, 2007 The Morning Call
For seven years before coming to Congress, Rep. Tim Holden was a
Schuylkill County sheriff. Here, he may be more of a warden. Holden last week
testified on behalf of one of four prison-related measures that he has
introduced since the start of the year. The Private Prison Information Act
would require private prisons that are awarded federal contracts to disclose
the same information as public prisons. ''Private prisons right now have no
reporting obligations,'' Holden, D-17th District, said in an interview.
''There is an awful lot of information that we cannot find out.'' Holden
argues that without information about how private prisons are staffed, how
much training guards receive and how many incidents occur, there's no way to
hold them accountable. Private prisons counter that they provide all
necessary information to the agencies that contract with them. Holden's
district -- which includes parts of Schuylkill and Berks counties -- is home
to two state prisons and one federal prison. They employ several hundred
prison guards. But so far there is only one private prison with a federal
contract in Pennsylvania: Moshannon Valley Correctional Center in Centre
County. And Holden, who opposes private prisons, wants to keep it that way.
Without having to disclose the same information as public facilities, Holden
argues, private prisons aren't playing by the same rules when they compete
for federal contracts. ''It is a concern that they'd expand [private prisons]
anywhere in the country,'' Holden said. ''It is only going to put the public
safety at risk.'' Corrections officers have a keen interest in keeping the
industry public: Salaries and benefits are considered to be better at state
and federal-run prisons than at private prisons. But privately run prisons
have become increasingly common in recent years as the federal government
tries to meet the demands placed on it by a growing prison population. The
largest private prison provider, Corrections Corporation of America, now has
65 facilities throughout the country. It opposes Holden's measure, arguing
that it already provides information necessary to the agencies administering
the contracts, if not the public. ''We have very comprehensive and detailed
standards which we meet with our public partners in terms of information that
is provided to them,'' said Louise Grant, Corrections Corporation's
spokeswoman. ''Transparency and accountability already exist with the
public-private partnership.''
November 9, 2007 Harrisburg Patriot
News
Private prisons and other facilities hold about 25,000 federal prisoners.
They don’t have to tell the public how many guards they have per inmate or
whether serious crimes such as assaults or rape occur. U.S. Rep. Tim Holden,
a former Schuylkill County sheriff and probation officer, would shut them
down if he could. But there’s no support in Congress for that step. Instead,
Holden, D-Schuylkill, sponsored the Private Prison Information Act, which
would require the 12 private prisons operated nationwide that hold federal
prisoners to comply with the federal Freedom of Information Act. The
Moshannon Valley Correctional Center at Philipsburg, a 1,300-bed low-security
facility that houses mostly criminal aliens and offenders from the
Washington, D.C. area, is one of 12 facilities nationwide. There are five in
Texas, two in California, and one each in North Carolina, New Mexico, Georgia
and Ohio. Houston, Texas-based Cornell Companies, which operates the center
in Philipsburg, operates other state facilities for juvenile offenders in the
state. Holden’s legislation would only apply to facilities with federal
contracts. “As the federal government increases its use of private,
for-profit facilities for incarceration of federal prisoners, it is
imperative that we ensure that information about the operation of these
prisons is readily available,” Holden testified Thursday before a House
Judiciary subcommittee. “The veil of secrecy surrounding private facilities
needs to be lifted.” Holden has two federal prisons and one state prison in
his district. He told the panel, whose members voiced no criticism of the
proposal, about the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio.
Members of a state panel found 44 inmate-on-inmate assaults there during a
one-year period, compared with 305 combined assaults recorded by Ohio’s 32
correctional facilities. The facility did not respond to state officials’ and
media requests for additional details, he said. “Most daunting of all,
private prisons are not required to provide incident reports detailing health
care oversight, rape or assault, weapons attacks, death, or escape at the
facility,” Holden said. Corrections Corp. of America, a company that manages
about 70,000 prisoners, opposes the measure, said Louise Grant, vice
president of communications and marketing. “We believe the current system
works very well” and provides an elaborate system for making information
available, said Grant. Rep. Robert Scott, a Virginia Democrat and chairman of
the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, called Holden’s
proposal a “good government bill,” but no other members commented. The full
House Judiciary Committee is expected to take up the bill later this month or
in December.
October 11, 2007 Arizona Republic
A Phoenix man and other parents whose children died at boot camps for
troubled youths gave wrenching testimony before Congress on Wednesday, urging
other families to avoid enrolling teens in such programs until there is more
oversight of them. Bob Bacon of Phoenix recounted how his 16-year-old son,
Aaron, died at a wilderness camp in Utah in the 1990s. "We were conned
by their (the camp's) fraudulent claims and will go to our graves regretting
our gullibility," Bacon told members of a House committee. The
Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, also
announced it has identified thousands of allegations of abuse, some involving
death, at boot camps since the early 1990s. It cataloged 1,619 incidents of
abuse in 33 states in 2005. "Buyer, beware," said Greg Kutz, who led the GAO investigation. "You really
don't know what you're getting." Kutz said the
GAO closely examined 10 closed cases where juveniles died at residential treatment
camps. In half of those cases, the teens died of dehydration or heat
exhaustion. Other factors were untrained staff, inadequate food or reckless
operations, the GAO said. Five of the 10 camps are still operating, some in
different locations or under new names. "Ineffective program management
played a key role in most of these deaths," Kutz
testified before the House Education and Labor Committee. Rep. George Miller,
D-Calif., who chairs the committee and requested the investigation, has
sponsored a bill designed to encourage states to enact regulations.
"This nightmare has remained an open secret for years," Miller said
in a statement. "Congress must act, and it must act swiftly." The
death of Bacon's son was one of the 10 cases studied by the GAO, but not the
only one with an Arizona connection. The sample cases did not include names,
but some were identifiable through news reports. One was the death of Anthony
Haynes, 14, at the American Buffalo Soldiers boot camp in Arizona in 2001.
One of the state's most high-profile camp deaths was that of Nicholas Contreraz, a 16-year-old Sacramento youth who died in
1998 while being subjected to discipline at the Arizona Boys Ranch near Queen
Creek. Bob Bacon's account was among those Wednesday that outraged House
committee members. Bacon said Aaron was sent to the camp because of minor
drug use and poor grades. The father said he was fooled by the owners of the
Utah facility into believing his son would be well cared for. Instead, Aaron
was forced to hike eight to 10 miles a day with inadequate nutrition and was
not given protective gear to withstand freezing temperatures, Bacon said.
When Aaron complained of severe stomach pains and asked for a doctor, his
pleas were ignored even though he had dramatically lost weight and suffered
from other serious symptoms, Bacon testified. According to court documents,
the boy's condition was ignored for 20 days, until he collapsed. The autopsy
showed he died of an acute infection related to a perforated ulcer. Five camp
employees pleaded guilty to negligent homicide, and another was convicted of
child abuse. All were sentenced to probation and community service. Kutz testified that camp employees studied by the GAO
were often poorly trained. He said kids weren't properly fed and were exposed
to dangerous conditions, their cries for medical assistance ignored. He said
that in only one of the 10 sample cases was anyone found criminally liable
and sentenced to prison. The residential programs, designed to instill
discipline and character, can be privately run or state-sponsored programs
and sometimes include an educational or school-like component. They are
loosely regulated by states. There are no federal laws that define and
regulate them. The programs are marketed to parents who are at a loss as to
how to help emotionally troubled teens, Kutz said.
Jan Moss, executive director of the National Association of Therapeutic
Schools and Programs, a trade group, said many kids have been helped by the
treatment programs. She said the industry is taking steps to improve, but she
added, "Clearly we still have a very long way to go." Kutz said there is no comprehensive nationwide data on
deaths and injuries in residential treatment programs. Auditors found
thousands of allegations in lawsuits, Web sites and state records.
"Examples of abuse include youth being forced to eat their own vomit,
denied adequate food, being forced to lie in urine or feces, being kicked,
beaten and thrown to the ground," Kutz said,
adding that one teen was reportedly "forced to use a toothbrush to clean
a toilet, then forced to use that toothbrush on their own teeth." At the
boot camp where Anthony Haynes died, children were fed an apple for
breakfast, a carrot for lunch and a bowl of beans for dinner, the GAO said.
Haynes became dehydrated in 113-degree heat and vomited dirt, according to
witnesses. The program closed, and the director, Charles Long, was sentenced
in 2005 to six years in prison for manslaughter. The autopsy on Nicholas Contreraz showed that after Boys Ranch staffers punished
and humiliated the teen for days, he suffered from a severe infection in the
lining of his lungs. Five employees were charged criminally, but all counts
were dropped. The ranch now operates under the name Canyon State Academy. Julie
Vega, Contreraz's mother, recently told The Arizona
Republic, "I feel like he was sacrificed, and some good things changed
for the better because of him. But nobody really paid a price for his
death."
Correctional
Treatment Facility
Washington, DC
CCA
January 18, 2017 curenational.org
A coalition of criminal justice reform organizations and D.C. corrections
stakeholders announced today that they will hold an event to celebrate the
return of D.C.'s city jail, the Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF), to
public control. The event will be held on Wednesday, February 1st, 2017, from
4 PM - 6 PM ET at the Harrington Hotel, Ave. E and 11th St. NW. For the past
20 years, CTF has been operated by CoreCivic,
formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest
private prison company in the U.S. In March, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced
that the city would resume operation of CTF when CoreCivic's
contract expired at the end of January 2017. Since forming nearly three years
ago, the ReThink Justice-DC coalition has advocated
to end D.C.'s contract with CoreCivic, and to stop
the city from signing contracts with other for-profit corrections
corporations. "Profit is the worst possible motive to run a jail,"
said Charlie Sullivan of CURE, and one of the coalition's leaders. "I
feel like D.C. is finally being released from a 20 year sentence."
Besides rejecting "celling for profit", another leader, John
Rosser, also said that "a prisoner will now be treated as a citizen and
not as a commodity." Finally, the coalition stressed CTF's place in the
growth of private prisons nationally. "Private prison companies claim
they'll incarcerate people for cheaper and in better conditions, but across
the country the evidence shows just the opposite," said coalition member
Jeremy Mohler of In the Public Interest. "CoreCivic's
track record is littered with deadly riots, escapes, terrible conditions, and
inadequate healthcare, which has cost the public more in the long run."
The coalition stresses that, while research and advocacy certainly helped
create a climate for reform, in the end, only the Mayor and the City Council
could bring about this historic day. "Hats off to the Mayor and Council
for removing the private profit from CTF. It was the right thing to do,"
said coalition leader Ann Keep. The coalition especially invites these
progressive public officials to the celebration and plan to publicly express
their gratitude.
Mar 25, 2016 washingtontimes.com
DC: Mayor’s budget includes taking over CCA jail
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser presented to city lawmakers her $13.4 billion
spending plan for fiscal 2017 that includes nearly $29 million for Emergency
Medical Services, $2.5 million to add 60 police officers to the force, and a
promise to take over the D.C. Jail. About 10 percent of the budget — $1.3
billion — is directed toward public safety. It would provide $2.5 million to
train and hire 30 additional 911 call takers, and $12 million for a
third-party ambulance initiative that would put more emergency units on the
streets during peak times and allow EMTs to train without disrupting service.
“It’s a good time in D.C., but you can’t sit on your laurels and go back to
bad habits,” Ms. Bowser said of writing the budget while the city holds a
General Fund balance of about $2.17 billion that has grown by $300 million
under her watch. The budget must be approved by the D.C. Council, and
Thursday was the first time lawmakers had a chance to examine details of the
mayor’s spending plan. "At first blush, it looks very sound,” said council Chairman Phil
Mendelson, at-large Democrat. The money for Emergency Medical Services comes
on the heels of the former director of emergency medical services, Dr. Jullette Saussy, blasting the
fire department for its unwillingness to let her access data she needed to
assess medics’ performance. On the police side, the fiscal 2017 budget would
provide $8 million for the District’s DNA crime lab and $3.5 million for
additional crime fighting technology. The budget includes Ms. Bowser’s initiative
to take over the D.C. Jail’s Correctional Treatment Facility. Currently, that
part of the jail is run by the private contractor Corrections Corporation of
America. The annex of the main jail holds about 500 inmates, but has a
capacity of 1,300.
The space would be used to house inmates in the federal correctional
system who are at the end of their sentences as a way to
make sure they have a smooth re-entry into society. About 130 people every
month return to the District from the federal prison system. Ms. Bowser said
the federal Bureau of Prisons re-entry services have been widely criticized,
so spending the last few months in the D.C. Jail as opposed to a federal jail
somewhere else in the country will help inmates reconnect with family and
services in the city before they get out of prison. In total, the budget
proposal comes in as a 3.5 percent increase over the fiscal 2016 budget,
which is relatively low compared to previous years. Over the last four fiscal
years, the budget grew each year by more than 5 percent, peaking in 2012 at
6.86 percent. And though it’s a smaller increase than past budgets, Ms.
Bowser said the budget still funds the programs that will help residents
including $386.6 million for Metro, $4.8 million for the Marion Barry Summer
Youth Employment Program and $100 million for the Housing Production Trust
Fund. “This budget will reflect the needs of a growing city,” Ms. Bowser
said. “In a city as prosperous as ours, every resident deserves a fair shot —
no matter who you are, or what ward you live in.”
Sep 12, 2015 nbcwashington.com
Deaf Man Jailed Without Sign Language
Translator Wins Case Against D.C. Jail
A deaf man who was jailed for 51 days
without a sign language translator -- left unable to communicate with prison
doctors, his counselor, his teachers and other inmates -- has won a
discrimination case against the District of Columbia. William Pierce is
profoundly deaf and communicates with sign language. After he pleaded guilty
to a simple assault charge stemming from a domestic dispute, he was sentenced
to the D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility, which is operated by Corrections
Corporation of America. The jail assumed that "lip-reading and
exchanging written notes would suffice," and did not provide a translator,
the court found. "They figuratively shrugged and effectively sat on
their hands," the court's decision read. Pierce felt isolated and
confused by what was happening in jail, he said in court filings. The court
found that the District and CCA had violated the Americans with Disabilities
Act, as well as the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. “I am very pleased with Judge
Jackson’s decision to find that the District of Columbia violated my rights
as a deaf man and a human being,” Pierce said, through an interpreter, in an
American Civil Liberties Union press release. “Video phones and interpreters
are critical for the deaf and hard of hearing inmates to have access to the
same opportunities as other inmates," Pierce said. "Unfortunately,
even with this decision, the denial of service and adequate access
continues.” A jury will decide Pierce's compensation.
Aug 26, 2015 solitarywatch.com
A recent report recommends replacing DC’s jail with a new facility.
Much has been written of late about the
emergence of a bipartisan consensus on the need for criminal justice reform,
encompassing both the White House and Congress. If this is true, the
President and members of Congress would do well to start their reform efforts
close to home, at the District of Columbia jail. The DC jail sits less than
two miles east of Capitol Hill, out of sight of the Mall and its sparkling
monuments. This complex of buildings warehouses mostly poor people of color,
many of whom are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime. A
scathing report on the jail system was produced recently by the Washington
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in conjunction with the
firm of Covington and Burling: D.C. Prisoners: Conditions of Confinement in
the District of Columbia. The report found a crumbling infrastructure, poor
mental health services, a high suicide rate, shamefully inadequate youth
facilities, and an excessive use of solitary confinement. Washington’s jail
system is a complex comprised of two main sections: the Central
Detention Facility (CDF), a deteriorating building dating to the 1970s
where most adults are held, and a smaller facility called the Correctional
Treatment Facility (CTF) that houses men, women, and children in individual
cells, effectively in solitary confinement. The CDF and the CTF house
pretrial detainees who cannot make bail, those awaiting transfer, and those
convicted of misdemeanors. People convicted of a felony are transferred to a
Federal Bureau of Prisons facility, where the District no longer has
jurisdiction over them. While the DC jail is operated by the D.C. Department
of Corrections (DCDOC), the CTF is run on a long-term contract by the
Corrections Corporation of America, the country’s largest private prison
operation which in has come under increasing attack for its poorly run
facilities. The report describes in some detail just how bad the overall
system is. DC inspectors found holes in the jail’s walls, water leaking in
through cracks in the roofs, mold, and cracked concrete. The report also
states that children were largely mistreated and kept in solitary
confinement, allegedly for their own safety, for extended periods of time.
Additionally, between November 2012 and August 2013, four people at the D.C.
jail committed suicide, bring the DCDOC suicide rate to three times the
national average. The report attributes the high rate to the failure of
guards and jail staff to follow existing mental health policies. The authors
of the report also make clear that there is little in the way of oversight
within the jail, either by the DC City Council or any other city agency. In
fact, the authors were initially denied a copy of the contract between the
DCDOC and CCA and obtained one only after lengthy efforts. In addition, when
seeking one report from the city’s Department of Health, the authors were
initially told that no such report existed, and had to prove that it did by
obtaining the report through other means. The CCA operation poses additional
problems. The CTF originally belonged to the District, but in 1997 the
cash-strapped city sold part of its jail system to CCA for $52 million and
then leased it back for $2.8 million a year to the company in a contract that
ends in 2017. Through this deal, CCA made a 31 percent profit on its
management fee alone. While CCA may be a leader in profits margins, they are
clearly unfit to run a criminal rehabilitation program. The report highlights
a case of a deaf man with HIV who filed a suit in federal district court
against the District claiming CCA jailers wouldn’t give him the medical care
he required. The man had been sentenced to 60 days in jail for a domestic
dispute and when he inquired about medical care during his incarceration,
jailers place him in solitary confinement. When not in solitary confinement,
the man was kept in handcuffs and denied the ability to speak to lawyers, his
family, or his partner in sign language. A spokesperson for the CCA told the
Washington Post that the company took the case of the deaf man “very
seriously” and were working “diligently to accommodate any special needs” of
people held at their facilities. The report also found the youth facilities
severely wanting, with an almost complete lack of any programming for
juveniles held in the jail, and an excessive use of solitary confinement. A Solitary
Watch investigation in 2013 also found that children charged as adults and
held in the DC jails often spent months on end locked down 23 hours a day in
barren cells, most often for “their own protection.” Children are further
isolated from their families by often being forced to visit via video stream,
rather than in person. In order to address these inadequacies, the authors
propose a series of recommendations. The most dramatic of these is to
demolish both the CDF and the CTF, which are physically beyond repair and no
longer meet what the report calls “the District’s true correctional needs.” A
new facility could be designed to address the prisoner population the
District expects to have, and provide for the different prisoner populations,
including men and women, those awaiting trial, those post-conviction awaiting
transfer to the BOP, parole violators, juveniles of both sexes, individuals
within each population who have special physical or mental health needs
(including suicide monitoring), and individuals of all ages and gender who
could benefit from substance abuse programming such as the SRTP [Secure
Residential Treatment Program]. People involved in the project say the
immediate aim is to get the DC City Council to order a study, and then use that
study to figure out who actually is in the jail system, what they did to get
there and for how long. They then hope to see new rules written that would
increase the number of people who get released on their own recognizance,
reducing the number who are held in jail for not being able to raise
relatively small amounts of bail. The information from the study might also
help advocates argue for sentencing reform, and reduce the length of time
people stay in jail. The first step toward these goals has now been taken, as
the D.C. City Council recently voted to spend $150,000 studying the future of
the jail system. There have been several prior studies, however, none of them
bearing results nearly as dramatic as the Washington Lawyers’ Committee
recommends. Another report recommendation is that the District allow its
contract with CCA, which expires in 2017, to lapse, and kick the company out
of the D.C. prison business. The company is a tough, adroit political
infighter that spends millions a year lobbying at the federal, state, and
local levels, and has made contributions to District mayoral and City Council
races. If CCA goes, it likely will not go quietly.
Nov 13, 2014 fbi.gov
Former Corrections Officer Pleads
Guilty to Bribery, Admits Taking Cash to Smuggle Contraband into Facility
WASHINGTON—Lenard Fleming, 34, a former
corrections officer who worked for the Corrections Corporation of America
(CCA), pled guilty today to a bribery charge for accepting money to smuggle
contraband into the District of Columbia’s Correctional Treatment Facility.
The guilty plea was announced by U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr.; Andrew
G. McCabe, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office;
and Thomas N. Faust, Director of the District of Columbia Department of
Corrections. Fleming, of District Heights, Md., pled guilty in the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of bribery. The
Honorable Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson scheduled
sentencing for Feb. 12, 2015. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Fleming
faces a likely range of 24 to 37 months of incarceration, as well as a fine
of up to $60,000. Fleming is subject to forfeiture money judgment for money
taken in the bribery scheme. According to the government’s evidence, Fleming
had worked for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) as a corrections
officer at the Correctional Treatment Facility. CCA, a private company, has a
contract to provide services to the D.C. Jail. During the investigation, the
FBI recovered contraband from an inmate at the Correctional Treatment
Facility in January 2014. Fleming admitted that he smuggled items for the
same inmate through that inmate’s contacts outside of the Correctional
Treatment Facility. Fleming received cash payments in exchange for smuggling
cigarettes and, on one occasion, an iPhone, into the Correctional Treatment
Facility for delivery to the inmate. Fleming was terminated by CCA in
February 2014 following a complaint that he was smuggling contraband into the
facility for another inmate. CCA was presented with allegations that Fleming
met several times with the wife of another inmate. On each occasion, the
inmate’s wife provided Fleming cash in exchange for Fleming smuggling
cigarettes and synthetic marijuana into the facility and delivering it to the
inmate. Fleming was arrested April 30, 2014. In a related investigation,
another former corrections officer at the Correctional Treatment Facility,
Darren Malry, 52, pled guilty on Oct. 17, 2014, to
a bribery charge. According to the government’s evidence, on March 11, 2014, Malry smuggled contraband into the facility for an
inmate. Malry was arrested that day. Malry is to be sentenced Feb. 6, 2015. In announcing
today’s plea, U.S. Attorney Machen and Assistant Director in Charge McCabe,
and Director Faust commended the work of those who jointly worked the case,
including agents from the FBI’s Washington Field Office, investigators from
the District of Columbia Department of Corrections Office of Investigative
Services, and investigators from the Corrections Corporation of America. They
also commended the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S.
Attorney’s Office, including Paralegal Specialists Donna Galindo, Corinne
Kleinman, and Angela Lawrence; Assistant U.S. Attorneys Melinda Williams,
Todd Gee, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Dillon, who assisted in
the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Catherine K. Connelly, Allessandra Stewart, and Arvind Lal, who assisted with
forfeiture issues. Finally, they expressed appreciation for the work of
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard DiZinno, who
prosecuted the case.
Apr 22, 2014 washingtonpost.com
A D.C. corrections officer was charged
in federal court this week with accepting bribes to smuggle cigarettes, a
cellphone and other contraband to an inmate. Darren Malry,
51, was arrested Monday after he allegedly took cash from an undercover FBI
agent in exchange for delivering contraband to an inmate at the D.C.
Correctional Treatment Facility. Malry, a Laurel
resident employed by the private firm Corrections Corporation of America,
pleaded not guilty during an appearance in U.S. District Court on Tuesday.
According to charging documents, Malry met twice
with an undercover agent in a Greenbelt shopping center. At their first meeting,
court papers say the agent handed Malry a
cellphone, cigarettes and rolling papers, in addition to $750 in cash. The
FBI recovered the items from the inmate soon after Malry
delivered them to the jail cell, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. At their
next meeting, Malry was arrested after the agent
handed him cash, cigarettes and packages with a substance that resembled
marijuana. Malry’s attorney was not immediately
available to comment.
Feb. 4, 2013 Washington City Paper
As if being imprisoned wasn't bad
enough, a new lawsuit from a former Washington inmate alleges there's another
threat lurking in Washington's correctional facilities: the showers. Robert
Morris was imprisoned at the Correctional Treatment Facility, a building located next to the D.C. Jail that's run by
the private Corrections Corporation of America, on Sept. 20, 2012. When he
got in the shower, he alleged got a surprise: According to his lawsuit, the
temperature spiked. "There was a sudden, very rapid, and quite extreme
temperature change and it burned him in the genital area," says Geoffrey
D. Allen, Morris's attorney. The lawsuit alleges that Corrections Corporation
of America employees already knew about the showers' tendency to shoot out
scalding water, which Allen likens to the changes in temperature when
multiple showers in one house are turned on, but much worse. In a lawsuit
filed in Superior Court in January, Morris sued the Corrections Corporation
of America for $1 million for the injuries he suffered in the shower. The
company declined to comment on the case, saying in a statement that inmate
safety at the CTF is a top priority. Allen, who wasn't sure what his client
was imprisoned for, says Morris didn't suffer permanent damage from the
shower's alleged burst on his most sensitive areas. "It was certainly
uncomfortable, as you can imagine," Allen says.
September 20, 2012 The Washington
Times
Corrections officers working at a D.C. jail facility worry about their
safety on a daily basis due to a lack of adequate staffing after recent
layoffs, employees testified Thursday at a D.C. Council hearing on the
facility’s management. Corrections Corporation of America has run the
District’s Correctional Treatment Facility since it took over operations from
the District in 1997, but workers said problems that include faulty radios,
inadequate staffing and high levels of contraband found inside the jail have
been exacerbated since 77 employees — approximately one-third of the
workforce — were laid off in April. “They are putting us in danger as well as
the inmates,” said Dana Bushrod, a corrections
officer of 10 years and leader with the union that represents employees at
the facility. Ms. Bushrod went on to describe how
units at the medium security facility, which is run separately from the
higher security D.C. Jail that is still overseen by the District, are now
commonly staffed with one corrections officer when they should be overseen by
two or three officers. “We have a mental health unit that should have three
staff members but have had one,” Ms. Bushrod said.
“We have had an incident where an officer was attacked because she was by
herself and a mental health patient attacked her and another mental health
inmate had to help her.” Faulty radios and telephones also often leave officers
without a way to communicate with staff in other units, she said. “It’s
pretty shocking, and the public should be very worried about some of these
instances,” said John Rosser, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police
Corrections Labor Committee that represents officers at the jail. No
representative from CCA attended the hearing before the council’s Committee
on the Judiciary on Thursday morning or could be reached for comment. D.C.
Council chairman Phil Mendelson, who oversaw the hearing, said that despite
CCA’s absence from the hearing he believes officials are listening to their
concern. “The value of this hearing is it gives employes
a way on the record to voice their concerns,” said Mr. Mendelson, at-large
Democrat, adding that a number of the concerns mentioned had been raised
before. “Now the whole world is watching, so the views are out on the table.”
Several who attended the hearing spoke out against a continuation of CCA’s
contract with the District to oversee operations at the facility. The contract
is in force until 2017, according to information provided by Department of
Corrections officials. “The FOP union strongly opposed privatizing in the
1990s and nothing has happened in the intervening years to convince us we
were wrong,” Mr. Rosser said. “Profit has no place being in the equation.
Making money on the incarceration of citizens is ugly business.” Others also
raised concern about current conditions inside the jail. A representative
from the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital spoke about
two deaf inmates who were not provided sign language interpreters. Advocates
said some inmates were subject to inhumane treatment, as they were not let
outside for months or their pleas for medical attention were ignored.
Corrections officers also expressed frustration that management provides
written warning of contraband searches before they are conducted, giving
inmates time to dispose of or hide weapons or other illegal items before the
sweeps.
July 23, 2010 WTOP
Former correctional officer Quincy Hayes was sentenced Friday to 12 months
and one day in prison for accepting bribes. At his guilty plea on March 18,
2010, Hayes, 32, of Alexandria admitted that he accepted a $300 cash payment
from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for agreeing to smuggle an iPod into
the Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF) for an inmate. Hayes also admitted
to having smuggled cigarettes into the CTF, located in the District, for
another inmate in exchange for a $100 bribe. Hayes will also undergo a two-year
period of supervised release following the prison sentence, where he will
perform 100 hours of community service. The CTF is operated by the
Corrections Corporation of America under contract with the District of
Columbia Department of Corrections.
May 27, 2010 Washington Post
Jail is supposed to be no frills, a place where the only the basic amenities
of food, clothing and shelter exist. But according to prosecutors, one D.C.
jail officer helped an inmate get some creature comforts -- a cell phone, an
iPod, and even a charger for the devices. Thomas Ford, 35, of the District,
was sentenced Thursday to 12 months and one day in prison on a charge of
bribery of a public official, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District
announced. Ford admitted in February that he accepted cash payments in
exchange for agreeing to smuggle cell phones, an iPod and a charger to a
cooperating inmate in the Correctional Treatment Facility, which is operated
by the Corrections Corporation of America under contract with the D. C.
Department of Corrections. The FBI launched an undercover sting in 2008,
after getting a tip that corrections officers were smuggling contraband to
inmates. U.S. Attorney Ron Machen said in a statement that as a law
enforcement officer, Ford abused the public trust, and he pledged,
"“whenever anyone violates the public trust and breaks the law, we will
prosecute them vigorously.”
March 11, 2010 AP
D.C. police are searching for an inmate who escaped while being transported
to United Medical Center for treatment. The Corrections Corporation of
America says 28-year-old Terrence Moore fled when he arrived at the southeast
D.C. hospital around 9 a.m. Thursday. The company says after officers opened
the vehicle doors, Moore escaped and jumped into a burgundy colored Cadillac
and got away with an unknown driver. Officials are investigating how Moore
was able to remove his restraints. The CCA runs the Correctional Treatment
Facility where Moore, who is from Washington, was a pretrial inmate facing
charges of assault with intent to kill. The facility is under lockdown.
February 23, 2010 Courthouse News
Two former inmates of a Corrections Corporation of America prison say CCA
employees preyed on them sexually and banished them to solitary lockdown when
they complained. One woman claims a CCA guard paid her "sugar
daddy" on the outside, then demanded, and received, sex in prison.
Jessica Rubio and Serbennia Chase filed separate,
$20 million federal lawsuits against the private prison contractor, alleging
civil rights violations at the company's Correctional Treatment Facility
(CTF) at the District of Columbia Jail. Rubio, who was arrested and sentenced
in 2008 for sexual solicitation, says CTF employee "Sgt. Powell"
paid her for sex four times when he should have been helping her "turn
her life around." Rubio says that in an effort to go straight rather then spending "the rest of her life going in and out
of prison," she signed up for a private counseling session with Powell,
who ran a group session called "Life Without a Crutch." Rubio says
she thought Powell was "uniquely qualified to assist her in dealing with
her problems and counsel her on how to become a law abiding and productive
member of society." During a private session, she says she told Powell
she was a prostitute and drug addict. She said she worked as a prostitute
because of a "love of money," and because there was no other job at
which she could make "$1,200 to $1,800 a day." After the session,
Rubio says, Powell paid $50 to her "sugar daddy" to have sex with
her. Rubio says that despite the "receipt" for her services, she
did not think Powell would "use her to satisfy his sexual urges because
she went to him to turn her life around, not to facilitate the life she had
on the streets." She says Powell took her to the prison's
"satellite kitchen" four times and had sex with her, each time
paying her "sugar daddy" beforehand. Afterward, Rubio says,
"She felt cheap, used and abused." "It reminded her of the
life she had on the street, that she wanted to put behind her, but it had
apparently followed her to CTF," the lawsuit states. After she told
investigators about Powell's actions and agreed to testify to a grand jury,
Rubio says she was denied phone calls and other privileges, and eventually
was moved to another prison, where her attorney had trouble visiting her. She
was kept in solitary and kept on near-constant lockdown, she says. In the
other complaint, Chase, who was arrested in 2008 for aggravated assault, says
she was sexually harassed at least three times by a "Lt. Harris"
while incarcerated at CTF. On a number of occasions Harris escorted her to
meetings with her attorney. Two times he grabbed her buttocks or her vagina
and said, "I'll see you later," according to the complaint. Another
time he cornered her in a stairway, grabbed her vagina and said, "When
are you going to let me put this dick in you?" Chase says. Chase adds
that the 5th District Police Precinct violated her privacy when it videotaped
her undressing in an interrogation room. She says the police then circulated
a video of her without underwear "exposing her vagina and
buttocks." She says she found out about the video when detectives sent a
copy to her lawyer. She says she was "shocked, embarrassed and felt
shame that her attorneys and other people saw her naked body." After she
reported the harassment, Chase says she was transferred to a jail more than 2
hours away and kept in a solitary cell on 24-hour lockdown. Both women sued
the District of Columbia, the Office of the Attorney General, and Corrections
Corporation of America for civil rights violations. Chase also sued for
invasion of privacy. They both seek a jury trial, $10 million in compensatory
damages and $10 million in punitive damages. Both are represented by Wendell
Robinson. Officials at the Correctional Treatment Facility did not return a
phone call requesting comment.
December 2, 2009 Washington Post
Two D.C. corrections officers and a Maryland woman were arrested Tuesday
on federal bribery charges on suspicion of accepting cash to smuggle
cellphones and iPods to inmates in the District's jail complex. The officers,
Thomas Ford, 35, and Quincy Hayes, 32, have been placed on administrative
leave and were released on personal recognizance after a brief hearing in the
District's federal court. They are officers at the District's Correction
Treatment Facility (CTF), which is run by the Corrections Corporation of
America. Renee Braxton, 44, a security guard at a museum, was also released
on personal recognizance, court records show. Authorities said that an inmate
approached the FBI in October 2008 to report that guards were smuggling
contraband into the facility. An undercover FBI employee, pretending to be
the brother of an inmate, met with Braxton and Ford in 2008 and early this year
and gave them several hundred dollars to smuggle a phone, an iPod and a
charger to inmates at the CTF. Ford passed the items to the inmates, the FBI
said. Hayes is accused of accepting a $300 bribe payment in June 2009 to
smuggle in an iPod to a CTF inmate, the FBI said in court papers.
September 28, 2009 Washington
Examiner
A D.C. Jail sergeant has been suspended while corrections officials probe
allegations that he had sex with an inmate after paying for it through her
pimp, according to officials and court documents. The investigation has also
led to the forced leave of two other corrections officers, one of whom was
later fired over an unrelated issue, officials said. The three were removed
from the D.C. Jail property, "after allegations of inappropriate
behavior arose with an inmate," according to Walter Fulton, facility
program manager at the Correctional Treatment Center. Authorities said they
would not further discuss the allegations because of an ongoing law
enforcement investigation, but some details were outlined in a lawsuit filed
in D.C. federal court this month. Jessica Rubio, 32, who described herself in
court documents as a prostitute with a drug problem, was an inmate at the
Correctional Treatment Facility, which is an annex of the D.C. Jail. She was
in custody on a prostitution charge. She charged in her lawsuit that she had
sex with correctional counselor Sgt. Aundra Powell
after he paid $50 to her "Sugar Daddy" for her to satisfy his
sexual urges. She claims Powell paid for her sexual services on four
occasions. The sexual encounters began last year when Rubio received a
receipt for the promised sex from her pimp and showed it to Powell after a
group counseling session, she charged in the suit. "I see you received
it," Powell replied, according to the lawsuit. Rubio's attorney, Wendell
Robinson, said he did not know what form the receipt was in and would not
comment further than what was in the lawsuit. In order to have sex with
Rubio, the lawsuit alleges, Powell removed Rubio from her jail cell during
the 2 p.m. "quiet time" and had her follow him to a satellite
kitchen. Powell walked her to a window and told her to look outside while he
put on a condom and had sex with her, according to the lawsuit. Rubio was
released after serving her time, but was rearrested in April and convicted
for prostitution in June 2009. It was then, she said, that Department of
Corrections detectives questioned her about what happened between her and
Powell. Rubio has since been transferred to the Rappahannock Regional Jail in
Stafford, Va. Walter Fulton, facility program manager at the Correctional
Treatment Center, said Powell and two lieutenants were placed on paid leave
as soon as the allegations surfaced. Jail detectives are investigating, he
said. Powell and a substance abuse counselor remain on administrative leave.
Lt. Ricardo Rich, an assistant shift supervisor, was fired in June for
unrelated reasons, Fulton said. The Correctional Treatment Facility, at 19th
and E streets Southeast, is managed by the Corrections Corp. of America and
is staffed by employees of the District.
December 3, 2008 Washington Post
The mother of a quadriplegic inmate who died in 2004 after suffering
breathing problems at the D.C. jail has reached financial settlements with
the District government and his care providers, her attorneys disclosed
yesterday. The settlements were reached in the controversial death of
Jonathan Magbie, a 27-year-old Maryland man who was
paralyzed from the neck down and used a mouth-operated wheelchair. Magbie died four days into a 10-day jail sentence for
possessing marijuana, which he said he used to ease the discomfort caused by
his disability. The jail infirmary, where he was housed for several days,
wasn't equipped with the ventilator he needed to breathe at night. His death
sparked several government investigations, which exposed major lapses in Magbie's care at the D.C. jail and Greater Southeast
Hospital. Attorneys for his mother, Mary R. Scott, declined to provide
details of the financial settlement, which she reached with the city, private
contractors and the insurance company that covered doctors at the hospital.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Scott, called the
settlement "substantial" in a news release. As part of the settlement,
the District government changed the way officials screen and handle inmates
with medical problems and disabilities, Scott's attorneys said. "The
family's concern was to make certain that, to the extent anyone can prevent
it, that this terrible type of event never happens again," said
Elizabeth Alexander, an ACLU lawyer who represented Scott. "A series of
people dealt with this young man, and every single place where something
could go wrong, it did go wrong." Scott declined to comment through her
attorneys. She filed a federal lawsuit in 2005 that accused the District
government, Greater Southeast, three contractors and more than a dozen
corrections officers, doctors and nurses of negligence in Magbie's
death. A spokeswoman from the D.C. government said she could not comment
until looking into the matter. Greater Southeast is under new ownership and
has been renamed United Medical Center. A spokeswoman for Corrections
Corporation of America, which runs a portion of the D.C. jail where Magbie was held, declined to comment. Representatives of
two other contractors did not return phone messages seeking comment. Magbie's ordeal began Sept. 20, 2004, when D.C. Superior
Court Judge Judith E. Retchin sentenced him to jail
after he pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana. D.C. police found a gun and
marijuana in Magbie's pockets in April 2003 after
stopping a vehicle driven by a cousin of his. Magbie
admitted buying the marijuana, records show. Magbie's
mother was furious that the judge did not give her son probation, the typical
punishment for first-time offenders. Magbie,
paralyzed since being hit by a drunk driver at age 4, had no criminal record.
Retchin told a judicial commission that she
sentenced Magbie to jail because he said he would
continue to smoke marijuana to alleviate his pain. She also told the
commission that she was unaware that he needed a ventilator to breathe at
night. The commission cleared Retchin of
wrongdoing. Because of his condition, Magbie was
supposed to be housed in the jail's infirmary, according to an investigation
by the D.C. inspector general. Magbie was taken to
a hospital for "respiratory distress" and returned to the jail
infirmary, which didn't have a ventilator, the report said. Jail doctors did
not perform a follow-up examination and did not always conduct daily rounds
to check on patients, including Magbie, the report
said. Magbie ate and drank very little during the
next few days, the report stated. On Sept. 24, 2004, he was having
respiratory problems, and paramedics were called, the report said. They found
him to be "unresponsive and very sweaty," and his undergarment was
"saturated with urine," the report said. Paramedics told
investigators that the trip to the hospital was delayed by about 30 minutes because
the jail staff would not allow them to leave without the proper paperwork and
without a blood sugar test, the report said. At the hospital, Magbie was "acutely ill," according to the
report. He died that night.
March 18, 2008 The Huffington Report
At a moment when Democratic Party officials are urging voters to trust
unelected superdelegates to act in the country's best interests, HuffPost's OffTheBus investigation into the background of DNC
superdelegates reveals at least one appointed superdelegate who is as likely
to use his political connections for personal profit as for the greater good.
Take the case of Joseph F. Johnson, a member-at-large of the Democratic
National Committee from Chantilliy, Virginia -a
suburb of Washington D.C. -- and a superdelegate currently tilting toward
Hillary Clinton. Using his web of connections, Johnson successfully lobbied
for the construction of a private prison linked to a company on whose board
he sat; he managed to have that prison contract with other companies he was
linked to; and though the prison became a notorious and dangerous failure,
Johnson benefited personally, pulling in millions of dollars in stock options
and fees. Johnson first rose through the ranks of the Democratic machine in
the early 1990s, as executive director of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH
Coalition. He brought with him strong ties to D.C. government that he'd built
after his first job in the nation's capital, as chief of staff for the city
of Washington DC's city council head. He also managed Douglas Wilder's successful
campaign to become Virginia's first African-American governor in 1991. And
Johnson advised Mark Warner on his successful 2001 gubernatorial bid in
Virginia. Johnson's reputation as a mover and shaker in D.C. Democratic
politics helped pave the way for his appointment to the board of Corrections
Corporation of America, the largest operator of private prisons in the
country. While serving in that position from 1996 to 1999, Johnson was
instrumental in convincing the local government in Washington, DC to pay CCA
to run a prison in Youngstown, Ohio for DC inmates, according to SEC filings
for the company. Meanwhile, two of Johnson's own companies, National
Corrections and Rehabilitation (NCRC) and MedCorr,
were contracted to provide employment rehabilitation and health services in
the same prison he helped establish. The private Ohio prison which Johnson
helped establish was, according to Youngstown's then-mayor, "a
nightmare." By 1998, there had been two fatal stabbings, 44 assaults,
and six escapes at the prison. A Department of Justice report found that
under CCA, the prison had "failed to accomplish the basic mission of
correctional safety;" and prisoners eventually collected $1.65 million
in damages and legal costs for their treatment under CCA. News reports traced
the problems at the prison to both CCA's management and D.C. Corrections'
practice of sending high-security inmates to the medium-security facility.
The problems, Johnson told the Washington Post at the time, weren't
"anyone's fault, it was just one of those things." Mr. Johnson
nonetheless profited from the deal, receiving $2.6 million in stock options
for his work linking CCA with officials in Washington, D.C. Calling his work
"instrumental" to their receipt of the contract, CCA said that Mr.
Johnson had "exceeded his duties and obligations" to the company
and also paid him $382,000 for his "consulting services" in helping
to arrange the deal, and $991,000 for NCRC's services in another CCA prison
in Texas. Johnson had also helped arrange for Washington, D.C. to sell one of
its local prisons to CCA in 1996. Local activists complained that procurement
rules had been skipped over to hand the bid to CCA, but the deal ultimately
went through, and CCA then managed the facility and used NCRC to provide
services to inmates. When the Washington Post asked Johnson if he considered
his dual roles as a conflict of interest, he replied, "Not in my
mind." Two years later, the Washington Post reported that CCA faced $1.3
million in fines for failing to provide services to inmates, including
$536,000 in fines for failing to properly administer medications and another
$77,400 for failing to provide vision services. The city's Department of
Corrections, despite being $8.8 million in the red, suspended most of the
fines, according to Post reports from the time. Johnson has over time
expanded his list of companies; NCRC is technically a subsidiary of his firm,
the Johnson Companies [www.jcmps.com]. Under that umbrella, Mr. Johnson also
houses the Houston-based Satellite Tracking of People, LLC (STOP), which
deals in GPS tracking devices for inmates and parolees; the Nashville-based ConnectGov, Inc, which coordinates distance learning; and
the National Preparedness Training Center, which trains first responders to disasters.
February 15, 2008 Washington City
Paper
With so many millions of dollars walking out the door in Jimmy Choos, etc., courtesy of the tax scandal, you’d figure
D.C. Gov would be totally into recovering millions of other dollars it’s
rightfully owed by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). You’d figure
that. But you’d be wrong. In a classic case of buck-passing between the
Office of Property Management (OPM) and the Department of Corrections (DOC),
the utility bill for steam used to heat the Correctional Treatment
Facility—located right next to the D.C. Jail and privately operated by the
Nashville-based CCA—has gone unpaid for years. What’s owed is up for
negotiation. Last March, former OPM director Lars Etzkorn
(who has since lost his job over that unfortunate police department
relocation fiasco) testified before the Council that OPM was “collecting
monies owed.” To wit: “For example, last month OPM presented to the
Department of Corrections the analysis for it to recover $5.7 million from the
Corrections Corporation of America…” OPM didn’t take over collecting the
money, mind you, it presented an analysis of how to collect the money. And
this was after At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson figured out in the 2006
budget process that DOC was actually being billed for the steam rather than
being paid for it. A year after OPM was informed of that, a year after Etzkorn’s testimony throwing around “$5.7 million,” none
of the money has been collected. And $5.7 million could be way underselling
it. To be fair to the CCA, the folks in Nashville didn’t know how much steam
they were using in D.C. until OPM installed a meter last March; a bill didn’t
even go out until a few months later, in June. According to the bill, the
meter shows that in six months—from June to December of 2007—the Correctional
Treatment Facility used more than $450,000 in steam. When you do the math,
and take into account that the CCA, according to its lease, has been
responsible for paying utilities on the facility since 1997…. well that’s
somewhere around $10 million to $11 million in danger of—poof!—evaporating.
The DOC, by nature of its relationship with the the
jail, the next-door Correctional Treatment Facility, and the CCA, has been
the agency ostensibly in charge of the lease with the CCA. But—and you’ll
have to try and follow this alphabet soup—the DOC thinks it’s the OPM’s job
to get the CCA on board. Beverly Young, spokesperson for DOC, e-mailed that
succinct response to me this week: “The Department of Corrections is not responsible
for the collections. The matter is ultimately an issue between OPM and CCA.”
Mendelson agrees. The DOC, he says, never should have been in charge of the
lease in the first place. “The only agency that should administer a lease is
OPM,” he says, and further: “They (OPM) screwed around last year with
invoicing and not getting payment….They’re very slow to act and we're talking
about millions of public dollars.” At a hearing last Friday, OPM’s interim
director Robin-Eve Jasper (after being jousted by Vincent Gray) faced
Mendelson on this front: Mendo: “We should get
answers without having to think of every angle to ask the question. So I get
the bills, but it turns out we’re not getting the payment…” Jasper: “I’m
going to have to get back to you. We are billing currently, but the first
bill didn’t go out that long ago…and I don’t believe it was as high as $11
million….I will get back to you with a detailed response.” Mendo: “What I was last told at our last hearing on this
was that the Office of Property Management was talking to the Department of
Corrections. I’m not sure why that makes sense. Why doesn’t the OPM talk to
CCA or to the CFO’s office?” Jasper: “I can’t answer that question…I can’t
answer why we were in discussion with the DOC rather than sending out a
demand note and just proceeding on that basis.” Mendo:
“When you get back to me, can you also go into what was going on prior to
June 2007?” Jasper: “Yes, I believe we’re trying to establish a baseline of a
full year at this point and…establish prior payments.” Mendo:
“I’ve yet to receive any evidence that anyone has talked to CCA, so this
would all be a surprise to them when we send them a bill. That would kind of
help, I think, to talk to them.” Hey, it’s a start. OPM’s spokesman, Bill
Rice, did not return three phone calls. Stay tuned!
December 14, 2006 Washington Post
Two former female inmates at the D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility
sued the District and jail officials last week, claiming that male guards
took them to isolated parts of the jail and raped them. The women are suing
under the anonymous names Jane Doe and Jane Roe. They say the District and
Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), the private contractor the city hired to
run the jail, are responsible for the alleged rapes because of their failure
to supervise and train guards and properly investigate allegations of sexual
misconduct. The suit is also filed against the two jail guards whom the women
allege raped them: Elry McKnight and John Gant. The
two women are alleging violations of their civil rights, emotional distress
and battery, and are seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Doe, a
Maryland woman in her late 30s, alleges that McKnight raped her twice in
April 2002 in a staff bathroom -- first while escorting her alone to her cell
as she returned from a court hearing, and next when he pretended that he
needed to take her to obtain a new identification badge. She was serving time
for selling heroin. Roe, a D.C. resident, alleges that Gant forced her to
perform oral sex on him in a jail broom closet in December 2003. Roe said
Gant was able to easily separate her from others by asking a female
corrections officer to let him speak with Roe privately in the hallway. Roe,
who was serving time on drug possession charges, was released in January
2004. Doe, who has seven children and three grandchildren whom she hasn't
told about the incident, said in an interview that she struggled over whether
to sue the city. She said she worried about having to come forward and
revisit an episode that has caused her panic attacks ever since, but decided
to do so because her initial complaint was ignored. In the lawsuit, she
alleges that she called 911 twice to get a police officer to come to the
jail, but no one came. "It's like they want to hide everything that
happened," Doe said. "If you hide something, it will happen to a
lot of people." Beverly Young, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of
Corrections, said the city agency and its personnel cannot comment on pending
litigation. A spokesman for CCA said the company was not aware of the suit
and could not comment. The suit claims that the corrections department and
CCA treated the two women poorly in investigating their claims. Doe was taken
to see CTF Warden Fred Figueroa, and McKnight was eventually suspended with
pay during an investigation, according to the suit. Doe was given no
information about the investigation for three months, until she complained in
June 2002 to her sentencing judge that she had been raped in the detention
facility, the suit alleges. The suit also alleges that McKnight eventually
was fired for smuggling contraband to inmates. "I couldn't believe they
[paid] no mind to me. They thought I was going to be deported," said
Doe, who grew up in the Dominican Republic but is a U.S. citizen. "They
just didn't care. They thought I was a criminal. " Doe said she has
stayed away from drugs since her release and is trying to get a job as a
construction apprentice. She said she knows she was guilty of her crime and
had to pay by doing time. "I'm not mad that I was put in jail. But I was
so shocked. I didn't know you had to give them sex, too," she said. Roe
was not available to be interviewed, but her part of the suit claims that
Gant told her she had to do what he said or he could use his power in the
records office to lengthen her stay in jail. CTF officers offered to put Roe
in a kind of solitary confinement when she asked for protection from Gant,
the suit says, but he ultimately resigned from CCA rather than give a
statement regarding the alleged rape. Deborah M. Golden, a lawyer with
Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, who is a lead attorney on the
suit, said the District and CCA had a duty to set up procedures to reduce the
risk that inmates at the CTF would be sexually harassed or raped and to take
substantive action when inmates made rape allegations. Golden, who is working
on the case with pro bono counsel Thomas C. Hill, a partner at the Pillsbury
Winthrop Shaw Pittman law firm, said the women's claims weren't treated with
the seriousness they deserved. "You can't train someone not to be a
rapist," Golden said. "But you can set up procedures whereby lone
women can't be taken out of their cells by a lone
officer. You can stop officers from taking advantage of people who are
incarcerated. You can train people to be alert to signs of trauma in the
population." The legal team said it hopes to get top-level officials to
take action to address sexual exploitation, a problem that has long plagued
jails and prisons around the country. "Neither woman disputes their
crime," Golden said. "But that doesn't mean rape was part of their
sentence."
June 9, 2006 Washington Blade
Two transgender women said they plan to file a discrimination complaint
against the District’s Department of Corrections after officials at the D.C.
Jail refused to allow them to visit inmates because of their personal
appearance. Gigi Thomas, a client advocate for the local group HIPS, which
provides services to local sex workers, and Tiffany Everlasting, a HIPS
volunteer, said jail officials told them they could not enter the jail
because they wore women’s clothes but lacked identification classifying them
as biological females. The two women said they appeared separately and at
different times on May 30 at the visitor’s reception desk of the Correctional
Treatment Facility at 19th and D streets, S.E. The facility, known as the
CTF, is operated privately under a Department of Corrections contract with
the Corrections Corporation of America, a firm that operates prisons
throughout the country. An official with the D.C. Office of Human Rights said
the action by the jail appears to violate the city’s Human Rights Act, which
bans discrimination against transgender people. The act covers city
government agencies as well as the private sector, including private
employers. Walter Fulton, program manager at the command center for the
Correctional Treatment Facility, said the facility has a dress code policy
that prevented “cross-dressers” from being admitted as visitors. He said the
policy, which was under review, was based on concerns about how jail
employees could conduct a “pat down” search of a transgender person as part
of routine searches of all jail visitors. He said the searches were aimed at
preventing visitors from bringing contraband, including illegal drugs, into
city correctional facilities. “It’s likely that accommodations will be made
to allow cross dressers to visit,” he said. Guard convicted of sexual
assault. The refusal by CTF officials to allow Thomas and Everlasting
visitation rights came less than three months after a D.C. Superior Court
jury convicted a guard at the same facility of sexually assaulting a
transgender inmate. Court records show that Robert Ali White, 37, was
convicted of a single count of first-degree sexual abuse of a ward for
allegedly forcing a transgender inmate to perform oral sex on him in December
2004. He was scheduled for sentencing on July 21. D.C. police arrested White
on Dec. 29, 2004, at the CTF facility after an inmate reported that the
corrections officer allegedly forced the inmate to engage in a sexual act
with him, according to court records.
August
14, 2003
The union for D.C. corrections officers yesterday again publicly
criticized the private company that runs an annex to the D.C. jail, alleging
a host of problems from forced overtime to inadequate pay and calling for the
city to cancel its contract with the firm. But this time, the
corrections officers were joined by two D.C. Council members, who bring a new
level of influence to the long-standing complaints. At-Large Democrats
Harold Brazil and Phil Mendelson stood outside the District's Correctional
Treatment Facility at 1901 E St. SE along with union members, who called for
the end of the contract the city has with Corrections Corp. of America.
The company runs a low- to medium-security annex of the D.C. jail intended to
house D.C. inmates with substance-abuse problems and other medical
needs. Brazil and Mendelson issued ultimatums, saying that if the
Nashville company does not address numerous concerns outlined in an 18-page
report by the council's subcommittee on public interest, they will ask the
mayor to end the 20-year contract signed with the company in 1997. In
November, the dispute between union members and the company escalated after
the union said poor working conditions may have contributed to the death of
an inmate in August 2002. They said staffing shortages, faulty radios
and trouble with the institution's telephone system apparently hampered efforts
to help the inmate. (Washington Post)
December 18, 2002
One inmate was killed and a second was wounded in separate stabbings over the
weekend at the D.C. jail, just days after another detainee was slain in a
similar attack, corrections officials and prisoner advocates said
yesterday. The inmate-on-inmate attacks took place over a 70-hour
period in different cellblocks. Officials with the D.C. Department of
Corrections said they put the jail on an indefinite lockdown after the latest
incident Saturday, restricting movements and activities of inmates, while
D.C. police and the agency's internal affairs unit investigate. The
violence raised new concerns among jail watchdogs about whether the detention
center can operate safely above a court-ordered population cap of 1,674 that
was lifted in June after 17 years. Yesterday's inmate count was
2,369. (Washington Post-Staff Writer)
December 16, 2002
Givon Pedelton was behind
bars awaiting trial on a drug charge, but he never made it to D.C. Superior
Court. Someone stabbed him to death at the D.C. jail last Wednesday
evening. Mr. Pedleton is the latest inmate to
be slain while int he city's custody. An inmate was also murdered last
August in the Correctional Treatment Facility, located near the jail.
And life behind locked gates isn't exactly safe and secure for members of the
corrections staff either: Between April and august of this year, they
suffered about 15 assaults. The victims' injuries included a broken
hand, temporary sight loss in one eye, a broken nose and 36 stitches to one
officer's face. (Washington Post.com)
November 17, 2002
A long-simmering dispute
between union members and the company that runs an annex
to the D.C. jail escalated yesterday after the union alleged that poor working
conditions may have contributed to the death of an inmate in August. Union
members at the District's Correctional Treatment Facility at 1901 E
St. SE said that staffing shortages, faulty radios and trouble with the
institution's phone system apparently hampered efforts to help inmate
Benjamin Brown, who died Aug. 20. They made the
allegation and detailed other work-related complaints during a
news conference outside the facility, run by Nashville-based
Corrections Corporation of America. The
public quarrel about such a sensitive case underscored how relations have
deteriorated between the company and union leaders. Against this backdrop,
other problems have surfaced: Four corrections officers were indicted
this month on charges that they smuggled drugs,
pagers and cash to inmates in exchange for bribes.
Littlejohn alleged that the
company has been trying to break up the union for
about a year and that managers routinely harass officers and threaten to
fire them. He cited the firing in June of corrections officer Jimmie D.
Allen, a church deacon, for organizing a prayer meeting
just outside the annex.
November 9, 2002
AND YOU THOUGHT that once
someone was convicted and sent to jail it meant saying goodbye
to drugs, pagers and means of doing business with the outside world.
This week, prosecutors
indicted four guards at the privately run Correctional Treatment
Facility, a D.C. jail annex, on charges of smuggling drugs,
pagers and cash to prisoners in exchange for bribes offered by
undercover FBI agents. Three of them were working at the
facility when they allegedly took the bribes. The fourth, a
former employee, allegedly served as a go-between. The Corrections
Department brass would have you believe that the smuggling has nothing
to do with them because the Correctional Treatment
Facility is run by the Corrections Corp. of America, a private
concern that operates about 60 prisons elsewhere in the nation.
Don't buy it. The city pays
the Nashville-based CCA about $20 million a year for handling
the Corrections Treatment Facility, which, as far as we can
tell, is not being run any better than when the city was
operating prisons. None
of this is the least bit amusing. It is a disgrace. Last year, 10 corrections
officers, including nine from CCA, were indicted on bribery charges
stemming from a similar investigation. All 10 were convicted.
But the corruption, nonetheless, goes on. What does that say
about the competence and efficiency of the private firm that
is pocketing millions of taxpayer dollars -- or about the agency that
is supposed to be overseeing that operation? What does it say
about a city government that apparently tolerates
such a scandal?
November 8, 2002
Four corrections officers at a privately run annex to the D.C. jail have
been indicted on charges that they smuggled drugs, pagers and cash to
inmates in exchange for bribes offered by undercover FBI
agents, prosecutors said yesterday. Three
of the four were employees of the Corrections Corp. of America, which runs
the Correctional Treatment Facility in Southeast Washington under a contract
with the city, when they allegedly took the bribes. The fourth, whom
prosecutors described as a former CCA employee at the facility,
allegedly served as a go-between for one of the
others in his dealings with an FBI agent posing as an inmate's
girlfriend. All were arrested by the
FBI yesterday morning, prosecutors said. They were indicted on
charges of bribery and introducing contraband into a penal institution.
All pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court and were released
on personal recognizance. In
a similar investigation at the Correctional Treatment Facility last year,
10 corrections officers were indicted on bribery charges, including nine
from CCA. All 10 were convicted of various charges, prosecutors
said. (The Washington Post)
June 29, 2001
Six former D.C. corrections officers pleaded guilty this week to federal
bribery charges after an FBI sting operation in which they accepted money in
return for smuggling cash and pagers to inmates, prosecutors announced
yesterday. The six men were indicted in U.S. District Court last month
on charges that they brought cash and pagers to inmates at the District's
Correctional Treatment Facility after accepting hundreds of dollars from a
man who said he was acting on behalf of inmates. The man turned out to
be an undercover FBI agent, prosecutors said. All have either resigned
or been fired from the Corrections Corp. of America, the private contractor
that operates the jail facility in Southeast Washington. (The
Washington Post)
June 1, 2001
Ten D.C. corrections officers have been indicted on federal bribery charges
after an undercover FBI investigation in which they allegedly accepted money
in return for smuggling cash and two-way pagers to inmates, prosecutors said
yesterday. D.C. inmates are not supposed to have money or
communications devices, prosecutors said. But the corrections officers
brought both into the District's Correctional Treatment Facility after
accepting hundreds of dollars from a man who said he was acting on behalf of
the inmates, they said. The man turned out to be an undercover FBI
agent. The indictments followed a two-year investigation and were
returned under seal on Wednesday. Nine of those indicted worked for the
Corrections Corp. of America, a private contractor that operates the
Correctional Treatment Facility in Southeast Washington. (The
Washington Post)
July 29, 1999 Washington Post
Two maximum-security DC inmates who were serving time for murder
escaped from two guards who were driving them back to a Virginia prison. The
guards left the door to the van unlocked and the inmates were somehow able to
remove their leg irons and flee.
March 14, 1999
A convicted killer, confined to a wheelchair cut through the bars on the
window of his eighth-floor cell, tied bedsheets into a rope and climbed out
of the prison undetected. The sheets unraveled and he plunged to the pavement
below. An unidentified woman picked him up and took him to a nearby hospital
where he was pronounced dead an hour later. (The Washington Post, March 16,
1999)
Department of
Corrections
May 12, 2016
washingtonpost.com
U.S. jury orders D.C. Corrections to pay $70,000 to deaf inmate in ADA
claim
A deaf former inmate whose rights were violated by the D.C. Department of
Corrections was awarded $70,000 in damages by a federal jury Wednesday under
the Americans with Disabilities Act. U.S. District Judge Ketanji
Brown Jackson castigated D.C. jail officials in a blistering, 60-page opinion
in September that found the department liable for failing to assess what
accommodations were needed by William Pierce, 47, of the District and
mismanaging his care during his incarceration in 2012. Jackson wrote that
despite written policies in place, officials at the D.C. Correctional
Treatment Facility “effectively sat on their hands.” “The District’s willful
blindness . . . and its half-hearted attempt to provide Pierce
with a random assortment of auxiliary aids — and only after he specifically
requested them — fell far short of what the law requires,” Jackson wrote. An
eight-person D.C. federal jury deliberated less than day after a six-day
damages trial for Pierce. Arthur B. Spitzer, legal director for the American
Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital, said the organization and
Pierce were pleased by the verdict and hoped it would lead prison and jail
operators across the country to provide qualified sign-language interpreters
to deaf inmates and to accommodate other disabled inmates. Spitzer said
evidence indicated jailers balked at a quoted $155-per-hour rate for an
interpreter, which he said “certainly doesn’t come to $70,000. I hope that’s
a lesson CCA and others have learned.”
Jun 12, 2015 dcist.com
As it approaches its 40th anniversary, the D.C. Jail is showing its age.
Crumbling infrastructure, active vermin infestations, a leaking roof, moldy
walls, and broken plumbing are among the problems plaguing the city's prison
population, according to a new report. Put out by the Washington Lawyers'
Committee and Covington & Burling, “D.C. Prisoners: Conditions of
Confinement in the District of Columbia” details a litany of issues with the
facility. Conditions are so bad, they say, that many of them "cannot
realistically be fixed" in the current facility. Their first
recommendation is to close the D.C. Jail and the Correctional Treatment
Facility and "construct a new, safer, more effective facility." The
Department of Correction's response, which was included with the report,
noted that many of the issues that were highlighted have already been fixed.
"In the most recent March 2015 DOH inspection, 87 percent of the
identified items have already been abated to date," they wrote.
"The remaining items are either currently being corrected or, due to the
age and deterioration of the physical structure, are outside of DOC’s
control." The report also details issues with suicide prevention efforts
and how youth are treated at the facilities. There was a rash of suicides in
2012 and 2013 that prompted the DOC to commission a study by an outside
consultant, make changes, and create a suicide prevention task force. While
the report noted improvements, the authors said that "much work should
still be done" and recommended an outside evaluation to see if the
recommended changes had been fully addressed. Issues confronting youth that
are housed at the CTF include inadequate space and a lack of dedicated
programming, the authors of the report say. They also found that youth are
excessively subjected to solitary confinement and generally are only allowed
video visitation rather than in-person visits. The report also recommends
that the city stop contracting management of the CTF out to the for-profit
Corrections Corporation of America when their contract expires in 2017. Among
the downsides, they cite both safety and quality issues, as well as the fact
that CCA isn't subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws.
Apr 18, 2015 washingtontimes.com
The D.C. Council narrowly voted down a $66 million contract that would have
placed for-profit company Corizon Health in charge
of providing healthcare at the city jail. The 6-5 vote pitted those who had
concerns about the company’s history of providing medical care at other
facilities against members who grimaced at getting involved in contracting
matters already vetted by the city’s procurement experts. “We shouldn’t be in
this business. If we are going to be in the business, then we ought to
respect the process,” said D.C. Council member Jack Evans, Ward 2 Democrat,
who voted for approval of the contract. But others questioned the
thoroughness of a procurement process that awarded the contract to Corizon without making mention of numerous lawsuits filed
against the company in other states as well as those that have dropped
contracts with the company over recent years. Council Member Mary Cheh, Ward 3 Democrat, said the council’s job in this
circumstance was to “serve as a backstop” for contracting decisions. “We’re
supposed to be here to catch what I would call manifest mistakes. This is such
a case,” Ms. Cheh said before voting against the
contract award. The contract would have put Corizon
in charge of providing medical, mental health, pharmacy and dental services
for at least three years to the roughly 2,200 inmates in the District’s Department
of Corrections. The District’s Office of Contracting and Procurement
recommended awarding the contract to Corizon at a
cost of 7 percent, or $4.4 million, more than the bid received from Unity
Health Care, which has overseen health care at the jail since 2006. Council
Chairman Phil Mendelson said payouts from lawsuits filed against the District
in regard to healthcare issues at the jail have seen “a breathtaking drop”
during the time Unity has had the contract with the city. From 2006 through
the present, he said there have been $59,000 in judgments against the
District on account of lawsuits regarding healthcare at the jail compared to
$1.2 million in judgments from 2002 through 2006 under a different provider,
he said. Along with Ms. Cheh and Mr. Mendelson,
council members Charles Allen, David Grosso, Brianne Nadeau, and Elissa
Silverman voted against the contract award. The rejection of the Corizon contract ends an 18-month procurement and review
process that will now likely have to be restarted so that the city can select
a new healthcare provider. In the interim, Unity will continue to provide
healthcare at the jail under an extended contract. But a spokesman for D.C.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, who supported the Corizon
award, said the city will be overpaying in the short term on that contract
because it is based on a fixed number of inmates that is higher than the
jail’s current population. “The Council’s action will extend overpayment for
care, which does not fully meet the health needs of a vulnerable population,
until a new contract can be awarded,” spokesman Mike Czin
said. Corizon officials were disappointed with the
decision. “It’s unfortunate that the D.C. Council did not approve their
peers’ recommendations,” said Woodrow A. Myers, Jr., chief executive officer
of Corizon. “The company wishes the D.C. Department
of Corrections and its residents well.”
Mar 19, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com
Can Muriel Bowser succeed where Vince Gray failed? In the last days of his
lame duck mayoral term, Gray tried to earn D.C. Council approval for a new
D.C. Jail health contract, only to drop the $66 million contract award when
it foundered at the Council. Now Bowser, who submitted the contract to the
Council yesterday, is trying again. Bowser's problem is that Corizon Health Inc., the Tennessee-based company that won
the contract, doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation with prison
advocates. Corizon's care in other prisons has
inspired a long line of lawsuits, raising the threat of more lawsuits against
the District, according to critics. In December, the ACLU's District chapter
urged councilmembers to oppose the contract. “Their reputation in the field
of people who care about prisoner’s health and prisoner’s well-being is
pretty abysmal," says Alex Friedmann, the managing editor of Prison
Legal News. That reputation didn't stop the District from awarding the
contract to Corizon over the jail's current
provider, Unity Health Care. "The simple fact is that Corizon submitted the highest value package with a higher
level of care," Bowser spokesman Michael Czin
writes in an email. It's not clear whether Bowser has built more support for
the contractor than her predecessor. The last time the contract came up,
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson worried that Corizon
"has a reputation for attracting a lot of lawsuits." In the run-up
to Bowser's new push, At-Large Councilmember David Grosso and Corizon CEO Woodrow Augustus Myers Jr. battled it out
over the contract in dueling letters. In Grosso's letter, he listed a number
of lawsuits against Corizon. Myers' letter to
Grosso disputed his claims and pointed out that Grosso usually isn't so eager
to interfere in contract approvals.
Dec 20, 2014 washingtontimes.com
D.C. Jail health care contract pulled to give Corizon time to ‘get the facts out’ D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray withdrew
from the council’s Wednesday legislative agenda a controversial measure that
would place a for-profit corporation in charge of health care at the D.C.
Jail. A spokeswoman for his office said the $66 million, three-year contract
to Corizon Health Inc. was delayed and not dead,
and that the administration hoped to see it come up for a vote next year
after the company had more time to address the concerns of activists. “We
agreed to withdraw it to give Corizon more time to
get the facts out,” said Mr. Gray’s spokeswoman Doxie
McCoy. “They were getting unfairly smeared. It will likely be resubmitted
next year.” The District’s Office of Contracting and Procurement recommended
awarding the contract to provide medical, mental health, pharmacy and dental
services to inmates at the Department of Corrections to Corizon
Health Inc. instead of renewing a current contract with nonprofit Unity
Health Care Inc, which has overseen health care at the jail since 2006. The
ACLU of the Nation’s Capital and inmate advocates protested the award,
pointing to a long list of lawsuits filed against Corizon
as well as some of their own personal experiences representing inmates at
other facilities who received poor treatment from Corizon.
The D.C. Council would have to vote in favor of the contract by January 22 in
order for it to be approved. Without a vote, the contract would be considered
denied. Wednesday was the D.C. Council’s last legislative meeting of the
year, and the final one that would occur under the administration of Mr.
Gray. Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser will be sworn in on Jan. 2, but on Wednesday
she offered little indication how she might side on the matter. “This is an
important issue in the District. We will give it the attention it deserves
and review the contract and process in a timely manner,” Ms. Bowser’s
spokesman Joaquin McPeek said. The Gray
administration maintains that the old contract with Unity was not a good
choice for the city. “We believe the current Unity contact is too expensive
to continue due to the reduction in the corrections population,” Ms. McCoy
said. However, a copy of the council contract summary submitted to the D.C.
Council states that Corizon’s bid to provide
services for three years, with the ability to renew for two additional years,
would cost 7 percent or $4.4 million more than the bid received by Unity
Health Care, Inc. “The prices proposed are within market reasonable for the
direct labor staffing proposed, and the total proposed amount is within
available budget for the Department of Corrections,” the summary reads. “The
innovations proposed in their proposal plus the confidence in their ability
to perform at the proposed price warrant award at the additional 7%.” Jail
spokeswoman Sylvia Lane declined to comment on the matter, referring
questions to the city’s Office of Contracting and Procurement. Corizon officials said the contract was being offered
after a fair assessment process. “We are confident that the significant
misinformation being circulated regarding Corizon
Health’s performance history and experience will not stand against the facts
that support our competence and effectiveness in providing quality healthcare
to inmates across the country,” a company statement issued Wednesday said.
“We look forward to a vote that affirms the independent selection of Corizon Health to deliver quality correctional healthcare
in the District.”
Department of Homeland Security (ICE) US Marshals Service
Washington, DC
CCA, Emerald, GEO Group, MTC, Wackenhut (AKA Group 4)
Immigrants
prove big business for prison companies: August 2, 2012 By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ and GARANCE
BURKE Associated Press. Must read on immigration $$$.
ICE
paints bleak picture of detention system Abuses continue despite agency's
documentation: Susan Carroll, October 10, 2011, Houston
Chronicle. ICE continues to use troubled detention facilities despite
flagrant violations of their own detention standards, including poor medical
care and mistreatment of detainees, new internal records show.
Private prison company’s
growth went hand-in-hand with political influence: Jon Collins September 26, 2011 Minnesota
Independent
The
Shadow Prison Industry and Its Government Enablers by Tom Barry January 29,
2010 Center for International Policy
Officials
Hid Truth of Immigrant Deaths in Jail by Nina Bernstein January 9, 2010 New
York Times
Jul 17, 2020 thehill.com
GOP lawmaker raises concern over
lobbyist gaining unauthorized access to online hearing platform
A former House Democratic aide who was
fired in 2017 after two criminal convictions gained unauthorized access to a
virtual Homeland Security subcommittee hearing this week, according to a top
GOP lawmaker. Isaac Lanier Avant, former chief of staff to Homeland Security
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) who is now a lobbyist, was on
the WebEx platform designated for lawmakers and witnesses for an hour during
Monday’s hearing, Homeland Security ranking member Rep. Mike Rogers (Ala.)
wrote in a letter to House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).
Rogers said the incident raises questions about the security of remote House
hearings, which are opposed by many Republicans who argue lawmakers should be
conducting the proceedings in person during the pandemic. “[Avant’s] presence
on the platform for Members was noted for over an hour and he was only
removed once the Minority informed the Majority,” Rogers wrote in his letter
to McGovern. “His presence on the Members’ platform raises serious concerns
about security issues related to remote Proceedings.” Rogers asked McGovern
to explain how he would “prevent future lapses in security during remote hearings.”
According to Rogers, Avant was not on the list of authorized users that was
distributed to lawmakers before the meeting. House rules on virtual hearings
stipulate that access to the WebEx platform be limited to lawmakers,
witnesses, and staff who are on the pre-distributed list. Congressional
filings show Avant is a registered lobbyist for private prison company GEO
Group, whose chairman and CEO George Zoley was
testifying at Monday’s hearing, hosted by the Subcommittee on Immigration and
Border Security, to discuss how Immigration and Customs Enforcement
contractors are responding to COVID-19. A Homeland Security Committee
spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday that, as the witness’s designee, Avant
received an automatically generated email with the WebEx login information
that was “intended for the witness only.” A spokesperson for GEO Group denied
providing access to Avant, writing in an email that the company did not
provide access to anyone beyond Zoley. When reached
by phone, Avant said he did not have “any knowledge of the matter,” and
declined to comment further. The WebEx software allows users to speak and be
seen in the hearing, while members of the public are limited to viewing the
proceedings through an online streaming platform or C-SPAN. McGovern was
largely dismissive of the concerns raised by Rogers. “While your letter
equates this as raising ‘serious concerns about security issues,’ this
episode would be more akin to an audience member sitting in the wrong area
during a public hearing,” McGovern wrote to Rogers on Thursday. “When the
attendance of this individual on the remote platform was discovered, they
were removed and at no time during this public and unclassified hearing was
the security of the platform threatened.” Avant pleaded guilty in 2016 to
failing to file income tax returns for five years and was sentenced to four
months in prison. The next year, he pleaded guilty to falsifying a standard
House security clearance form by stating he had filed income taxes in the
years he had failed to. Thompson fired Avant after the second conviction, in
2017, after 15 years as his chief of staff and a decade as Democratic staff
director for the Homeland Security Committee, according to the
Clarion-Ledger. Avant set up a lobbying firm last year and GEO Group hired
him in May 2019, congressional filings show. Avant also lobbied last year for
another group that has business with Thompson’s committee, the Seafarers
International Union’s political wing. The House authorized remote voting and
committee work by videoconference by a party-line vote in May. Republicans
have criticized the temporary measures, arguing they undermine their ability
to represent constituents. They have also pointed to technical difficulties
that have marred some hearings.
July 14, 2020 motherjones
Prison CEOs Say They Had No Clue Guards
Pepper-Sprayed Hundreds of Immigration Detainees
There have been more than a dozen
pepper-spraying incidents since the start of the pandemic. Private prison
executives claimed at a congressional hearing Monday to be unaware of any
recent instances of guards pepper-spraying immigration
detainees at the facilities they run. It was a shocking claim: Detainees have
been pepper-sprayed on more than a dozen occasions since late March, and
Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s own press office has confirmed many of
the incidents the CEOs say they know nothing about. Monday’s hearing focused
on the often abysmal conditions in for-profit
immigration detention centers during the coronavirus pandemic. One question
from Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.) to four executives testifying virtually was
hard to misinterpret. “So no one is aware of any
time that rubber bullets, or pepper spray, or tear gas has been used by
officers at your facilities against detainees since the COVID-19 pandemic?”
he asked. “Are you all categorically denying it?” In response, CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger,
Management and Training Corporation CEO Scott Marquardt, and LaSalle
Corrections executive director Rodney Cooper said they were aware of no such
incidents. GEO Group CEO George Zoley said he was
aware of one incident in California. In reality, people
at CoreCivic facilities have been pepper-sprayed on
at least four occasions. At LaSalle, it’s happened
on at least five occasions. And at GEO Group detention centers, the total is
also at least five. Hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers have been
exposed to pepper spray during those uses of force. There have been no recent
documented cases of pepper spray at Management and Training Corporation
centers. (All of these companies have contracts with ICE, which pays them to
house immigration detainees at their facilities.) I’ve
broken the news of several uses of pepper spray at for-profit ICE detention
centers in recent months. In one case, guards at a GEO Group detention center
in Louisiana left nearly 80 women trapped in a pepper spray-filled dorm after
a COVID-19 briefing. Later in the hearing, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), the
chair of a border security subcommittee, asked Hininger
of CoreCivic to address the fact that one of his
own spokespeople confirmed that pepper spray was used against detainees at a CoreCivic detention center in New Mexico. Hininger said he misunderstood Payne’s question and
confirmed that pepper spray was used at the Torrance detention center. He didn’t mention other incidents in Arizona and Georgia.
May 1, 2020 courthousenews.com
Report Details Abuse and Medical
Neglect at Immigrant Detention Centers
(CN) – A report released Thursday by
immigration watchdogs shines an unflattering light on the Trump
administration’s treatment of asylum seekers and detainees, finding a lack of
adequate medical care and oversight at detention centers as the number of
facilities and detainees grows. Researchers from the American Civil Liberties
Union, Human Rights Watch and National Immigrant Justice Center compiled
interviews with 150 detainees, notes from visits to five new detention sites
and public records for their report titled, “Justice-Free Zones: U.S.
Immigration Detention Under the Trump Administration.” The total
number of detention facilities in the U.S. has climbed to 220 as Immigration
and Customs Enforcement opened more than 40 new sites since President Donald
Trump took office in January 2017, most of which are hours-long drives from
nearby cities. Asylum seekers’ access to legal counsel has suffered as a result,
according to the civil rights groups. “When comparing immigration detention
facilities operating before 2017 to those opened after 2017, there are four
times as many immigration attorneys available within a 100-mile radius of
pre-existing facilities versus new ones,” the report states. Though detainees
may apply for release on parole, few have been able to convince judges that
they have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries. ICE’s New
Orleans field office, which has control over 70% of people held in the new
detention centers, denied 99.1% of asylum seekers’ applications for release
on parole between March and December 2019, according to the report. The
Southern facilities were not outliers. The researchers note that immigration
courts across the nation deny asylum in 76% of detainees’ cases – at half of
the 20 largest new facilities, that number jumps to over 90%. Interviewees
told the researchers that facility officers lied to them about the
availability of parole, for instance by saying it was only granted to
detainees who were dying or that receiving parole
was simply not a possibility. Four-fifths of detainees in the U.S. are held
in privately owned or operated facilities as of January, the report notes,
with CoreCivic and the GEO Group together holding
more than half of ICE’s detention contracts. These private contractors
allegedly often require detainees to clean and maintain facilities for no
pay, or for as low as $1 per day, though the report cites multiple interviews
with detainees who say they have worked for weeks or months without receiving
any promised pay. GEO has previously donated nearly a quarter of a million
dollars to pro-Trump super PACs. With more than 50,000 people detained in
U.S. immigration facilities on any given day, the centers have implemented
cost-cutting measures that undermine the health and safety of detainees,
according to the report. Interviewees accused the facilities of acting slowly
on necessary treatments, such as taking as long as a week to set broken bones
or failing to offer inhalers for asthma and other life-saving medicine. At
one Louisiana facility, detainees said there was no soap in the showers or
cleaning supplies for detainees’ cells. Medical staff at another center in
Louisiana took several minutes to locate their defibrillator, which was in a
hallway instead of the emergency room, which “held only a stretcher,”
according to the report. The report notes that 39 adults have died in ICE
custody or soon after release since 2017, highlighting that 12 of these were
suicides in detention. There were no mental health professionals on site at
two of the five detention sites, the report states, and immigrants reported
guards yelling at physically handicapped detainees instead of helping them.
Researchers also detailed accusations of abuse from immigration officers, who
would withhold food from detainees, slam immigrants against the wall and call
them “rats.” Interviewers heard multiple reports of detainees being locked in
solitary confinement for as long as nearly three months. The Covid-19
pandemic has shut out watchdogs’ access to information from immigration
officials, according to Eunice Cho, a senior ACLU staff attorney. “ICE is not
known for its transparency during ‘normal’ circumstances, but the limited
access we had for this report — to detention facilities, to detained people —
no longer exists,” Cho said in a statement. Grace Meng, a senior researcher
at Human Rights Watch, urged lawmakers to push back against the
administration’s treatment of immigrants. “The Trump administration and its
callous indifference to immigrants’ rights and their humanity have allowed
already bad conditions in the detention system to deteriorate even further,”
Meng said in a statement. “But the administration is not the only one
responsible for this abusive system — Congress should push back on the
administration’s demands and reduce funding for immigration detention and
enforcement.” The report recommends a number of
solutions for Congress, executive offices and departments, and state and
local governments. The groups call for an end to mandatory immigrant
detention, banning solitary confinement, allowing Freedom of Information Act
requests for records held by private detention facility operators, and
permitting the release of asylum seekers to community sponsors. “We need
Congress to take notice and stop spending our tax dollars to fund these human
rights abuses,” said Tara Cullen, communications director of the National
Immigrant Justice Center.
Aug 20, 2019 wlrn.org
ICE And Its Contractor Geo Group Failed
To Treat Immigrants Humanely, Lawsuit Claims
A lawsuit filed Monday alleges that
immigration detention authorities have failed to ensure that tens of
thousands of immigrants are held in safe and humane conditions as required by
federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of
55,000 detainees and future detainees in 160 ICE detention centers across the
country. Many of the larger detention centers are under contract with Geo
Group, based in Boca Raton, or CoreCivic, another
private contractor based in Nashville. The suit was filed in U.S. District
Court in Los Angeles against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency
and the Department of Homeland Security by three organizations: the Southern
Poverty Law Center, a non-profit group in Montgomery, Ala., that works on
behalf of immigrant justice; the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement
Center in Denver, Colo.; and Disability Rights Advocates in California and
New York.
Jul 17, 2019 thedailybeast.com
Private Prison Bosses Beg Taxpayers to
Pay Human-Trafficking Lawsuit Bills
In a series of emails, prison execs
pleaded with ICE to pick up their multimillion-dollar tab. At the same time,
they argued to shareholders that the suits were no big deal. Early last year,
a senior executive in the nation’s second-largest private prison company went
to Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a desperate plea: to pick up
their multimillion-dollar legal bills. Over the last five years, a series of
people formerly held in GEO Group’s private immigration detention centers
have sued the company over a work program. They allege that the company
forces detainees to do manual labor for $1 a day (sometimes less) and has
punished detainees who refuse with solitary confinement. Half a dozen suits
are challenging the work programs and seeking damages for detainees from GEO
and CoreCivic, another private prison company. They
allege that the programs break a landmark law against human trafficking. So GEO’s legal bills have piled up. And while the company
has publicly downplayed the challenge the lawsuits pose, private
correspondence between its top executives and senior officials at ICE
indicates GEO views the litigation as cause for major concern. The communications—which
Northwestern University Political Science Professor Jacqueline Stevens
obtained by FOIA and shared with The Daily Beast—paint a picture of deep
distress within the company regarding its legal bills. GEO’s senior vice
president of business development sent the first letter on Feb. 14, 2018. The
exec’s name is redacted, but an archived page from the company’s website
shows Dave Venturella held the post at the time
(and still does). Before joining the private prison giant, Venturella was director of the arm of ICE responsible for
arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants. Venturella’s
letter sounded urgent. “GEO cannot bear the costs of this defense on its
own,” he wrote, discussing the lawsuits. He then detailed litigation in
Colorado, California, and Washington against the company. The Colorado
litigation alone was proving to be massively costly,
he wrote. “The legal discovery costs could total several millions of dollars
and potential damages could be in the tens of millions,” he wrote. At that
point, just in the Colorado suit, GEO had racked up $1.6 million in legal
bills. In Washington, their legal bills had topped $440,000. Venturella then all but blamed ICE for getting them sued.
“To the extent that plaintiffs allege that disciplinary segregation [solitary
confinement] is an unlawful threat for refusal to work, this sanction comes
directly from ICE policies, which ICE should assist in defending,” he wrote.
“GEO’s contracts with ICE require that GEO administer the VWP [Voluntary Work
Program] at the Aurora and Tacoma facilities, and set the reimbursable rate
for that participation at $1 per detainee per day, an amount that cannot be
increased without ICE’s authorization,” he added. Venturella
asked for an “equitable adjustment”—government contractor-speak for extra
money to offset unexpected costs of fulfilling a contract. In other words,
GEO Group hoped taxpayer dollars would cover the legal bills they racked up
for allegedly violating human trafficking laws. Several months later, GEO’s
CEO, George Zoley, echoed Venturella’s
plea. In a letter to ICE’s acting deputy director on May 30, he begged for
money. “We are deeply alarmed at the rapidly increasing costs in defending
these lawsuits without reimbursement from ICE, or assistance in their defense
by the Department of Justice,” he wrote. Continued defense against the
litigation would be “likely to cost $15-$20 million,” with tens of millions
more if they lost and a court awarded damages to the plaintiffs. “We urgently
implore DOJ to take over the defense of these lawsuits and reimburse GEO for
its costs,” he concluded. But ICE rejected them—and it appears the Justice
Department has, too. On July 9, 2018, ICE sent Zoley
a short letter informing him that its contracting officers had decided
against picking up the company’s legal bills. Meanwhile, the office of the
U.S. Solicitor General—the top appellate lawyer in the Justice
Department—filed an amicus brief in federal court on April 1 of this year
saying the dispute should be over the facts of the detainees’ treatment
rather than whether the law against human trafficking applies to the
companies. GEO had argued the human trafficking law didn’t apply to its
treatments of detainees. But the S.G. didn’t bite, and DOJ refused to take a
side in the litigation—a setback for the private prison firm. “The private
prisons act as though decades of labor law violations entitle them to exploit
people in perpetuity,” said Stevens, the professor who obtained the letters
through FOIA. “It’s about time they start following the rule of law and it’s
ridiculous that they expect taxpayer reimbursements for unlawful profits.”
GEO’s letters to the feds took a markedly different tone from how they later
described the litigation to shareholders. Their 2018 shareholder letter,
dated Feb. 25, 2019, sounded sanguine about the topic and said defeat in
court did not seem “probable nor reasonably estimable.” “The Company
does not expect the outcome of any pending claims or legal proceedings to
have a material adverse effect on its financial condition, results of
operations or cash flows,” it concluded. Pablo Paez,
a spokesperson for GEO Group, told The Daily Beast that the letters to ICE
and the shareholder statement are consistent. “Seeking reimbursement for
legal expenses that are out of the ordinary is not inconsistent with the
disclosure that the litigation in question is not expected to have a material
adverse effect,” he said in a statement. “Contrary to the baseless
allegations made in these lawsuits, this is a strictly voluntary program, and
the implementation of the program is stipulated in standards set by the
federal government.” “In accordance with ICE’s National Detention Standards,
detainees shall be able to volunteer for work assignments but otherwise shall
not be required to work, except to do personal housekeeping. ICE is
authorized to pay an allowance to detainees who participate in its voluntary
work program, and ICE ensures detainees who chose to participate in the
voluntary work program receive the pay owed to them,” an ICE spokesperson
told The Daily Beast. Plaintiffs fiercely contest that the program is
voluntary. They allege that prison officials used fear of solitary
confinement to coerce them into doing janitorial and maintenance work at the
detention centers for just $1 a day–saving the prison company millions it
would have had to spent if it paid them the minimum wage. In separate
litigation, detainees have alleged that CoreCivic
would only provide them toilet paper if they worked at the meager wages to
earn money to pay for it. But private prison companies have friends in high
places. Last year, a group of Congressional Republicans sent a letter to
then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions making a curious defense of the labor
programs: forcing detainees to work for little or no money, they argued, was
good for morale.
Feb 5, 2019 thedenverchannel.com
Report: Few consequences for sexual assault and safety violations at ICE
detention centers
DENVER — A new report says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn’t
holding contractors accountable for detainee safety and instead is giving
them waivers when they are not meeting standards. The Homeland Security
Office of Inspector General report found in 14,000 cases of deficiency, ICE
only fined the contractor twice, even in cases of sexual assault, employee
misconduct and use of tear gas on detainees. The report found contractors
consistently were not fined by the agency and were given waivers instead.
“Another waiver allows a facility to commingle high-custody detainees, who
have histories of serious criminal offenses, with low-custody detainees, who
have minor, nonviolent criminal histories or only immigration violations,
which is a practice the standards prohibit in order to protect detainees who
may be at risk of victimization or assault,” the report detailed. The Denver
Ice Detention Facility operated by Geo Group Inc in Aurora is just one of
those facilities spread across the country. Activist say Geo Group does not
provide adequate health care there. “There have been two deaths at this
facility and the problem is there is not adequate health care,” said Gabriela
Flora with American Friends Service Committee. Flora says there is just one
doctor for 1,300 people in the facility. Jeanette Vizguerra
was detained at the Aurora facility twice. She describes the experience as
slavery. “They require all of us inside to clean everything and take care of
the place and many of us they don’t pay us and many of us who volunteer to do
it they pay us a dollar a day,” Vizguerra said. “If
we refuse to do the work we get put into solitary confinement. This is a
violation of our human rights.”
Feb 2, 2019 publicintegrity.org
ICE FAILED TO PENALIZE CONTRACT IMMIGRANT JAILS WITH THOUSANDS OF SAFETY
AND RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, failed to take action
against detention facilities the agency contracted with after discovering
thousands of violations that jeopardized the safety and rights of detainees,
according to a federal Inspector General report. “Between October 1, 2015,
and June 30, 2018, ICE imposed financial penalties on only two occasions,
despite documenting thousands of instances of the facilities’ failures to
comply with detention standards,” inspectors found, based on a review of
contracts governing 106 facilities holding an average of 25,000 detainees in
2017. “Instead of holding facilities accountable through financial
penalties,” inspectors reported, “ICE issued waivers to facilities with
deficient conditions, seeking to exempt them from complying with certain
standards.” The more than 14,000 “deficiencies” identified included
facilities failing to notify ICE about sexual assaults and failing to forward
allegations of staff misconduct to ICE investigators, according to inspectors.
The immigrant lockups consist of a mix of privately-run detention centers
owned by ICE or private companies, as well as local and county jails and
facilities provided through contracts held by the U.S. Marshals Service or
other government agencies. Waivers issued by ICE allowed the facilities to
use a gas—if guards felt they needed to subdue detainees—that’s 10 times more
toxic than pepper spray. Waivers also
allowed guards to “commingle” detainees with serious criminal histories with
detainees with only minor criminal records or who were accused only of
immigration violations. Further, the
Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report dated Jan. 29 also
asserts that inspectors found that ICE had no formal policy to govern waivers
and that organizational problems “impede” monitoring of contracts. Only 28
out of 106 contracts inspectors reviewed required use of a quality-assurance
tool that’s useful for holding facilities accountable for deficiencies. The
two penalties ICE did impose totaled less than half of 1 percent of the $3
billion in contracts these 106 facilities received from ICE since the
beginning of fiscal 2016, inspectors said. One of the two penalties imposed,
inspectors found, was the deduction of funds from one facility with repeat
violations of health care and mental-health care standards. The report didn’t
identify facilities where violations were found. Data supplied to the Center
for Public Integrity shows that in 2018 ICE was holding more than 41,800
detainees on average every day. The Inspector General report found that more
than 35,400 immigrant detainees were held on average every day inside 211
contract facilities in 2017. The Center for Public Integrity reported last
year on allegations of abuses alleged at privately-run immigrant lockups. GEO
Group and CoreCivic are the two largest U.S.
private-prison companies. The two companies’ stock value rose after President
Donald J. Trump won the 2016 election, promising more aggressive immigration
enforcement. The companies, both of which have received contracts recently,
contributed $250,000 each to support Trump’s inauguration festivities.
Affiliates of both companies have donated to Republican political groups and
candidates, the Center reported. The Center’s investigation reported that a
federal review of the 2012 death of a detainee from cardiac arrest found that
a nurse at a GEO Group facility wasn’t trained on the use of an EKG. She also
waited an hour to call 911, the review found, because “she needed to get the
paperwork” completed concerning the detainee’s condition before making the
call. CoreCivic, too, is facing scrutiny after a
1-year-old girl became ill inside a Texas family detention center last year
and later died after being released with her mother. Another Center story
last year reported that a DHS Inspector General report issued in October
found shocking medical neglect at a GEO Group facility in Adelanto,
California. Inspectors concluded: “ICE’s detainee death reviews for three
Adelanto center detainees who have died since fiscal year 2015 also cited
medical care deficiencies related to providing necessary and adequate care in
a timely manner. ICE must take these continuing violations seriously and
address them immediately.” Correction, Feb. 1, 2019: An earlier version of
this story misstated the period of violations as 20 months. It was a 32-month
period between October 1, 2015, and June 30, 2018.
Jan 10, 2019 buzzfeednews.com
ICE Might Be Violating Federal Law By Keeping Immigrants Detained During
The Shutdown
A lengthy government shutdown over border wall funding has potentially
put Immigration and Customs Enforcement at risk of violating a more than
100-year-old law that could not only require the release of “non-dangerous”
individuals in the agency’s custody but also stop it from continuing to
arrest and detain certain people, according to former senior ICE officials
and experts. The potential violation could complicate ICE’s operations at a
time when President Donald Trump has argued that the shutdown is necessary to
force Democrats to implement tougher immigration policies, such as building a
wall on the US–Mexico border. ICE contracts with nonfederal detention
facilities, like county jails and private detention contractors, across the
country to hold individuals detained by immigration agents. The agency pays
for the bed space in various ways, including monthly payments or, in some
cases, in advance. As of Jan. 1, the agency was detaining more than 48,000
individuals, which is 8,000 more than the levels that had been provided for
by the now-expired congressional funding. But nearly three weeks after its
funding lapsed because of the shutdown, ICE has likely run out of money to
pay contractors for the detention space it uses. And while ICE has some
non-appropriated funds it can lean on, those are not enough to pay for the
overall detention space for more than a few weeks, said Kevin Landy, who was
appointed during the Obama administration to run ICE’s Office of Detention
Policy and Planning, a position he held for more than six years, up until
2017. “It's just a matter of time before ICE runs out of money to pay for
detention beds, if it hasn't already,” Landy said. Already, some county
governments, like in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have told BuzzFeed News that ICE has notified
them that its monthly payment for the individuals in their custody will not
be made on time. Private detention companies, like CoreCivic,
have also been notified by ICE that payment will be delayed until the
government reopens. Both CoreCivic and some county
governments, like in Tulsa; Glades, Florida; and York, Pennsylvania, have
maintained that they can continue to hold ICE detainees without payment
because they know the government will eventually pay. But continuing to keep
certain individuals in their custody may be a violation of a law first
enacted in the 1980s known as the Antideficiency
Act. The law makes it illegal for a contractor to provide the government free
services in anticipation of future payments, unless the services are
necessary to protect human life or property, according to Landy. “ICE cannot
legally ask detention facilities to hold nondangerous
individuals it has arrested if ICE has no funds to pay the facilities for
doing so,” he said. Tracey Valerio, the former head of budget at ICE until
April 2018 and current senior counsel at Frontier Solutions, said it’s
unclear whether the agency can house people without paying. “It’s not clear
that ICE can continue to incur new obligations with third parties if it runs
out of funding,” she said. CoreCivic has been told
by the federal immigration agency that its work is considered “essential”
during the shutdown, a spokesperson for the company said. For its part, an
ICE official who declined to be named maintained that the agency’s law enforcement
activities are necessary for the safety of human life or protection of
property, therefore qualifying for an exception during appropriation lapses.
“This includes detention center operations,” the official told BuzzFeed News.
ICE, however, does not operate its own detention facilities but instead rents
beds, a number that fluctuates based on its needs, according to Landy. In the
early days of the Trump administration, officials eliminated Obama-era
priorities for arrests during ICE operations, in effect making nearly every
undocumented immigrant a priority for removal. “Many thousands of those
arrested and currently detained by ICE have no criminal record, and would not
even have been arrested during the Obama administration,” Landy said.
“Releasing them would not cause a risk to public safety.” Whether ICE could
be forced to release individuals is another matter, according to Landy. The Antideficiency Act includes criminal and administrative
penalties but given that the decision to continue ICE’s operations was made
at the highest levels, it’s unlikely the administration will invoke it. There
are, however, other parties that can get involved. “Congress could
investigate the legal violation, or ask the US Government Accountability
Office to conduct an audit,” he said. “And the appropriations committees
could then impose more severe restrictions on the agency's use of its
detention funds in future legislation.” Charles Tiefer,
a University of Baltimore Law School professor and expert on the Antideficiency Act, said that he believed ICE would be in
violation of the law for housing nondangerous
individuals. “It’s in the gray zone,” he said. “On the one hand, ICE would
say it is not formally obligating itself to pay anything. It is not writing a
letter promising ‘we will pay the bills.’ On the other hand, ICE is fostering
an understanding by the contractor that it will be paid.” But Tiefer said he believed it was a violation of the act
because “the government will be pressured, and rightly so, to pay the bills later,
and the government is ... fostering the understanding that it will pay the
bills. As the old saying goes, a wink is as good as a nod.” Even without the
potential violations of the law, should the shutdown continue, the agency
could run into issues with jurisdictions not receiving payments for months on
end. In Tulsa County, Casey Roebuck, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office,
said that while the department had some “wiggle room” to maintain detentions
for ICE should funds not be received in the near future, that could become an
issue as time goes on. “You’re looking at anywhere from $300,000 to $150,000
a month that we bill,” she said. “That’s a lot money for the county to absorb
and to carry until we start getting payments again. We are hoping it gets
worked out before it becomes a problem.”
Jan 14, 2018
houstonchronicle.com
Immigration detention deaths reach the highest total since 2009
A Mexican immigrant's death near Houston after he was evacuated from the
path of Hurricane Irma in September marked the end of the deadliest year for
immigrants held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in nearly
a decade. Felipe Almazan-Ruiz, 51, was taken to a
hospital days after being booked into an immigration contract detention
facility in Livingston, according to ICE. Almazan-Ruiz
had initially been arrested by ICE in Miami in July, but ended up in Texas
after hurricanes struck both states. He died Sept. 17 from cardiac arrest.
Around the country, 12 immigrants died in detention in the 2017 fiscal year,
according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the most since fiscal year
2009. Ten immigration detainees perished in government custody the year
before. Nationwide, more than 30,000 immigrants are held at any one time in
ICE detention facilities. The number of deaths in 2017 has alarmed
immigration activists, who have long accused immigration officials and
detention center operators of providing delayed or substandard medical care
and ignoring complaints of illness. "Simply put, detention and deportation
are a deadly business," said Bob Libal,
executive director of Grassroots Leadership. Libal,
whose group monitors civil rights conditions, said the "high-profile
failings of the detention system in Texas" make him worried about plans
to further increase the number of detainees held at privately owned
facilities here. A 1000-bed for-profit detention center is planned to open in
2018 in Conroe, already home to another detention facility. ICE defends its
record of overseeing immigration detention centers that are run by private
and government entities. "ICE has made substantial progress on
implementing reforms across its detention system, and that important work is
ongoing," said spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa
said in an email. Zamarripa said among other
changes, the agency has simplified the process for detainees to get outside
medical care and designated coordinators to monitor detainees with
complicated cases. Older statistics and ICE records show that deaths have
declined from the levels reported during first three years after ICE was
founded. In fiscal year 2004, a total of 28 deaths were reported. Many of the
2017 deaths remain under investigation by ICE, so limited information is
available. Reports on detention fatalities often are released years after
they occur in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. May 2017 was a
particularly deadly month. Two people died a day apart in Georgia detention
centers, and on May 31, Vicente Caceres-Maradiaga, a 44-year-old Honduran
immigrant, collapsed while playing soccer at the privately owned Adelanto
Detention Facility in southern California and died in an ambulance on the way
to a hospital. He was the third immigrant to die at Adelanto in 2017 and the
sixth death at the privately owned GEO Group facility since 2011. Since ICE
was created in 2003, 85 detention centers nationwide have reported a total of
176 deaths. Seventeen facilities have had three or more deaths, including
eight at the CoreCivic detention center in Houston
and 15 at the CoreCivic-owned Eloy Correctional
Center in Arizona. For more than a decade, various civil rights groups have
released reports on detention deaths, repeatedly identifying persistent
problems with medical care and suicide prevention. Last year, the human
rights group Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement
(CIVIC) and Human Rights Watch filed a formal complaint and published a
report documenting failures in medical care in 12 detainee deaths from late
2012 to mid-2015, citing ICE's own death investigations as well as
independent medical experts who reviewed those reports. Other immigrants'
rights groups previously identified another eight deaths as potentially
preventable. Five of the deaths flagged in those reports occurred at the Eloy
facility in Arizona. Adelanto in California and the Houston Detention Center
each had two deaths identified by advocates as preventable or related to
neglectful medical care. In December, the Office of the Inspector General of
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a report in response to
concerns raised by immigration rights groups and complaints to a hotline
about ICE detainee treatment and care. Inspectors made unannounced visits to
six facilities, including the Laredo processing center in Texas. Their report
found inadequate complaint procedures, situations in which detainees held
only on immigration violations were improperly mixed with detainees with
violent criminal histories and other potentially unsafe conditions.
"Overall, the problems we identified undermine the protection of
detainees' rights, their humane treatment, and the provision of a safe and
healthy environment," inspectors said in their report. Among other
criticisms, the OIG report said that some facilities it visited appeared to
have delayed medical care and misused solitary confinement – factors that
non-profit immigration groups have described as a contributing factor in
recent immigrant deaths attributed to natural causes such as cancer, heart
attacks and high blood pressure as well as suicides. In the agency's 14-year
history, approximately 27 detainees have died by suicide, apparent suicide or
self-inflicted injuries, most often caused by choking or hanging. In one
case, Clemente Mponda appears to have hoarded and
taken a fatal dosage of medications while detained in Houston in 2013,
according to the ICE review of his death. Mponda,
who had a history of mental illness, was held in solitary confinement eight
months during his detention before he killed himself in an isolation cell
with his own medicine. Deaths last year at the Adelanto facility in
California also have led to increased public scrutiny of the treatment of
medical and psychological conditions. In March, Osmar
Epifanio Gonzalez-Gadba was found hanging in his
cell in Adelanto – one of three deaths reported there in FY 2017. Another six
attempted suicides occurred at that facility in a year-long period ending in
August 2017, according to 911 call logs obtained from the San Bernardino
County Sheriff's Department. Pablo Paez, vice president
for corporate relations for the GEO Group, which owns the Adelanto detention
center as well as detention centers in Texas, said in an emailed statement
that the company meets detention standards set by ICE and corrections
industry groups and that medical care is often provided by the government.
"GEO has a long-standing record providing high-quality, culturally
responsive services in safe, secure, and humane environments that meet the
needs of the individuals in the care and custody of federal immigration
authorities," Paez wrote. A spokesman for CoreCivic, the owners of the Houston Detention Center and
Eloy, also has defended its large detention centers that had multiple deaths,
saying medical care is provided by other contractors and deaths are few
compared to the number of detainees processed. Another man died in ICE
detention last month - the first death of the 2018 fiscal year. Kamyar Samimi, a 64-year-old
Iranian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a student in 1976, "fell
ill" at a GEO Group-owned detention facility in Aurora, Colorado,
according to ICE. Samimi, who had legal permanent
residency status, died after being taken to the hospital. The preliminary
cause of death was cardiac arrest, ICE said.
Dec 19, 2017 grijalva.house.gov
Today, 73 Congressional representatives sent a letter
to DHS and DOJ demanding accountability over sexual assault in immigration
detention. Please see CIVIC’s joint
press release with Congresswoman Chu and Congressman Grijalva below. Warm
regards, Christina M. Fialho Co-Founder/Executive
Director Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)
Dec 15, 2017
npr.org
'Significant Issues' At Immigrant Detention Centers
Immigrants detained at four large centers used by Immigration and Customs
Enforcement are subject to inhumane treatment, given insufficient hygiene
supplies and medical care, and provided potentially unsafe food, according to
a federal report. The "concerns" about the treatment of detained
immigrants in facilities in California, Georgia, New Jersey and New Mexico is
summarized in a report issued by the Inspector General's Office of the
Department of Homeland Security. "The findings are similar
to those of outside groups that have alleged 'extensive' human rights
abuses at ICE detention centers. "The inspector general's report comes
as the Trump administration is asking Congress for funding to expand the
immigration detention system. "ICE says some of its existing facilities
are short-staffed. And the acting director has agreed to the report's
recommendations." The report was based on inspections of five detention
facilities, four of which failed to meet certain federal standards, although
"not every problem was present in all of them." The report
summarized the results of the inspections: "Upon entering some
facilities, detainees were housed incorrectly based on their criminal
history. Further, in violation of standards, all detainees entering one
facility were strip searched. Available language services were not always
used to facilitate communication with detainees. Some facility staff
reportedly deterred detainees from filing grievances and did not thoroughly
document resolution of grievances. Staff did not always treat detainees
respectfully and professionally, and some facilities may have misused
segregation. Finally, we observed potentially unsafe and unhealthy detention
conditions. Detainees ... reported long waits for provision of medical care,
poor conditions in bathrooms and insufficient hygiene supplies. OIG
inspectors also observed expired, moldy, and spoiled foods in the kitchen in
four facilities." The report also recommends that ICE improve its
oversight of detention facility management and operations. In an official
response, ICE concurred with the findings and promised to strengthen
oversight and improve overall conditions. Critics of President Trump's
immigration policies say the findings are not new as they predate the current
administration. A 2015 report by the National Immigrant Justice Center
questioned ICE's ability to oversee the detention centers it uses. In a
statement on the 2017 report, the Center's Executive Director Mary Meg
McCarthy said: "ICE's inability to provide for the safety and health of
the tens of thousands of immigrants in its custody has been documented for
years. Today, we are calling on Congress to demand accountability and
drastically reduce ICE's detention budget. "While the Inspector
General's report provides documentation of extensive abuses, its remedy is
incredibly insufficient: it directs ICE field office directors to review the
areas of concern. We know from earlier directives that ICE's internal review
processes fail to generate meaningful change." The Women's Refugee
Commission said the report is consistent with what the organization and its
partners have "documented for years" from visits to ICE detention
facilities as well as with research it has conducted over 20 years. Katharina
Obser, senior program officer at WRC said in a
statement: "This week's OIG report spells out what WRC and our partners
have documented for years, making clear the critical need for greater
oversight and reform. Instead, the
Trump administration is intent on lowering or eliminating standards
for immigration detention – putting detainees' lives at risk – all while
promising to ramp up detention on a grand scale. As Congress continues to
debate DHS FY 18 appropriations, the OIG's findings show that now is not the
time to expand a detention system that ICE is not capable of effectively and
safely running. Detention must be reduced and, where needed, humane
alternatives to detention, implemented in its place." Three years ago,
the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's office reported on a
series of unannounced visits to detention centers for unaccompanied children.
The inquiry found evidence of inadequate food, temperature control problems
and inconsistent employee-to-detainee ratios.
May 26, 2017
nydailynews.com
Civil rights group sues in U.S. court over immigration
detention
(Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union sued the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security in federal court on Thursday, seeking
records the civil rights group contends provide accounts of hunger strikes at
immigration detention facilities. The ACLU said in its filing that in recent
weeks there have been a new series of hunger strikes at U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers in Georgia, Oregon and
Washington, adding hunger strikes have previously hit detention centers in
Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. The suit comes as U.S. Republican
President Donald Trump has promised a crackdown on illegal immigration and
the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress this month agreed to fund an
additional 5,300 detention beds for those suspected of illegally entering the
country. "The Trump administration's plans to expand detention and strip
away existing structures for oversight of detention are likely to produce
more protests both inside and outside the walls of detention
facilities," the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman
Jennifer Elzea said in an email: "ICE is
unable to comment on pending litigation." The lawsuit said detention
center inmates have launched the hunger strikes over the past few years as a
non-violent way to bring attention to what they see as a lack of access to
bond hearings and inhumane conditions of confinement. The suit also said that
some inmates who have previously launched hunger strikes were met with extraordinarily
punitive responses. From April 1-22, an average of 36,235 immigrants were in
detention per day, according to the most recent statistics provided by ICE.
The White House in March requested bringing the total number of beds up to
45,700, saying the additional capacity was necessary to achieve the
president's goal of "enhancing interior enforcement efforts and ending
'catch and release' for those apprehended at the border." The agreement
reached in Congress would increase the number of immigration detention beds
to 39,324 from 34,000 currently, according to a summary provided by the House
Appropriations Committee. In April, hundreds of detainees at an immigration
detention center in Washington state began refusing meals in a hunger strike
to protest conditions at the facility and delayed immigration hearings,
activists said. The Geo Group Inc, the company that operates the Washington
state facility and other detention centers around the United States, declined
to comment on the lawsuit.
Sep 4, 2016 thenation.com
The Obama Administration Continues Pulling Away From Private Prison
Companies
The private prison industry is having a very bad month. On Monday, the
Department of Homeland Security said it will reexamine its use of private
contractor to hold immigration detainees. The plan to conduct a review of
private immigration-detention centers comes on the heels of a separate
Department of Justice order on August 18 that will force the Bureau of
Prisons to fully end its reliance on private prisons, which have been used
solely to house noncitizen inmates. “The Department of Justice announced that
the Bureau of Prisons will reduce and ultimately end its use of private
prisons,” Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson said
in a statement. “I directed our Homeland Security Advisory Council…to
evaluate whether the immigration detention operations conducted by
Immigration and Customs Enforcement should move in the same direction.”
Correction Corporation of America and Geo Group, the two publicly traded
private prison companies that operate ICE detention centers, saw their stocks
slide after the announcement Monday. The declines punctuate a disastrous
month for the contractors. Immediately following the DOJ’s August 18
announcement, CCA and Geo stock both plummeted by about 40 percent. The
Department of Justice’s move away from private prisons two weeks ago comes
after an investigation by The Nation and the Investigative Fund that
uncovered widespread and longstanding medical neglect in the BOP’s subsystem
of private prisons, including dozens of deaths involving substandard medical
care. Tens of thousands of pages of previously unreleased federal records,
buttressed by interviews with federal officials and prison workers, also
revealed BOP officials repeatedly renewed contracts with the private prison
companies despite consistent indications from its own internal monitors that
the facilities were in crisis. The facilities currently hold more than 22,000
prisoners, almost all immigrants convicted of federal crimes. The prisons
will begin closing later this year. The DHS review announced on Monday
pertains to a wholly separate system, composed of civil immigration-detention
centers that house 25,000 noncitizens facing deportation. Advocates and
watchdogs have for years documented conditions in these immigration detention
facilities similar to those we uncovered in our probe of BOP facilities. And
in the wake of the Justice Department’s announcement about the BOP prisons,
immigrant-rights advocates stepped up pressure on the Department of Homeland
Security to follow the DOJ’s lead. “The priority for these companies is
profit and not care, which has led to a number of deaths of immigrants in
detention, some of which have been proven to be due to inadequate medical
care,” said Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. The
organization, along with the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and other advocacy
groups have released a series of reports in recent years documenting deadly
neglect. Some advocates called on the Obama administration to act immediately
to close private detention facilities. “There is nothing to review,” Pablo
Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer’s Organizing Network, said in
a statement. “No one should ever profit from other people’s pain, and the use
of private contractors is a practice that frankly should have been ended by
the Obama Administration 7 years ago.” A move to close private detention
centers would amount to a dramatic shift in ICE policy. Eliminating private
beds would force ICE, which detainees 400,000 men, woman, and children each
year, to build new government-run facilities—or to significantly shrink the
number of immigrants held in detention at any given time. In a statement, Geo
Group’s CEO said the company is “confident that this independent review will
show that GEO has provided needed, cost effective services that have resulted
in significantly improved safety outcomes for the men and women in ICE’s care
and custody.” But an evaluation by the Justice Department’s inspector general
released two weeks ago found that, at least for the Bureau of Prisons sites
that Geo Group and CCA run, the private facilities do not save meaningfully
on costs and degrade the quality of prison operation. The facilities, said
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, in her memo ordering the closure of
federal private prisons, “simply do not provide the same level of
correctional services, programs, and resources” and “do not save
substantially on costs.”
Aug 29, 2016 reuters.com
U.S. immigration agency to review private prison deals; shares slide
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson announced on Monday that he directed his advisory council to evaluate
whether the agency should continue to contract with private prisons, news
that hit shares of private prison operators. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), a division of DHS, currently uses private prison groups
like Corrections Corp of America (CXW.N) and The GEO Group (GEO.N) to run
some detention facilities for migrants. Corrections Corp of America's stock
slid 9.4 percent and The GEO Group's stock fell 6 percent immediately after
news of the review broke. The announcement followed the U.S. Justice
Department's decision to phase out the Bureau of Prison's contracts with
private prisons on Aug. 18. Johnson said he directed DHS's Homeland Security
Advisory Council on Friday "to evaluate whether the immigration
detention operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement should
move in the same direction" as the Bureau of Prisons. Corrections Corp
of America gained $689 million from ICE contracts since, 23 percent of its
total revenue from federal contracts, according to the website SmartProcure that tracks government contracts. The
company currently manages a facility for Central American women and children
in Dilley, Texas. The GEO Group has earned $1.18 billion from contracts with
ICE since 2008, about 60 percent of its total revenue from federal contracts,
according SmartProcure data. Both companies also
contract with state and local prison systems. The GEO Group said in a
statement that it welcomed the review by DHS. "GEO's facilities under
contract with ICE are highly rated and provide high-quality, cost-effective
services in safe, secure, and humane residential environments pursuant to
strict contractual requirements and the federal government's national
standards," the statement said. Corrections Corp of America could not
immediately be reached for comment.
Aug 22, 2015 reuters.com
Judge rules U.S. government must swiftly
release immigrant children in detention
A U.S. federal judge on Friday ordered
the government to swiftly release immigrant children held at detention
centers, affirming a July ruling that said some minors who crossed the border
illegally were being detained in violation of a long-standing settlement. The
ruling by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles gave the
administration of President Barack Obama until Oct. 23 to comply with her
order to release hundreds of unauthorized immigrant children, and in some
cases their mothers, "without unnecessary delay." Gee's ruling
comes amid debate by U.S. presidential candidates over illegal immigration
and follows an influx of immigrants from Central America across the
U.S.-Mexico border.
Aug 8, 2015 triblive.com
Feds ask judge to rethink freeing immigrant children
SAN ANTONIO — The government has asked
a federal judge to reconsider her ruling calling for the immediate release of
children and their mothers caught entering the United States illegally from
Mexico, saying recent changes mean federal authorities are no longer
violating a ban on holding immigrant children in secure facilities. In late
July, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the release of all children from
immigrant family detention centers “without unnecessary delay,” along with
any mothers not deemed a flight or national security risk. Justice Department
lawyers late Thursday filed documents at the California Central District
Court urging Gee not to implement her decision, saying the Department of
Homeland Security intends to turn the centers into short-term processing
facilities that her ruling “addressed practices and policies that no longer
exist.” The government says detention time has been reduced to only a few
weeks for most families, and that reducing it further would hinder processing
asylum claims and could force the separation of mothers from their children
in the event of another wave of migration. Moreover, further limits on
detention “would heighten the risk of another surge in illegal migration,”
the filing said, “by incentivizing adults to bring children with them on
their dangerous journey as a means to avoid detention and gain access to the
interior of the United States.” The government asked for another chance to
argue its case before the judge, citing the “potentially far-reaching scope
of the remedies proposed,” and the short time — 90 days — it would have to put
them in place. Laura Lichter, a Denver immigration
lawyer working with detained families, said the government had “doubled down”
on family detention and is “enamored of it as a tool, even though a judge has
called it both illegal and ineffective.” Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha
Catron said the agency has asked the judge to reconsider, “taking into
account the current legal landscape and considerable changes we have already
made to address the situation.” The government poured millions of dollars into
two large detention centers in Texas for women and children after tens of
thousands of immigrant families, mostly from Central America, crossed the Rio
Grande into the United States last summer. Many have petitioned for asylum
after fleeing gang and domestic violence back home. The centers in Karnes
City and Dilley, both south of San Antonio, hold some 1,400 women and
children combined, down from more than 2,000 in June. A third, smaller
facility is located in Berks County, Pa. All three are overseen by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement but managed by private prison operators. In her
ruling, Gee found that detaining children violated parts of a 1997 settlement
in another case barring immigrant children from being held in secure
facilities. She said the settlement covered all children in the custody of
immigration officials, even those who entered the country illegally with a
parent, and that the facilities were not properly licensed to care for
children.
February 15, 2013
grassrootsleadership.org
Today's USA Today
carried a disturbing article highlighting Immigration and Customs
Enforcement's effort to increase the number of deportations through
aggressive enforcement mechanisms. Internal emails at the agency showed that
ICE agents "were trolling state driver's license records for information
about foreign-born applicants, dispatching U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents to traffic safety checkpoints conducted by police
departments, and processing more illegal immigrants who had been booked into
jails for low-level offenses." The former official whose emails
are heavily quoted in the article is David Venturella,
former assistant director at ICE. Guess where Mr. Venturella
ended up after his term at ICE? Mr. Venturella
is now the Executive Vice President for Corporate Development at GEO Group,
according to his LinkedIn profile. GEO Group is a private prison
corporation that heavily depends on federal immigration contracts to ensure a
steady profit stream and employees a stream of heavily connected lobbyists in
DC. GEO knows that immigration reform that moves away from mass
detention and crimanalization of migrants would be
really bad for business. Business Insider reported on February 2nd that
in 2011, GEO Group CEO George Zoley told investors:
"At the federal level, initiatives related to border enforcement and
immigration detention with an emphasis on criminal alien populations as well
as the consolidation of existing detainee populations have continued to
create demand for larger-scale, cost efficient facilities." Undoubtedly,
Mr. Venturella's history at ICE is proving valuable
for his new company.
September 1, 2012 AP
A senior Obama administration political appointee and longtime aide to
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano resigned Saturday amid
allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior lodged by at least three
Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees. Suzanne Barr, chief of staff
to ICE Director John Morton, said in her resignation letter that the
allegations against her are "unfounded." But she said she was
stepping down anyway to end distractions within the agency. ICE, a division
of the Homeland Security Department, confirmed Barr had resigned. The
Associated Press obtained a copy of Barr's letter. Barr is accused of sexually
inappropriate behavior toward employees. The complaints are related to a
sexual discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by a senior ICE agent in
May. In her letter to Morton, Barr said she has been the subject of
"unfounded allegations designed to destroy my reputation" and is
resigning "with great regret." "Of greater concern however, is
the threat these allegations represent to the reputation of this agency and
the men and women who proudly serve their country by advancing ICE's
mission," Barr wrote. "As such, I feel it is incumbent upon me to
take every step necessary to prevent further harm to the agency and to
prevent this from further distracting from our critical work." Barr went
on leave last month after the New York Post reported on the lawsuit filed by
James T. Hayes Jr., ICE's special agent in charge in New York. Additional
employees came forward with their allegations around the same time. House
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., said in a statement
Saturday that Barr's resignation "raises the most serious questions
about management practices and personnel policies at the Department of
Homeland Security." He said his committee will continue to review the
case and personnel practices at DHS. In one complaint, Barr is accused of
telling a male subordinate he was "sexy" and asking a personal
question about his anatomy during an office party. In a separate complaint,
she is accused of offering to perform a sex act with a male subordinate
during a business trip in Bogota, Colombia. She's also accused of calling a
male subordinate from her hotel room and offering to perform a sex act. The
names of two of Barr's accusers were censored in affidavits reviewed by AP.
Homeland Security's office of professional responsibility and inspector
general have been investigating the allegations. Prior to the lawsuit, there
were no complaints about Barr, according to a homeland security official who
spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak publicly about the matter. In the lawsuit, Hayes described a "frat
house" atmosphere at ICE designed to humiliate male employees under
Barr's leadership. Hayes, who was transferred to New York from ICE
headquarters in Washington, is asking for more than $4 million that, among
other things, would cover compensation he believes he is owed for relocation
expenses and financial losses associated with his transfer. Hayes' lawyer,
Morris Fischer of Silver Spring, Md., has declined to comment. The Justice
Department is seeking to dismiss Hayes' lawsuit on the basis that he did not
state a claim for retaliation. Barr, a 1995 graduate of the University of
Arizona, was among Napolitano's first appointments after she became secretary
in 2009. Barr started working for Napolitano in 2004, while Napolitano was
governor of Arizona. Prior to that, Barr worked for Arizona Republican Sens.
Jon Kyl and John McCain.
May 17, 2012 Huffington Post
Immigrant detainees will no longer be treated differently under the law
than prison inmates for purposes of rape prevention, the Obama administration
announced on Thursday. The White House plans to release a presidential
memorandum later in the day that extends the Prison Rape Elimination Act,
which now only applies to the Department of Justice, to all other federal
agencies within the next 240 days. "These regulations will build upon
the substantial improvements we have made to agency policy and procedures to
prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse in immigration detention,"
Department of Homeland Security Spokesperson Peter Boogaard said in a
statement. "DHS will move swiftly to promulgate these regulations and
will work with the Attorney General and others to ensure that the regulations
satisfy the requirements of the statute.” DHS has its own rules to protect
inmates against rape, but lawmakers and advocates have called for
congressionally mandated standards to be imposed government-wide to prevent
abuse within detention facilities. The Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed
unanimously in 2003, and the Justice Department released its final rule on
Thursday. The rule will expand trainings of prison personnel to detect sexual
abuse, increase screenings of inmates and guards and broaden opportunities
for those in custody to report rape. Trainings and screening protocols will
also cover the unique vulnerabilities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
intersex and gender-nonconforming inmates. That rule applies only to the
Justice Department because, officials said last year, other detention agencies
are under the purview of other government agencies. Those agencies include
the DHS, which houses immigrants slated for deportation, and Health and Human
Services, which runs facilities that hold unaccompanied undocumented
children. Now, under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, other agencies will be
required to draft their own rules within 120 days, followed by a public
comment period and then enact them within 240 days, officials said. "As
the administration, our job is to make sure that each of these agencies fully
applies the law, and so that's why we're moving it forward in this way,"
the White House official said. Advocates who argued for the inclusion of
those agencies under the Prison Rape Elimination Act said undocumented
immigrants are especially susceptible to rape because they fear reporting
abusers who could control their deportation. Advocates also say immigrants
can be hurt by a lack of information on reporting crime and possible language
barriers. Some undocumented men and women have claimed they were sexually
assaulted on the way to airports as they were being deported, which gave them
little to no chance to report the crime before being put on a plane. A guard
at the private detention center T. Don Hutto Facility in Taylor, Texas, was charged
in 2010 for sexual assault after reports that he raped several women while
driving them to the airport to be deported. A senior White House official
told reporters on a press call that the Department of Homeland Security's
rule will be applied to all detention facilities, including private ones such
as the T. Don Hutto Facility, which is run by detention center giant
Corrections Corporation for America. More than 180 cases of sexual abuse in
immigrant detention centers were reported between 2007 and mid-2011,
according to government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties
Union last year.
March 29, 2012 Miami Herald
The news was shocking and unexpected. It was also wrong. A series of
telephone calls to Pembroke Pines city officials and residents from the
office of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz on Wednesday quickly spread the
word that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement no longer intended to
build a new detention center in neighboring Southwest Ranches. But the calls
were soon followed by a retraction — much to the chagrin of those who are
opposed to the detention center being built on an island of Southwest Ranches
surrounded by thousands of homes and several schools in Pembroke Pines. “I
was crying,’’ said Ryann Greenberg, a Pembroke Pines resident opposed to the
facility. Jonathan Beeton, communications director
for Rep. Wasserman Schultz, said the error was due to conflicting information
received from ICE. “We were notified Wednesday by ICE’s Office of
Congressional Relations that ICE had decided not to move forward with the
detention facility and we asked whether we could convey this information to
individuals and organizations who had previously contacted our office on this
issue,” Beeton said. “ICE said that it was fine for
us to convey this information and we spoke with local leaders informing them
of ICE’s decision,’’ he said. “Within hours of this ICE once again contacted
our office, this time to state that no final decision had been made regarding
their proposed detention facility in Southwest Ranches. We share our
community’s frustration over the conflicting information from ICE.”
January 12, 2012 Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that an inmate injured in a privately run
federal prison may not sue its employees in federal court, holding that state
court was the proper venue for his claim. Under high-court precedents,
inmates in federal institutions can file federal lawsuits against prison
employees for mistreatment that violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition of
"cruel and unusual punishments." By an 8-1 vote, however, the court
refused to extend that right to inmates held in private prisons operated
under contract to the U.S. government. In an opinion by Justice Stephen
Breyer, the court observed that in contrast to federal employees, whom
prisoners generally can't sue in state court, employees of the private
company enjoy no such immunity. "State law remedies provide roughly
similar incentives [for prison employees] to comply with the Eighth Amendment
while also providing roughly similar compensation to victims of
violations," Justice Breyer wrote. So, there was no need for the court
to expand liability to federal court, he said.
January 9, 2012 Westword
Colorado Congressman Jared Polis has called for a government
investigation into alleged abuse suffered by gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender immigrants detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
(ICE). "Here we have people who are at their most vulnerable -- many
without access to any legal assistance -- who are being preyed upon and
assaulted," Polis said in a statement. "LGBT immigrants appear to
be special targets for abuse." That abuse, according to a complaint
filed last year by the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance National Immigration
Justice Center, includes allegations of sexual assault, long-term solitary
confinement and denial of medical care.
November 1, 2011 Messenger Post
The U.S. Marshals Service has declined to investigate allegations by
activists that immigrants at a private New York City detention center have
been abused. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service says the Queens
Detention Facility passed its September inspection. Spokesman Jeff Carter
says the center adheres to federal regulations. Public Advocate Bill de
Blasio and immigrant rights groups called for an investigation of the center
last month saying they had received reports of mistreatment of detainees and
lack of medical care. The center is operated by the Florida-based GEO Group
Inc., under contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold about 200 people
accused of crimes. The company’s spokesman, Pablo Paez,
says the firm cannot respond to accusations from “third parties,” referring
to the immigrant rights groups.
October 20, 2011 Chicago Homeland Security Examiner
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) posed difficult questions and concerns to the
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Janet Napolitano, at
this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Of particular concern for
Durbin, was the state of immigration detention facilities, especially the
Willacy Detention facility in Texas. According to documents obtained by the
ACLU more than 180 sexual abuse complaints have been reported in immigration
detention centers since 2007, nearly a third of which came from Texas.
According to the Huffington Post, “other states had far lower reports of
detainee sexual abuse, with the next highest reports coming from California
(17), Arizona (16) and Florida (12). (10/21/2011). Senator Durbin sought
further information and assurances from Secretary Napolitano regarding this
issue. Senator Durbin, the second highest ranking member in the Senate
Democratic leadership, remarked that detainee centers have become a huge
industry in which DHS spends more than $1.7 billion dollars yearly. Yet, the
issue of sexual abuse at the immigration centers has barely reached public
attention. Much of Senator Durbin’s framing of the issue stemmed from a
recent “Frontline” television expose. Durbin noted at the Senate Judiciary
hearing, that “there was an aspect of this program that was particularly
troubling. Maria Hinojosa in part of that program described a woman who was a
victim at this Willacy facility. She had been raped and her identity was
hidden from the camera. She told her story about how it was virtually
impossible for her to even seek justice in this circumstance because she was
totally at the mercy of the guards in this privatized facility.” (Transcript
of Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, October 20, 2011) According to the
Huffington Post, the ACLU obtained information under the Freedom of
Information Act documenting that “detention officers broke a rule that detainees
must not be transported without a same-sex officer present. Detention
officers are also instructed to call supervisors with their departure and
arrival times when transporting detainees, according to a 2007Immigration and
Customs Enforcement document.” Senator Durbin underscored his concern by
noting that some 85 to 90 percent of those who were detained under civil
charges, not criminal charges, but people with civil charges do not have
benefits of counsel. Durbin further noted, “That the due process requirements
are very limited on their behalf, and that many times they’re in facilities
that are privatized… As a group immigration detainees are especially
vulnerable to sexual abuse, and its effect on the detainees due to social,
cultural, language isolation, poor understanding of U.S. culture and the
subculture of U.S. prisons and the often traumatic experiences they’re
endured in their culture of origin. The commission (i.e., The National Rape
Elimination Commission) issued proposed standards. The Department of Justice
is now finalizing its national standards to prevent, detect, and respond to
prison rape. In April of this year I wrote a letter to Attorney General
Holder emphasizing the importance of strong standards.” In addition Senator
Durbin mentioned the bipartisan support he received from Senator Sessions
(R-Alabama) and others in passion the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003
which aimed at eliminating sexual abuse while in custody in the U.S. We want
zero tolerance on this.” (Transcript of Senate Judiciary Committee,
10/20/2011) At this point in the hearing Senator Durbin asked DHS Secretary
Napolitano “What is the Department of Homeland Security doing to ensure that
immigration detainees are safe from sexual abuse, whether they’re ICE
facilities or contract facilities? Secretary Napolitano’s response was not
reassuring for immigrants or Senator Durbin. She replied, “When I took over
as Secretary, we found that there were little or no standards being applied
uniformly across all the many detention facilities that we use in –in the ICE
context…Others are privatized, companies like Correction Corporations of
America. We have to have beds, and in particular given our priorities and how
we are managing the system, we need beds that are near the southern border…As
part of the process I brought in someone to actually look at the standards
and we redid our contracts with some of the private providers.” (Transcript,
Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, 10/20/2011) Secretary Napolitano tried to
explain the process she instituted since coming to DHS. She said, “We do have
a process by which we are regularly auditing and overseeing what is happening
there. But that is not to say there aren’t cases that are particularly
horrific.” She further mentioned that she was not familiar with the
“Frontline” documentary focusing on sexual abuses at immigrant detention
centers but would review it and get back to the Senator Durbin. Earlier this
year the ACLU sued the Department of Homeland Security regarding sexual
abuses at immigration detention centers. The ACLU of Texas has filed a suit
in behalf of three women who say they were assaulted by detention guards and
officers. The victims say they were abused on the way to the airport after
posting bond to be released from detention facilities. According to theHuffington Post, “The three women were held for a time
in the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor ,Texas.
The 512 bed facility, is privately run on a government contract by private
prison giant Corrections Corporations of America.”
October 19, 2011 American Independent
Amid a national push to expose incidents of sexual abuse at immigrant
detention facilities across the country, the American Civil Liberties Union
of Texas filed a federal suit Wednesday on behalf of three women who say they
were sexually abused at a Central Texas facility with a history of abuse. The
suit names Donald Dunn, a former employee at the T. Don Hutto Residential
Center in Taylor, just east of Austin, who pled guilty last fall to charges
he abused women he was driving to the airport and Greyhound stations.
Allegations by one victim prompted his arrest and a nationwide search for
more victims, the Taylor Daily Press reported last year. “Eight female
victims were discovered, and during the investigation, Dunn admitted to
abusing them during transports,” the Press said. Along with Dunn, though, the
suit also names U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement and the Corrections
Corporation of America — the country’s largest private prison operator, which
runs the Hutto facility, for ignoring regulations that should have kept Dunn
from driving the women on his own. “The lawsuit alleges that ICE, Williamson
County and CCA were deliberately indifferent and willfully blind to the fact
that Dunn and other employees regularly violated the rule that detainees not
be transported without another escort officer of the same gender present,”
the ACLU said in a statement. According to the suit, each of the three
anonymous women — asylum seekers from Brazil, Guatemala and Eritrea — were
being released from the facility after passing “credible fear” interviews, to
await a hearing on their cases, when they were assaulted. The women say Dunn
pulled over on the way to drop them off at the airport or bus station, groped
them, told them to undress and exposed himself to them. Between October 2009
and May 2010, the suit claims, Dunn assaulted six other women too. A CCA
spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the complaint. “The
long history of rampant sexual abuse at ICE detention centers, coupled with
the availability of the same opportunity Dunn exploited in the form of at
least 22 documented failures of other male officers to comply with the same
policy, supports a reasonable inference that other male escort officers at
Hutto engaged in similar abuse,” the suit claims. The Hutto Detention Center,
once a residential center for holding whole families of immigrants, has been
plagued by complaints about poor conditions and family separation, and has
been an ACLU target in the past. Separate allegations of sexual abuse at the
facility even prompted an ICE investigation in 2007. Bob Libal
with Grassroots Leadership — a group that promotes accountability for private
prison operators and runs a visitation program to the Hutto facility — said
the fact that CCA continues to operate the facility shows what light
consequences the country’s largest private prison operators face. “This is
the second time that there’s been an inappropriate sexual event at Hutto, and
ICE didn’t cut the contract,” Libal said. “There’s
no impact for the company that allowed this to happen.” After years of
campaigning by the ACLU, Grassroots Leadership and other groups, the Hutto
facility was converted from a family detention center to a 500-bed facility for
women who’ve come to the U.S. seeking asylum. The suit filed Wednesday in
Austin is part of a nationwide effort by the ACLU to uncover records of
sexual abuse and call for accountability. The group found more than 200
allegations of sexual abuse in immigrant detention centers across the country
from 2007 to 2010 returned from a public records request. “It is clear there
is an urgent need for the government to recognize just how pervasive a
problem the sexual abuse of immigration detainees is and take immediate steps
to fix the problem and ensure that everyone in the government’s care is
protected,” said David Shapiro, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison
Project. “The detainees in immigration detention are a particularly
vulnerable population. Even one incident of sexual abuse is one too many.”
The group found 56 allegations of sexual abuse in Texas, far more than the
next-highest total, 17 complaints in California. “It’s pretty disturbing, and
pretty telling, that such a high percentage of the sexual assaults happen
here in Texas,” Libal said.
October 11, 2011 Broward Palm Beach New Times
Here in Florida, we have a broad array of sunshine laws designed to promote
open government. Local governments routinely have to disclose information
simply because citizens ask for it. But apparently there's one thing that can
clamp the mouths of local officials for good: a private prison contractor
asking nicely. Bill Di Scipio is a Southwest Ranches resident who has vocally
opposed the planned construction of a new 1,800-bed immigrant detention
facility that would be run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a
private prison contractor. At a town council meeting on September 22, he
asked why town council members had told him they weren't allowed to discuss
the facility. (Read about another council member's unusual response to his
request.) After the public comment period, Vice-Mayor Freddy Fisikelli asked the town's longtime lawyer, Keith Poliakoff, for an explanation. Fisikelli:
Keith... explain to him why we're doing the cone of silence? Poliakoff: To answer your question, the request for the
council to not get into anything until something is, uh, known was requested
by a combination of CCA and Homeland Security. At this point, there's nothing
new, there's no contract proposal, there's no formal award, there's no IGA
(intergovernmental agreement), there's nothing. There's nothing new on that,
one iota. Fisikelli: So it's not the town that the
cone of silence, it's the people we're dealing with. Poliakoff:
We've been asked by Homeland Security and CCA. Fiskielli:
That's what I think we need to let the people know. Poliakoff:
But there's nothing new. Well, we wouldn't be able to confirm that, since the
request of a notoriously secretive government agency and a publicly traded
corporation is enough to make a town's lawyer to advise council members not
to speak. That was the end of CCA discussion for the evening. We have a call
out to Poliakoff for more information on the nature
and legal weight of this "request," and will update if he responds.
September 29, 2011 Los Angles Times
Arrests of federal prison guards soared nearly 90% over the last decade,
possibly because of poor hiring practices during a 25% increase in prison
growth, the Justice Department's inspector general reported. Misconduct
investigations doubled, and more than half of the offenses were committed
during the officers' first two years on the job. The inspector general
recommended that the Federal Bureau of Prisons improve its background investigation
of job applicants and find better ways to assess rookie officers. But other
factors have contributed to the problem, including private prisons and
increasing numbers of female prisoners and young offenders in federal
facilities, the inspector general found. The report did not specify how many
misconduct cases came out of private federal prisons, which have increased
their populations by 120% in the last decade, according to the Justice Policy
Institute, a Washington prison issues think tank. "Private prisons
aren't always held to the same standards as public ones," said Joe
Baumann, a corrections officer at the state California Rehabilitation Center
in Norco. "That's where so much of the stuff I come across is from, the
private contractors."
May 24, 2011
PORTLAND, OR - A federal judge today strongly rejected the U.S. government's
ongoing attempts to shroud its network of privatized immigrant prisons in a
far-reaching veil of secrecy. The ruling arises out of a lawsuit filed two
years ago, seeking information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The plaintiff, Stephen Raher, sought documents
concerning a series of contracts between the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP)
and several private prison companies. The government has repeatedly claimed
that it does not have to release information showing how many prison beds it
has contracted for, and how much it pays under the contracts. In addition,
the government fought against releasing the proposals that bidders submitted
when seeking the contracts. In November 2010, The GEO Group, the largest
private prison operator in the world, intervened in the suit (with the
government's acquiescence), claiming that it wanted to protect its
proprietary commercial information. The BOP and GEO vigorously objected to the
release of any information that would provide a meaningful picture of how the
network of privately-run "criminal alien" prisons are run.
"Our government is paying substantial amounts of money in exchange for
services of questionable value," said Raher.
"The fact that the government does not want to allow public scrutiny of
these transactions is an affront to the spirit of public disclosure embodied
in FOIA." The ruling by Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart rejects most of
the Bureau of Prison's arguments, noting that the government had failed to
provide evidence to support many of its claims. The court called the
government's justification for withholding portions of the contractors' bid
proposals "hopelessly vague" and characterized its description of
some of the withheld information as "baffling." The court also
criticized GEO for advancing "meritless" arguments and relying on
legal theories that are "nothing more than an unsupported
conclusion." The court did reserve judgment on the question of whether
contract prices must be released, saying that a trial is necessary on that
issue. "There is still more work to be done in this case, and that work
is extremely important," said Raher. "I
am confident that the government's argument would not hold up at trial, and
that the primary motivation of BOP and GEO is to avoid revealing the inflated
prices paid under these contracts." As the court noted in its opinion, Raher has articulated a plausible theory that prison
operators use the lucrative federal contracts to cross-subsidize money-losing
contracts with state and local governments, thus allowing the companies to
boast of inflated cost "savings" when lobbying state legislatures.
The case is Raher v. Federal Bureau of Prisons,
U.S. District Court, District of Oregon, Case Number CV-09-526-ST. The
court's opinion is available at
http://www.tidx.org/pdf/BOP_FOIA/SJ-Opinion-May2011.pdf
May 11, 2011 Detention Watch Network
As the largest for-profit prison company in the country, Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA), prepares for its annual shareholders meeting,
new data released today by the Detention Watch Network (DWN) sheds light on
the growing influence of the private prison industry on the immigration
detention system. Drawn from a variety of sources, including the Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Reading Room,
and the Federal Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, the data reveals the
companies most heavily invested in the business of immigration detention –
CCA, The GEO Group Inc., and the Management and Training Corporation – and
suggests increased lobbying activity over the last decade, both in terms of
dollars spent and government entities targeted. “For years, private prison
firms have played a critical role in shaping public policy around immigration
detention, pursuing the bottom line at the expense of basic civil rights and
tax payer dollars,” said Emily Tucker, Director of Policy and Advocacy at
DWN. “This data highlights deep corporate investment in the detention business,
raising concerns about how the corporate profit-motive is fueling the
expansion of the detention system as a whole.” According to research by DWN,
corporations have increasingly devoted resources over the last decade to
lobbying for policies and programs that will increase their opportunities to
do business with the government. Of the five corporations with ICE contracts
for which official federal lobbying records are currently available, the
total expenditure on lobbying for 1999-2009 was $20,432,000, with CCA
($18,002,000) and GEO ($2,065,000) as the top two spenders. Lobbying efforts
targeted a wide range of government entities, indicating a comprehensive
strategy for influencing policy and legislation. Both CCA and GEO have come
under increasing scrutiny in recent years, as a lack of transparency and
accountability has led to multiple cases of abuse and mismanagement in their
facilities, resulting in the termination of contracts in a few recent cases.
“ICE has called for sweeping changes in the immigration detention system,”
said Tucker. “Yet they continue to partner with private prison firms that are
part of the problem. We hope this research inspires further exploration into
the relationship between prison corporations and the government at all levels.
We need to reduce our dependence on detention and begin putting human rights
over profits.” For the full collection of data, visit:
http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/privateprisons
December 23, 2010 Washington Post
The Senate has confirmed President Obama's pick for U.S. marshal despite
opposition from criminal justice and watchdog groups upset about the
nominee's ties to the private prison industry. Retiring U.S. Marshal John F.
Clark said he welcomed Justice Department veteran Stacia M. Hylton's appointment late Wednesday and called her a
"dedicated public servant with 29 years of law enforcement in the
Department of Justice." "In addition to serving as our nation's
federal detention trustee, she was a deputy U.S. marshal for 24 years and
served in a variety of assignments, which gave her profound insight into the
service's operations," he said in a statement after the confirmation by
unanimous consent. But Ms. Hylton ran into sharp
opposition from watchdog groups who said her consulting work this year for
the GEO Group, one of the nation's largest private prison companies, posed a
conflict of interest. The GEO Group has held tens of millions of dollars in
contracts with the Marshals Service. "The opposition coalition is
disappointed, of course, that the Obama administration nominated Hylton despite her obvious conflicts of interest
involving the private prison industry, which she will be overseeing as
director of the U.S. Marshals and in contradiction to the president's own
ethics guidelines," said Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison
Legal News, one of the groups opposing the nomination. "We continue to
hope for change, but see only the same revolving door and conflicts of
interest between public officials and private industry that benefits from
federal contracts under the Obama administration," he said. Others
critical of the Hylton nomination included the
1.6-million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees; the Alliance for Justice; the National Lawyers Guild; the
Detention Watch Network; Grassroots Leadership; the Human Rights Defense
Center; International CURE; the Justice Policy Institute; Public Citizen; and
the Private Corrections Working Group. Ms. Hylton
was backed by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and the
National Sheriffs' Association. During her confirmation hearing, Ms. Hylton said she had recused herself from conversations
about the private prison industry and that federal ethics officials had
cleared her recent consulting work for the GEO Group. "I did follow all
ethics requirements and regulations and worked closely with the ethics
office," she said.
December 8, 2010 ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas and El Paso co-counsel
Mike Torres and Leon Schydlower today announced the
filing of a lawsuit against the federal government and administrators of a
West Texas for-profit prison on behalf of the survivors of Jesus Manuel
Galindo. Mr. Galindo, 32, died on December 12, 2008, after suffering a
seizure in solitary confinement where he had been placed for complaining
about the facility’s failure to provide him medication to control his
epileptic seizures. For a copy of Galindo, et al. v. Reeves County, et al.
(W.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2010), go to http://www.aclutx.org/galindo The suit names
as defendants individual employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, The GEO
Group (which operates the for-profit prison), Reeves County and the
facility’s contracted medical provider, Physicians Network Association (PNA).
“The Galindo family has suffered a terrible loss, a loss that could have been
prevented if Reeves County Detention Center officials had responded to Jesus
Manuel Galindo’s repeated pleas for care as well as requests on Galindo’s
behalf from fellow inmates and his mother, Graciela Galindo,” said Mike
Torres. “A prison sentence should not be a death sentence because officials
are unwilling to provide basic medical care,” added Schydlower.
Mr. Galindo’s death came after repeated attempts by Galindo, his family and
others to persuade prison and medical staff to move him out of isolation and
provide effective medication to control his seizures. “U.S. taxpayer dollars
were used to pay a for-profit medical provider with a documented record of
providing constitutionally inadequate care, and federal officials looked the
other way while inmates like Mr. Galindo were denied access to the most basic
medical necessities,” said Lisa Graybill, Legal Director for the ACLU of
Texas. “A prisoner’s citizenship status does not matter when it comes to
medical care – federal inmates are entitled to equal protection of the law,
and no inmate held in a United States prison should be subject to the
deliberate denial of life-saving medication, then left in solitary to die.”
In recent years, the federal government has increasingly relied on private
firms like The GEO Group, which operates the Reeves County Detention Center
(RCDC) in Pecos, to manage prisons where immigrant prisoners serve criminal
sentences, mostly for non-violent crimes like illegal entry. Gouri Bhat, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Texas,
said, “Prisoners at RCDC face an impossible situation. Private prison
officials cut costs and provide deficient care, and the Bureau of Prisons
won’t hear grievances about private prisons. That is a Catch-22 with deadly
consequences.”
December 1, 2010 Washington Times
Critics of President Obama's nominee for director of the U.S. Marshals
Service vowed to take their fight to the full Senate after a key committee
Wednesday backed Justice Department veteran Stacia M. Hylton
for the job despite concerns from watchdog groups about her ties to the
private prison industry. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to move Ms. Hylton's nomination to the full Senate amid increasing
opposition from criminal-justice and union groups that say her recent
consulting work for a private prison company poses a conflict of interest.
The committee approved the nomination by voice vote. Ms. Hylton
earned at least $110,000 as a private consultant earlier this year for the
Florida-based GEO Group, which has held tens of millions of dollars in prison
contracts with the Marshals Service. Ms. Hylton
previously worked for the government as federal detention trustee and has
held several Justice Department posts. "We're disappointed the Judiciary
Committee didn't seem to take these concerns to heart," said Alex
Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, one of the groups opposing
the nomination along with the 1.6-million-member American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). On Monday, AFSCME's director
of legislation, Charles M. Loveless, told the Judiciary Committee in a letter
that Ms. Hylton's acceptance of consulting fees
from the GEO Group "is a clear conflict of interest." "This is
a revolving door that needs to be shut," he wrote.
November 18, 2010 Washington Times
The nation's largest federal employees union is railing against President
Obama's choice to lead the U.S. Marshals Service, saying Justice Department
veteran Stacia Hylton's recent six-figure
consulting deal with a private prison company makes her
"ill-suited" for the job. The American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE), which backed Mr. Obama throughout the 2008 presidential
campaign, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a letter this week that Ms. Hylton's ties to the GEO Group "pose a serious
conflict of interest that should preclude her nomination." The letter
was signed by John Gage, president of the 600,000-member national union,
which represents government employees at nearly every federal agency,
including the Marshals Service. A copy of the letter was obtained Thursday by
The Washington Times, which first reported in October on Ms. Hylton's work with the GEO Group. The union, like at
least nine other criminal justice and watchdog groups now opposing the
nomination, is upset that Ms. Hylton accepted
$112,500 in consulting fees from the GEO Group shortly after resigning as the
federal detention trustee at Justice in February and before her recent
nomination as the U.S. Marshal. The Office of Federal Detention manages and
regulates the federal detention programs and the Justice Prisoner and Alien
Transportation System. "While the public record does not disclose the
extent to which the $112,500 consulting job with the GEO Group was discussed
prior to Ms. Hylton's retirement, we believe this
creates a clear conflict of interest," Mr. Gage wrote.
November 17, 2010 Main Justice
Stacia A. Hylton, the nominee to lead the U.S.
Marshals Service, rejected allegations at a Senate hearing Wednesday that her
previous consulting job would create a conflict of interest if she is
confirmed to the agency’s top post. Earlier this month, prison and human
rights watchdog organizations blasted Hylton,
claiming her work as a consultant in the prison industry would present a
conflict of interest. After retiring from her post as Federal Detention
Trustee in March, Hylton received $112,500 in
consulting fees from The GEO Group Inc., which contracted with her
Virginia-based firm Hylton Kirk & Associates.
The GEO Group, one of the largest prison private businesses, receives
millions of dollars from U.S Marshal contracts. In response to a question
from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Hylton dismissed
the charges and affirmed that she followed the legal procedure. “I’d like to
assure the entire members of the committee that I did follow all ethics
requirements and that I worked closely with the ethics office before
retirement and subsequently after,” she said. Hylton
previously worked for the U.S. Marshals Services from 1980 until 2004, where
she held several high-ranking positions. She was nominated by President
Barack Obama on Sept. 20 to become the new director of the U.S. Marshals.
November 10, 2010 Washington Times
Eight prominent human rights and prison industry watchdog groups Tuesday
announced their opposition to U.S. Marshal nominee Stacia Hylton,
a longtime Justice Department veteran who recently worked as a consultant to
one of the nation's largest private prison companies. The organizations
raised conflict of interest charges concerning Ms. Hylton's
consulting work earlier this year for the Florida-based GEO Group, which has
held of millions of dollars in contracts with the Marshals Service. "It
is extremely worrisome that Ms. Hylton is nominated
for a position where she would be directly involved in overseeing contracts
with private prison companies to house federal detainees, given her cozy
relationship with the private prison industry and her acceptance of funding
from the GEO Group through her consulting work," said Ken Kopczynski, director of the Private Corrections Working
Group, a nonprofit watchdog group. Citing a report last month by The
Washington Times, the groups pointed out Ms. Hylton's
acceptance of $112,500 in consulting fees from the GEO Group after leaving
her post earlier this year as federal detention trustee. "This is a
prime example of the revolving door between the public and for-profit private
sectors turning full circle," said Alex Friedmann, associate editor of
Prison Legal News, a project of the Human Rights Defense Center that reports
on criminal justice issues. "After cashing in on her experience in
public law enforcement by taking a consulting job with GEO Group, Ms. Hylton has now been nominated for a high-level federal
position where she will oversee detention services for the U.S. marshals,
including services provided by private prison firms such as GEO," he
said. The organizations plan to discuss their concerns with the White House
and the Senate Judiciary Committee. They said neither the White House nor the
GEO Group responded to their questions about Ms. Hylton's
relationship with the company. Among the organizations opposing the
nomination are the Alliance for Justice, the National Lawyers Guild,
International Cure, the Detention Watch Network, Grassroots Leadership and
the Justice Policy Institute. Last month, a White House official said Ms. Hylton would not require a waiver from Mr. Obama's ethics
rules, which bar appointees for two years from working on matters involving
recent clients. So far, more than two dozen high-level appointees have been
given full or partial waivers. "After review, it was determined ... she
could easily be recused from participating in particular matters in which
that client was a party," said the official. "This recusal, along
with the Obama administration's ethics pledge and other ethics restrictions,
will ensure that she can serve ably and effectively as director of the U.S.
Marshals Service." Ms. Hylton wasn't working
as an employee of the company, but provided services to GEO Group through her
consulting company, Virginia-based Hylton Kirk
& Associates. GEO Group was the only client on her financial disclosure
form, for whom she said she did "consulting services for detention
matters, federal relations and acquisitions and mergers" from March
through July of this year. Marshals Service contracts generate an important
source of revenue for the GEO Group. Ms. Hylton has
supporters, including the National Sheriff's Association, which told the
Judiciary Committee of her "extraordinary qualifications, experience and
expertise." Ms. Hylton said if she is
confirmed, her consulting firm would remain dormant except to comply with any
legal and tax requirements while it's inactive. She also said $105,000 in
annual retirement pay would end upon her appointment.
October 25, 2010 The Washington Times
Between leaving her post as federal detention trustee and her recent
nomination as the next U.S. marshal, Justice Department veteran Stacia Hylton got a consulting contract with one of the largest
private correctional companies in the country, records show. The arrangement
with the Florida-based GEO Group Inc., which has carried out tens of millions
of dollars in contracts for the U.S. Marshals Service, was disclosed in a
recent financial report obtained by The Washington Times through the U.S.
Office of Government Ethics. One prominent prison industry observer said the
ties raise concerns about conflicts of interest. "The massive conflicts
of interest with Ms. Hylton having been employed by
GEO Group typify the revolving door of corporate lobbyists and government
employees that President Obama promised to end if elected," said Paul
Wright, editor and co-founder of Prison Legal News, which covers the prison
industry. Mr. Wright said he was concerned that Ms. Hylton
would "be in a position to further reward the GEO Group with taxpayer
money and little accountability or oversight." "The real and
apparent conflict of interest is as massive as it is obvious," he said.
While Ms. Hylton is not a registered lobbyist, the
publicly traded GEO Group, which did not respond to messages seeking comment,
has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress and the Justice
Department on prison and budget issues in recent years. Under Mr. Obama's
ethics rules, appointees are prohibited for two years from working on
specific matters involving recent clients unless they obtain special waivers.
So far, more than two dozen high-level appointees have been given full or
partial waivers from the ethics rules. Ms. Hylton
could not be reached for comment, and the U.S. Marshals Service and the
Justice Department did not respond to messages about her nomination. A White
House official reached on the matter Monday said Ms. Hylton
would not require a waiver. "After review, it was determined that Ms. Hylton did not need a waiver for her consulting client,
the GEO Group, as she could easily be recused from participating in
particular matters in which that client was a party," said the official.
"This recusal, along with the Obama administration's ethics pledge and
other ethics restrictions, will ensure that she can serve ably and
effectively as director of the U.S. Marshals Service." Ms. Hylton wasn't working as an employee of the company, but
provided services to GEO Group through her consulting company, Virginia-based
Hylton Kirk & Associates. The GEO Group is
listed as the only client on Ms. Hylton's financial
disclosure form, though government ethics rules require nominees to report
only clients who pay at least $5,000. She listed $112,500 in income from her
company through "consulting services for detention matters, federal
relations and acquisitions and mergers" from March through July of this
year. But Ms. Hylton also noted that pursuant to a
contract, she will receive funds from the GEO Group for services sometime
prior to joining the government. Contracts with the Marshals Service generate
an important source of revenue for the GEO Group. During an earnings
conference call earlier this year, GEO Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
George Zoley noted that among federal contracts,
"the primary driver for growth continues to be the incarceration of
criminal aliens" with the U.S. marshals and federal Bureau of Prisons
housing aliens facing criminal charges or those serving time as a result of a
conviction. In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC), the company noted that about 13 percent of its consolidated
revenues for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 3 came from U.S. marshals. The
company reported consolidated revenues for the year of $1.1 billion. While
not referring to the GEO Group by name, Ms. Hylton
told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a questionnaire that any potential
conflicts of interest will be resolved under the terms of an ethics agreement
with the government. "In connection with the nomination process, I have
consulted with the Office of Government Ethics and the Department of
Justice's designated agency ethics official to identify any potential conflicts
of interest," she wrote. In addition, Ms. Hylton
said upon her confirmation, her consulting company would remain dormant
except to comply with any legal and tax requirements while it's inactive. She
also said her $105,000 annual federal retirement pay would cease upon her
appointment. Ms. Hylton has held numerous
high-ranking positions at the Justice Department over the years, including
acting deputy director and assistant director at the U.S. Marshals Service.
She worked as chief of judicial security during the first World Trade Center
bombing trials. From 1990 to 1993, she was a witness security inspector. More
recently, as federal detention trustee from 2004 to earlier this year, she
oversaw a $1.5 billion budget.
September 29, 2010 Houston Chronicle
Immigration officials plan to require detention centers holding the majority
of the nation's immigration detainees to provide access to 24-hour, emergency
medical and mental health care and expand access to legal resources and
visitation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's long-awaited, revised
national detention standards aim to address vexing, long-term problems within
the hodgepodge of detention centers, prisons and jails that house about
400,000 immigration detainees annually. A draft copy of the nearly 350-page
standards obtained by the Houston Chronicle shows ICE officials have taken
steps to address some of the most critical problems identified in the
agency's internal reports and detention facility inspections, from access to
quality medical care to outdoor recreation time. But immigrant advocates, who
had high hopes for the revised standards since ICE announced plans to
overhaul its detention system last year, said the changes fell far short of
their expectations. "I really do feel it's a far cry from what we'd
hoped for," said Lory D. Rosenberg, policy director for Refugee and
Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA. "This doesn't read like
guidelines for a civil facility... or any kind of institutional setting. This
reads to me like a prison manual." And ICE union officials plan to
challenge several of the proposed changes at the bargaining table, saying
they pose serious safety concerns for officers, contractors and detainees.
Chris Crane, president of the national ICE Council, said officers were particularly
concerned about changes to search procedures and plans to mix non-violent,
aggravated felons, including drug dealers, in with the general detainee
population. "This thing just stinks of politics," Crane said.
"It's about satisfying, publicly, the special interest groups but not
really addressing the real issues, the real problems we have in the
facilities." ICE spokesman Brian Hale said the standards, last updated
in 2008, are under review by non-governmental agencies and the ICE union. Hale
said that once ICE management finishes negotiations with union leaders, the
revised standards will be implemented at 22 facilities nationwide that house
about 17,000 detainees on a daily basis, roughly 55 percent of the agency's
daily detained population. The list of 22 facilities includes the Houston
Contract Detention facility on the city's north side and several detention
centers scattered across Texas. Hale said he did not have a timeline for the
union negotiations, and could not predict when ICE would expand the standards
to cover the rest of ICE's detained population. Last August, top Obama
administration officials announced plans for a major overhaul of the nation's
immigration detention system, which includes more than 250 government-run
detention centers, private prisons and local jails operated largely by
private contractors or county sheriffs. Under pressure to address reports of
substandard medical care and lax oversight, ICE pledged to design a ``new
civil detention system" specifically to meet the needs of immigration
detainees, who largely are detained for administrative, not criminal,
violations. In an Aug. 18 draft letter explaining the revisions to detention
standards, ICE Secretary John Morton wrote that the standards were crafted to
increase recreation time, visitation, access to legal services, libraries and
religious opportunities. Other changes include: All facilities would be
required to provide "comprehensive, routine and preventative health
care." -- All detainees would receive medical and mental health
screenings to determine if they are victims of sexual assault or domestic
violence. -- Detainees will have no less than 15 hours per week access to law
libraries. -- Searches and pat-downs will be conducted by guards of the same
gender, if someone of that gender is at the facility at the time. --
Transgendered detainees will have access to continued hormone therapy, mental
health care and necessary medication. Linton Joaquin, who has investigated
detention centers' compliance with ICE's standards as general counsel with
the National Immigration Law Center, said ICE should get credit for making
major improvements to its standards. "But at the same time, it's not
really addressing the fundamental defect they identified last year, that the
whole detention system is modeled after the criminal justice system rather
than taking into account that this is civil detention." Rosenberg also
said immigrant and human rights advocates had hoped for more substantive
changes, such as those agreed upon by ICE officials and representatives from
Corrections Corporation of America in May. The CCA had planned to
"soften" detention conditions for detainees at nine ICE centers,
including eliminating lockdowns and minimizing searches. Hale said changes have
been on hold pending ICE union negotiations. Human rights advocates and union
officials raised concerns about ICE's plans to change the way it rates
facilities' compliance with the standards. With the revised standards, ICE
created a new system that allows contractors to achieve a "range of
compliance" - from "minimal" to "optimal." Rosenberg
said that change allows contractors to do the bare minimum and still continue
to house ICE detainees.
September 1, 2010 AP
Prison operator Corrections Corp. of America spent $240,000 lobbying federal
officials in the second quarter. That's down slightly from the $250,000 it
spent on lobbying in the first quarter of 2010 and the $260,000 it spent
lobbying in the second quarter of last year. The company said it lobbied on
issues related to the private prison industry and on all provisions of the
Safe Prisons Communications Act of 2009 and the Private Prison Information
Act of 2009, among other topics. Aside from Congress, Corrections Corp. also
lobbied the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service and
U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement in the April-to-June quarter,
according to a report filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on
July 20.
August 25, 2010 Washington Independent
Days after the ACLU called for additional protections against sexual abuse of
immigrant detainees, Human Rights Watch issued a report today demanding
Congressional action to improve detention center conditions. The calls come
after the Aug. 19 arrest of a former guard at the T. Don Hutto Residential
Center in Texas, who was accused in May of groping three women on their way
to deportation. Sexual abuse allegations at Hutto were particularly
disturbing because the facility was lauded as a symbol of ICE’s year-long
detention reform effort, as The Texas Independent pointed out last week. But
Human Rights Watch argued they were not an isolated incident, claiming the
problem is more widespread than officials realize because detainees are often
deported or otherwise unable to report abuse. ICE already made some steps
toward preventing sexual abuse in detention centers after Hutto abuse
allegations surfaced in May. Officials plan to publish revised standards for
dealing with sexual assault. ICE will also prohibit guards from searching or transporting
detainees of the opposite gender. Official policy already bans male staffers
from being alone with female immigration detainees — a rule contract guards
at Hutto, a Corrections Corporation of America facility, were allegedly
breaking. In May, ICE ordered the prison contractor to stop allowing male
guards to be alone with female immigrant detainees.
June 25, 2010 Tennessean
Eight Corrections Corporation of America detention centers that house
asylum seekers and immigrants awaiting deportation may be line for makeovers
to create a less prison-like feel. The move by Nashville-based CCA to spruce
up eight facilities – half of them in California and Texas – drew sharp
reactions from both sides of the debate over U.S. immigration policies.
“We’re coddling lawbreakers,” said Theresa Harmon, co-founder of the advocacy
group Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies. “We have no teeth in
our enforcement and that’s the reason this whole problem continues.” Plants,
flower baskets, fresh colors of paint on prison walls, and more framed
pictures were proposed by private prison operator CCA to soften the look of
several detention centers as part of reform initiatives within the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE is evaluating the changes, said
agency spokeswoman Gillian Brigham. Changes suggested by CCA wouldn’t apply
to any detainees with criminal backgrounds or those considered a threat.
Low-risk detainees would be allowed extended visiting hours up to 12 hours a
day, movie and bingo nights, exercise classes, self-serve continental
breakfast on holidays and weekends, better access to legal resources, free
Internet-based phone service and the right to wear their own clothes.
Advocates of better treatment think the proposed changes are cosmetic and
superficial, avoiding the real problems within federal immigration centers.
Judy Greene, criminal justice policy analyst for the New York-based policy
research group Justice Strategies, remains skeptical. “Bingo nights is one
thing, but still having personnel that can’t figure out how to comport
themselves around women detainees or women in state custody shows that (CCA)
doesn’t learn from its mistakes,” Greene said. The federal immigration agency
is CCA’s fourth-largest customer after the federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S.
Marshals Service and the state of California prison system. On a typical day,
there are 30,000 people in immigration confinement at 256 detention centers
run by the federal government, private firms such as CCA and local jailers.
Today, CCA houses roughly 6,400 detainees for ICE. Nearly a year ago, ICE
announced plans to implement revised policies and standards to make the
immigration detention system less penal and more humane.
June 8, 2010 Houston Chronicle
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are preparing to roll out a
series of changes at several privately owned immigration detention centers,
including relaxing some security measures for low-risk detainees and offering
art classes, bingo and continental breakfast on the weekends. The changes,
detailed in an internal ICE e-mail obtained by the Houston Chronicle, were
welcomed by immigrant advocates who have been waiting for the Obama
administration to deliver on a promise made in August to overhaul the
nation's immigration detention system. The 28 changes identified in the
e-mail range from the superficial to the substantive. In addition to
“softening the look of the facility” with hanging plants and offering fresh
carrot sticks, ICE will allow for the “free movement” of low-risk detainees,
expand visiting hours and provide unmonitored phone lines. ICE officials said
the changes are part of broader efforts to make the immigration detention
system less penal and more humane. But the plans are prompting protests by
ICE's union leaders, who say they will jeopardize the safety of agents,
guards and detainees and increase the bottom line for taxpayers. Tre Rebstock, president for Local 3332, the ICE union in
Houston, likened the changes to creating “an all-inclusive resort” for
immigration detainees. “Our biggest concern is that someone is going to get
hurt,” he said, taking particular issue with plans to relax restrictions on
the movement of low-risk detainees and efforts to reduce and eliminate
pat-down searches. The changes outlined in the ICE e-mail are planned for
nine detention centers owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of
America, including the 900-bed Houston Contract Detention Facility on the
city's north side. Some of the changes will be implemented within 30 days; others
may take up to six months, said Beth Gibson, ICE's senior counselor to
Assistant Secretary John Morton and a leader of the detention reform effort.
Other major changes include: • Eliminating lockdowns and lights-out for
low-risk detainees. • Allowing visitors to stay as long as they like in a
12-hour period. • Providing a unit manger so detainees have someone to report
problems to other than the guard. • Allowing low-risk detainees to wear their
own clothing or other non-penal attire. • Providing e-mail access and
Internet-based free phone service. Not about punishment Gibson said the
improvements are part of ICE's efforts to detain immigrants in the least
restrictive manner possible while ensuring they leave the country if ordered
to do so. “When people come to our custody, we're detaining them to effect
their removal,” Gibson said. “It's about deportation. It's not about
punishing people for a crime they committed.” ICE officials have faced
pressure from immigrant advocates and some members of Congress to improve the
detention conditions for the roughly 400,000 immigrants it houses annually.
The agency has relied on a hodgepodge of more than 250 government-run
detention centers, private prisons and local jails to accommodate its growing
population — with roughly one in four detainees held in Texas. At the CCA
facilities that have agreed to ICE's changes, detainees will see more variety
in their dining hall menus and have self-serve beverage and fresh vegetable
bars. CCA also plans to offer movie nights, bingo, arts and crafts, dance and
cooking classes, tutoring and computer training, the e-mail states. Detainees
also will be allowed four hours or more of recreation “in a natural setting,
allowing for robust aerobic exercise.” CCA also committed to improving the
look of the facilities, such as requiring plants, fresh paint and new bedding
in lower-risk units. Advocates pleased Some of the improvements offered at
the CCA facilities counted as hard-fought victories for immigrant advocates,
including plans to improve visitor and attorney access. “A lot of these
measures are what we've been advocating for,” said Lory Rosenberg, policy and
advocacy director for Refugee and Migrants' Rights for Amnesty International.
“Many of these points are very important to changing the system from a penal
system, which is inappropriate in an immigration context, to a civil
detention system.” Union members said they have concerns about the plans,
primarily focusing on safety. Rebstock said some
detainees may be classified as low-risk because they have no serious criminal
history but still may be gang members that “haven't been caught doing
anything wrong yet.” He also said eliminating lockdowns will make it more
difficult to protect detainees from one another. He said reducing or
eliminating pat-down searches could allow contraband into the facilities,
including weapons. Gibson, with ICE, said the agency is developing a
sophisticated classification system and will make sure “that our detainees
are still safe and sound.” “As a general matter, it will be the non-criminals
who don't present a danger to anyone else who are benefitting from the lowest
level of custody,” Gibson said. ‘On the taxpayers' dime' Rebstock
also questioned the cost to taxpayers for the changes. “My grandparents would
have loved to have bingo night and a dance class at the retirement home they
were in when they passed away, but that was something we would have had to
pay for,” he said. “And yet these guys are getting it on the taxpayers'
dime.” Gibson said CCA is making the improvements at no additional cost to
ICE. The agency's contract with CCA for the Houston detention center requires
that ICE pay $99 per bed daily for each detainee, slightly lower than the
$102 average daily rate ICE pays nationally .
May 26, 2010 Government Executive
The Homeland Security Department this week announced that it will replace the
head of the Federal Protective Service after several critical investigative
reports found major gaps in the security of government facilities. Gary Schenkel,
who has served as director of FPS since March 2007, told his staff on Tuesday
that in early June he will move to a DHS policy office where he will serve as
acting deputy assistant secretary for state and local law enforcement.
"It is with great sadness that I announce my departure from the Federal
Protective Service," Schenkel wrote in an e-mail to FPS employees.
"For the past three-plus years I have been privileged and honored to
lead this outstanding organization through many challenges and triumphs."
A retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, Schenkel previously served as
assistant federal security director for the Transportation Security
Administration at Chicago Midway Airport. In his new role, Schenkel will
support "a key initiative of the secretary's to bolster relationships
with our critical partners in law enforcement," said Homeland Security
spokeswoman Amy Kudwa. FPS Deputy Director Paul Durette will serve as the agency's acting director until
a permanent leader is hired. An open executive search to fill the position
began immediately, Kudwa said. Sen. Joe Lieberman,
I-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee, urged the department to move swiftly to find a new director.
"FPS needs assertive leadership to overcome its well-documented
shortcomings and to ensure that federal buildings are secure, and the senator
will soon introduce legislation to strengthen the agency's
capabilities," Lieberman's office said in a statement. The federal labor
union that represents FPS employees said it was anxious to begin a new
chapter at the agency. "There is much work that lies ahead and strong,
positive and effective leadership is essential at this critical time for
FPS," said David Wright, president of the American Federation of
Government Employees Local 918. The union urged DHS to "select a
well-qualified law enforcement professional who can balance the equally
important law enforcement and protection missions of FPS." Lawmakers
stressed that Schenkel's departure does not solve several unresolved issues
at FPS. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thomson, D-Miss.,
said he wants more information on the estimated completion date for the new
Risk Assessment and Management Program to monitor the performance, training
and certification of contract guards; the lack of a strategic plan at FPS and
the cost of relying on a private sector guard force. "Until these issues
are resolved our federal buildings and the federal employees who work in them
remain vulnerable," Thompson said. "As the department looks for a
new FPS director, it must continue to move forward with renewal and reform at
this beleaguered agency." Schenkel's management of FPS has come under
intense scrutiny in recent months after a series of Government Accountability
Office reports questioned whether the agency's contract guard force was
capable of securing federal buildings. In April, GAO reported that undercover
agents were able to slip fake guns, knives and bombs past guards in federal
facilities. A July 2009 GAO report found similar failures with FPS contract
guards. In response, FPS increased its number of unannounced inspections,
required additional magnetometer training and conducted more thorough reviews
of contract guard qualifications. FPS currently is conducting an internal
staffing analysis to determine the feasibility of insourcing some or all of
the contract guard workforce. The agency has an annual budget of roughly $1
billion, and employs 1,225 full-time workers and 15,000 contract security guards
at more than 2,300 federal facilities nationwide.
March 3, 2010 New York Times
When the Obama administration vowed to overhaul immigration detention
last year, its promise of more humane treatment and accountability was
spurred in part by the harrowing treatment of two detainees who died in the
Bush years. In one case, captured by security cameras in 2008, a Chinese
computer engineer was dragged from a Rhode Island immigration jail and mocked
by guards as he screamed in pain from undiagnosed cancer and a broken spine.
In the other, a Salvadoran detainee held for two years in a California
detention center was denied a biopsy for a painful penile lesion, though
government doctors suspected the cancer that eventually required amputation
of his penis. But on Wednesday, the administration argued in federal court
that the government had no liability for neglect or abuse by private
contractors running the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls,
R.I., where the computer engineer was held. And in oral arguments before the
United States Supreme Court on Tuesday, federal lawyers maintained that
government doctors responsible for the Salvadoran’s care in detention were
immune from being personally sued for medical negligence. In both cases, the
arguments were made against lawsuits brought by the families of the men who
died, Hiu Lui Ng, 34, and Francisco Castaneda, 36.
In the Ng case, the government sought to be dropped as a defendant, and in
the other, it tried to sharply limit potential monetary damages. But critics
of the sprawling immigration detention system, which relies mainly on
privately run jails to hold noncitizens facing deportation, said those
arguments had broader and more disturbing implications. “The government’s
positions both in Castaneda and in the Ng case fly in the face of the stated
commitment to overhauling the immigration detention system and bringing to it
more transparency and accountability,” said Vanita
Gupta, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an amicus
brief in the Castaneda case and through its Rhode Island affiliate supported
the lawsuit brought by Mr. Ng’s widow, Lin Li Qu, and two children, all
United States citizens who live in New York. “Real reform wouldn’t be about
pointing the finger elsewhere,” Ms. Gupta said. “It would be about
promulgating legally binding standards and making individualized
determinations about whether someone like Ng needs to be detained in the
first place.” Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
reiterated the agency’s commitment to an overhaul. “This administration takes
any allegation of inadequate medical care or ill treatment seriously and will
not accept or tolerate any willful misconduct,” he wrote. “We have taken
important initial steps to change this system and are committed to finishing
the job.” Oral arguments in the Ng case, in Federal District Court in
Providence, centered on the federal agency’s role in ordering that the
gravely ill man be taken in shackles to a federal office in Hartford and
returned the same day to the Wyatt detention center. For that trip, Mr. Ng
was dragged from his cell. The government’s lawyer, Helene Kazanjian, argued
that it was “completely unfair” to expect an agency “that has no contact with
the detainee on a regular basis,” to know that Mr. Ng was in dire condition.
But Fidelma L. Fitzpatrick, arguing the other side,
pointed out that the agency had been repeatedly notified that Mr. Ng was in
terrible pain and unable to walk, and that he had been denied a wheelchair
and outside medical care by the detention center, run for profit by a
municipal corporation in Central Falls. “The U.S. government cannot just hire
someone and then close the file,” Ms. Fitzpatrick said. “The government must
take responsibility for the actions of ICE.” Judge William E. Smith said he
would rule later, but his questions took up the plaintiffs’ theme. “If you
know about the severity of the detainee’s condition, isn’t there an
obligation to give him special treatment, to put him on an ambulance?” he
asked. Ms. Kazanjian contended that when the agency learned how sick Mr. Ng
was, it sent him to the hospital where he died six days later. But the judge
corrected her. “I ordered him hospitalized,” he said, referring to his
unusual intervention at a habeas corpus hearing the day after the Hartford
trip. “I don’t think ICE can take credit for that.” In the Castaneda case,
the government has admitted to medical negligence, and a federal judge has
said “the word ‘cruel’ is an understatement” for the treatment described in
the lawsuit. But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court seemed receptive to the
government’s argument that Public Health Service doctors were immune from
suit under a 1970 federal law. A government lawyer argued that that immunity
reflected “a balance of evils,” adding, “Congress has decided that it would
rather protect the P.H.S., make sure that causes of action and liability
aren’t hanging over the heads of P.H,S. officers, even if that means some
individuals don’t get recovery against certain specific P.H.S. personnel.”
Lawyers representing Mr. Castaneda’s teenage daughter have said a ruling for
the government would preclude a jury trial in the case and cap any damages at
$250,000, which they called insufficient deterrence to the negligence that
has been widely documented.
February 24, 2010 Government Executive
Leaders of a Senate government oversight committee on Wednesday said they
were "astounded" to learn that contractors outnumber civilian
employees at the Homeland Security Department, and expressed concern that
contractors could be performing inherently governmental work. Sens. Joseph
Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chairman and ranking
member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, thanked DHS
Secretary Janet Napolitano for responding to requests that the department
quantify its reliance on contractors. But they said they were disturbed to
learn DHS employs more than 200,000 contractors, compared with just 188,000
federal employees, excluding uniformed members of the Coast Guard. "The
sheer number of DHS contractors currently on board again raises the question
of whether DHS itself is in charge of its programs and policies, or whether
it inappropriately has ceded core decisions to contractors," Lieberman
and Collins said in a letter to Napolitano. The senators asked for a
unit-by-unit breakdown of contractors within the department, but warned that
regardless of that breakdown, the challenge of overseeing so many contractors
is likely to strain the ongoing transformation of DHS into an agency with
strong, central management. "We believe that the current balance between
federal employees and contractors at DHS is unacceptable, untenable and
unsustainable," they wrote. DHS officials are aware of the problem and
are taking steps to properly balance the department's workforce, the senators
noted. Homeland Security's fiscal 2011 budget reflects cost savings from the
conversion of contractor positions to federal jobs. Lieberman and Collins
said that while cost should not be the only factor in determining who should
perform work, savings are beneficial. "The fundamental question in
deciding whether a federal employee should perform a task, or whether the
task may appropriately be assigned to a contractor, should not simply be
which option is cheapest, but rather whether or not the government's
interests are best served by having the work performed by federal
employees," the senators said. "Nonetheless it is notable that the
shift to a more appropriate employee-to-contractor ratio may well also save
the department and the taxpayers money."
February 9, 2010 National Law Review
John Morton makes no apology for locking up 380,000 people a year. They
haven't been charged with crimes. Rather, they're immigrants, confined to a
sprawling network of more than 270 jails and prisons for weeks or months
while proceedings to determine whether they'll be allowed to remain in the
country are pending. "This isn't a question of whether or not we will
detain people. We will detain people, and we will detain them on a grand
scale," said Morton, who is head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
within the Department of Homeland Security. "It's a necessary
power." The key question for Morton, whose 19,000-employee agency has faced
stinging criticism over conditions in the detention facilities including
substandard medical care and limited access to counsel, is "how we
detain people -- and in my view, the system is run haphazardly." A
career federal lawyer with experience in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the
Eastern District of Virginia and the Department of Justice, Morton, 43, came
to the job nine months ago vowing to give the detention system "a very,
very hard look, essentially an overhaul." His goal, he said in a lengthy
interview in his spacious 11th floor office at ICE's headquarters in
Southwest Washington, D.C., is to create a detention program managed directly
by agency employees, not contracted out to public and private jails. "My
whole vision for the system is to reduce the number of facilities that we
have, to have those facilities be designed and run solely from the
immigration enforcement perspective, and to have strong, direct federal
oversight," he said. Immigration advocates are encouraged by Morton's
proposals, but say the plans don't go far enough. "He's building a
better mousetrap," said Andrea Black, network coordinator of
Washington-based advocacy coalition Detention Watch Network. "We welcome
the initial steps. However, they've got a lot of work to do, and we're very
concerned they're not going to be able to enact fundamental reforms needed to
truly transform the system." FEW LAWYERS -- Recent watchdog and media
reports detail many of the ongoing problems inside the facilities. Last week,
the American Bar Association released a comprehensive report urging major
changes to the entire immigration legal system. The ABA described the current
detention system as "costly, extremely difficult to manage, and
overburdened." One of the most acute problems is medical care. According
to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 104 in-custody deaths
since 2003. The group says that deficient medical care is believed to be the
leading cause of death and is the No. 1 complaint it receives from detainees.
Newspapers including The New York Times have reported shocking accounts of
individual detainees denied treatment, such a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea.
He died in 2007 after suffering a skull fracture in the Elizabeth Detention
Center in New Jersey and being locked in an isolation cell for more than 13
hours. The reports have apparently hit home. When Morton was asked to
describe his vision for a model detention facility, his immediate response
was, "First-rate, uniform medical care." This year, ICE will solicit
bids to build at least two new centers designed specifically for housing
detainees -- one in Texas, the other in the Northeast. Morton envisions a
combination of dormitories and cells, an outdoor exercise area, good food and
easy access for families and lawyers. He thinks it can even be done in a
budget-neutral manner. "The present system is incredibly
expensive," he said. "We can actually save some money with these
new facilities over the long run ... and provide a better standard of care."
In the meantime, the existing system is under strain. Since 1996, the number
of noncitizens held each day by ICE has increased threefold. On any given
day, an average of 32,000 people are in ICE custody.
Some of those held are legal residents who have previously been convicted of
a crime -- in some cases, even a misdemeanor. Others are felons who go
straight to ICE custody after serving prison sentences. Still others are
undocumented aliens or asylum seekers or people who overstayed their visas.
Regardless, all are detained by ICE for a civil, not a criminal, offense. The
only reason people are kept in custody, said Morton, is because "They'll
either run away and wouldn't show up for their detention hearing, or because
they're a danger to the community." That is an assertion that advocates
dispute. "There will always be people who need to be detained, but that
number is a lot smaller than the number of people they hold," said
Denyse Sabagh, a Washington-based partner at Duane
Morris who heads the firm's immigration practice. "They really should
look at who they're putting in detention. Some are lawful permanent residents
who have been in the country for many years, with roots and family. Why do
those people need to be in jail?" Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director
of the Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago,
applauded December 2009 ICE guidelines that allow more asylum seekers to be
released on parole but said "the crux of reform is how things will
improve on the local level." One of the top concerns for her group and
others is detainee access to counsel. According to last week's ABA report, 84
percent of detainees have no lawyer to guide them through the complex removal
process. "The need is so huge. They beg you, 'Please help me get me a
lawyer,'" said Karina Wilkinson, co-founder of the Middlesex County
Coalition for Immigrant Rights, who is not a lawyer but works with immigrants
in detention centers in New Jersey.
February 5, 2010 Houston Chronicle
Luis Dubegel-Paez, a 60-year-old Cuban
immigrant, lay on the floor of Rolling Plains Detention Center with no pulse,
his face flushed, his pupils dilated. For months before he collapsed at the
detention center near Abilene, he had been complaining to nurses about chest
pain and heart problems, asking to see a doctor. “Can't stand the pain,” Dubegel-Paez wrote on a sick call slip on Jan. 1, 2008.
In response, he was treated by a nurse at the center's medical clinic and
given cold medicine. As the weeks passed, he filed more urgent requests to
see a doctor — only to be given more cough medicine and Tylenol by nurses,
according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement records. While Dubegel-Paez waited to see a doctor, inspectors working
for ICE toured the facility Feb. 26, 2008, to check that it complied with ICE's
own detention standards. The inspectors rated the center “acceptable,” noting
no deficiencies in its medical care. It was only after Dubegel-Paez
collapsed and died in March 2008 that ICE's inspectors noted in a report that
medical care for about 500 detainees at the facility was being provided only
by eight vocational nurses with minimal nursing or physician supervision. The
case highlights what critics have called pervasive problems with ICE's
enforcement of detention standards. A review of more than 800 pages of
inspection reports obtained by the Houston Chronicle through a Freedom of
Information Act request shows that inspectors have, in some instances, given
positive reviews to facilities with serious problems — ranging from
inadequate medical care to poor grievance procedures. In many cases, ICE has
required facilities with deficiencies to make improvements, though inspectors
often failed to note in subsequent reports whether changes were made. After Dubegel-Paez's death, inspectors noted that the Rolling
Plains facility failed to meet a number of ICE's detention standards,
including care for chronic illness and responding to sick call requests. But
ICE officials still did not downgrade the center's rating because of staffing
problems in the medical unit, records show, and continue to place a growing
number of detainees there. ICE officials said they are in the process of
overhauling the nation's immigration detention system, including its
monitoring procedures, and plan to improve oversight of medical care. “The
problems that occurred in 2007 and 2008 are terrible problems, and as an
institution and an agency we have to address them and take them
extraordinarily seriously,” said Brian Hale, ICE's public affairs director in
Washington, D.C. “But I also do have to point out that was something that
occurred in the past, and this new administration ... is committed to
ensuring that doesn't happen again. We take it very seriously.” Are changes
enough? ICE officials said they plan to announce changes this spring to
strengthen their detention standards, which are designed to ensure that
detainees have basic protections while in custody. The agency has relied on
300-plus detention centers, private prisons and local jails to house about
400,000 immigrants annually — with roughly one in four detained in Texas.
Hale said ICE is reducing the number of facilities to improve oversight. The
agency also plans to station government monitors at the centers and jails
that house the largest numbers of ICE detainees, he added. Linton Joaquin,
who has investigated detention centers' compliance with ICE's standards as
general counsel with the National Immigration Law Center, said ICE's planned
measures are positive, but “they are so inadequate in comparison to the scope
of the problem.” ICE officials have reported that the majority of inspected
facilities complied with the agency's detention standards, though a 2008
Inspector General audit found reviewers had not been effective in identifying
certain serious problems at facilities. Locally, the Houston Contract
Detention Facility has received high marks in reviews. Inspection reports
obtained by the Chronicle, which date from early 2007 through February 2009,
show ICE has placed detainees in facilities that have failed to meet some
minimum requirements outlined under its own standards for detainee care, with
violations ranging from failure to accommodate religious diets to lack of
formal disciplinary procedures. Access to adequate medical care continues to
be one of the most difficult and controversial issues for ICE, which has
recorded 107 detainee deaths since 2003, including more than a dozen in
Texas. ICE's records documented a wide range of medical care problems at
facilities rated as acceptable, including a complete lack of on-site medical
care at one Dallas-area jail approved for housing short-term detainees, and
chronic staffing problems at larger facilities. An inspection report for the
South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall documented a severe staffing
shortage in 2007 in the medical unit, with 19 vacancies out of 46 positions.
The reviewer wrote that the facility, which at the time held about 1,250
detainees, was meeting ICE's standard for medical access at an “acceptable”
level, though he noted that employees were staying after hours to complete
basic duties. When inspectors returned a year later, in April 2008, ICE had
increased the number of detainees held at the facility to 1,547 — despite
continuing problems with the medical unit. Hiring a key issue -- The inspector
noted the facility, which is owned and operated by the GEO Group, was having
trouble meeting a standard ICE requirement that all detainees have a medical
exam within 14 days of admission. The medical unit had 10 vacancies at the
time of inspection. “These positions are critical to the delivery of health
care and compliance with all ICE standards,” the inspector wrote, giving the
facility a “good” rating. The center continues to suffer from staffing
shortages, with 24 vacancies out of 69 authorized positions in its medical
unit, though ICE officials noted that the government is actively recruiting
and hiring for those spots. GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez
declined comment. On March 14, the day that Dubegel-Paez
died, he filled out a final sick call slip and complained to his cell mate
about chest pains before being seen by a nurse. He was being held while ICE
officials tried to arrange his deportation to Cuba. “I have an emergency to
see the doctor about my heart problems that I been having for the last couple
days, and I have been getting dizzy a lot,” he wrote on the sick call slip.
According to ICE's report, the nurse gave him two Tylenol pills and scheduled
him for a sick call appointment the following Monday. An autopsy ruled his
cause of death was heart disease. Still, weeks after Dubegel-Paez's
death, the acting chief of ICE's Detention Standards Compliance unit affirmed
the center's “acceptable” rating without any requirement to improve medical
treatment. Arthur Anderson, the warden of Rolling Plains center, operated by
Emerald Companies, did not return phone calls seeking comment. The facility
now has an on-site physician only six to 10 hours a week and eight full-time
nurses, ICE reported. ICE has continued to increase the number of detainees
housed there, averaging 537 a day last year.
October 7, 2009 San Antonio Express-News
In a move that could affect the revenues of private prison firms and county
jails, the Obama administration said Tuesday it will review, renegotiate and
possibly terminate some of its more than 300 contracts for detaining
unauthorized immigrants. The announcement by Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano is part of an overhaul aimed at ending the
reliance on penal institutions for detainees with noncriminal immigration
violations or valid asylum claims. The overhaul, first announced in August,
followed scathing reports and lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union
and other groups alleging inhumane conditions, denial of medical care, and
isolation in remote areas with limited access to pro-bono legal aid.
Napolitano, in a news conference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Assistant Secretary John Morton, said she inherited a scattered “nonsystem” of government and privately run facilities
that needed to be monitored. “It's a huge range of detainees,” she said,
“from those who have criminal records who need to be in a very prisonlike
setting to those who have no record at all and indeed have come seeking
asylum.” The system has ballooned from 5,000 beds in 1994 to more than 32,000
beds in 2008, used by about 380,000 detainees that year. Napolitano said the
capacity to detain people would remain, but the standards of “health and
safety, law, and indeed human decency” needed to be enforced. Plans include
centralizing operations, doubling the personnel involved in detention center
oversight, building new facilities in urban locations near immigration
service providers, and housing detainees in converted hotels, nursing homes,
or other residential facilities. Detainees would be classified by risk, with
nonviolent, noncriminal populations such as recently arrived asylum seekers
sent to less prisonlike environments. Detainees with criminal convictions
would remain in jails. There are also plans for an online system to locate
detainees, something family members and even attorneys are not always able to
do. The practice of detaining families at the T. Don Hutto Family Residence
Center in Taylor, which drew criticism because of its cells and barbed wire,
has already ended. The facility is now being used to house female detainees.
It was unclear what effect the changes will have on private firms or
communities that draw revenue from jailing detainees, but Willacy County
Sheriff Larry Spence said the reduced population at the Willacy Detention
Center in Raymondville — at 3,000 beds the nation's largest — has been
apparent and may cause problems for a county that counts on jobs, taxes, and
revenue from it. “I know the numbers are down from what they used to be,” he
said. “It means the county hasn't had the same amount of money coming in.”
The county subcontracts with Utah-based Management & Training Corp., a
private prison management firm. Kathleen Walker, past president of the
American Immigration Lawyers Association, said she expected quite a few
disappointed contractors. “I would imagine that in the state of Texas, where
we have so many different county facilities and independent facilities run by
contractors, that they are not going to like seeing a potential dip in revenues
to retirement centers or abandoned hotels,” she said. “But to put people in
on civil violations with people that have felony exposure is really just not
acceptable.”
October 6, 2009 New York Times
The Obama administration is looking to convert hotels and nursing homes into
immigration detention centers and to build two model detention centers from
scratch as it tries to transform the way the government holds people it is
seeking to deport. These and other initiatives, described in an interview on
Monday by Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, are part of
the administration’s effort to revamp the much-criticized detention system,
even as it expands the enforcement programs that send most people accused of
immigration violations to jails and private prisons. The cost, she said,
would be covered by greater efficiencies in the detention and removal system,
which costs $2.4 billion annually to operate and holds about 380,000 people a
year. “The paradigm was wrong,” Ms. Napolitano said of the nation’s patchwork
of rented jail space, which has more than tripled in size since 1995, largely
through Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts for cells more
restrictive, and expensive, than required for a population that is largely
not dangerous. Among those in detention on Sept. 1, 51 percent were
considered felons, and of those, 11 percent had committed violent crimes.
“Serious felons deserve to be in the prison model,” Ms. Napolitano said, “but
there are others. There are women. There are children.” These and other
nonviolent people should be sorted and detained or supervised in ways
appropriate to their level of danger or flight risk, she said. Her goal, she
said, is “to make immigration detention more cohesive, accountable and
relevant to the entire spectrum of detainees we are dealing with.”
September 11, 2009 New America Media
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may not be collecting enough
data about its own operations to meet legal and humanitarian standards for
detention. This was the principle finding of a report released Thursday by
the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). The study, "Immigrant Detention:
Can ICE Meet Its Legal Imperatives and Case Management
Responsibilities?" analyzes data for all 32,000 detainees held in ICE
custody during a single night in January 2009. Without the ability to track
its detainees adequately, the report warns, the agency will be unable to
adhere to legal mandates, administer review processes or abide by its
national detention standards. “The report underscores what advocates have
seen for years: that we don’t know who’s detained or why, that they don’t
have a release process, that they don’t track family ties or make legal
immigrants available for alternatives to detention,” said Andrea Black,
network coordinator for Detention Watch Network. The results were released on
the heels of ICE’s announcement that it plans to revamp its detention system.
ICE intends to address concerns related to health conditions of its
detainees, centralize its detention system, and depend less on local jails
and private prisons. "This report provides a roadmap for meeting the
data needs essential for the new ICE detention initiative to succeed as it
attempts to move from a criminal incarceration model to a civil detention
system," said MPI Vice President for Programs Donald Kerwin,
co-author of the report. Researchers found that the diversity of the
imprisoned population may make it harder to gather data and track cases. The
286 facilities hold a population of men (90 percent), women, families,
unaccompanied children, unauthorized immigrants, asylum seekers, torture
survivors, lawful permanent residents and persons claiming to be U.S.
citizens. The detainees come from 177 countries. Thirty-eight percent come
from Mexico, followed by 13 percent from countries in Central America. They
are most commonly held in facilities in southern and U.S.-Mexico border
states, with 68 percent of the total in California, Arizona, New Mexico,
Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. The report also
revealed key information about how long detainees remain at ICE facilities.
“The data confirms that people are detained for much longer than ICE
reports,” Black said. The average length of detention was 81 days, but some
have been detained for much longer. Thirteen percent of detainees were held
for three to six months, 10 percent for six months to one year, and three
percent for more than one year. “To me, it’s still startling to see how fast
the detainee population has grown,” said Kerwin.
Sixty percent of the detention centers in use today, he said, were created
since 2004. ICE’s ability to manage detainees is also compromised by the
presence of private contractors who run the country’s large-scale facilities.
Half of the detained population is held in 17 centers, which each houses more
than 500 detainees. Three-quarters of these are operated by private
contractors. “As a result, ICE has limited control over facilities and
detainees,” Black argued. The report also found that more than half of ICE
detainees (58 percent) do not have criminal records, even though mandatory
detention laws primarily apply to criminals. This is one of the consequences
of untargeted detentions, according to Black, and has led to an overcrowded
detention system. In order to reform the detention system, the Department of
Homeland Security has focused on population management, learning who is in
the system, analyzing conditions of detention centers and alternatives to
detention. Dora Schriro, special advisor to DHS on
ICE, Detention and Removal and, since last month, director of the Office of
Detention Policy and Planning, said the agency is launching various programs
to address access to health care, courts, recreation, family visits and
tailor the system to the special needs population. “Accountability is the
chore of government responsibility, not just oversight and data gathering,” Schriro said. “We are committed to continue the
improvements.” But immigrant rights advocates expressed skepticism over the
lack of transparency. “We are pleased to see the changes in process, but we
are skeptical and concerned,” said Black. “Data has been extremely difficult
to access. ICE denied basic information, even to know how many detention
centers they work with.” Schriro noted that the
administration is attempting to address some of these concerns. DHS is
engaged in conversations to create systems that will track detainees, report
medical requirements, and discern eligibility for alternatives to detention.
It is also conducting a study to learn the costs of these processes. The
administration, however, is struggling with the same problems advocates and
organizations have been dealing with for years, Schriro
said. In their efforts, she said, they have to look back, to analyze what didn’t
work, and ahead, to implement the necessary changes. Regarding alternatives
to detention, for example, she said, they aren’t optimistic. “The more we
scrub, the more we see it is not usable,” Schriro
stated.
August 17, 2009 New York Times
More than one in 10 deaths in immigration detention in the last six years
have been overlooked and were omitted from an official list of detainee
fatalities issued to Congress in March, the Obama administration said Monday.
The administration added 10 previously unreported deaths to the official
roster and disclosed an 11th, which occurred Friday: that of Huluf Guangule Negusse, a 24-year-old Ethiopian. Mr. Negusse
died from the effects of an Aug. 3 suicide attempt in the Wakulla County
correctional facility near Tallahassee, Fla. What Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officials call “the death roster” stands at 104 since October
2003, up from the 90 that were on the list the agency gave to Congress this
spring. The latest search for records began late last month, officials said,
when Freedom of Information litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union
uncovered one of the 10 deaths that had gone unreported — that of Felix
Franklin Rodriguez-Torres, 36, an Ecuadorean who settled in New York and died
of testicular cancer on Jan. 18, 2007, after being detained two months at an
immigration jail run for profit by the Corrections Corporation of America in
Eloy, Ariz. On Saturday, after inquiries about that case by The New York
Times, the new chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Morton,
issued a directive for field offices to make sure that other deaths had not
been overlooked, a spokesman said. David Shapiro, staff lawyer with the
A.C.L.U. National Prison Project, said: “Today’s announcement is a tragic confirmation
of our worst fears. Our nation’s immigration detention system has been
plagued by a total lack of transparency and accountability, and even with
today’s announcement there is no way we can be fully confident that there are
not still more deaths that somehow have gone unaccounted for.”
August 7, 2009 LA Times
Pledging more oversight and accountability, the Obama administration announced
plans Thursday to transform the nation's immigration detention system from
one reliant on a scattered network of local jails and private prisons to a
centralized one designed specifically for civil detainees. The reforms are
aimed at establishing greater control over a system that houses about 33,000
detainees a day and that has been sharply criticized as having unsafe and
inhumane conditions and as lacking the medical care that may have prevented
many of the 90 deaths that have occurred since 2003. "With these
reforms, ICE will move away from our present, decentralized jail-oriented
approach to a system that is wholly designed for and based on our civil
detention needs," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant
Secretary John Morton told reporters. "The population that we detain is
different than the traditional population that is detained in a prison or a
jail setting." The federal immigration agency plans to review the use of
350 local jails, state prisons and private facilities, including more than a
dozen in California. Within five years, officials said, detainees without
criminal records probably would be held in fewer, less-restrictive locations
with more federal oversight. Morton also announced that the agency would stop
sending families to the controversial T. Don Hutto Family Residential
Facility in Texas and instead hold them in the agency's only other family
facility, which is in Pennsylvania. The Texas facility, which will continue
to house women, opened in 2006 and faced lawsuits over substandard living
conditions. A settlement resulted in changes to how children were treated.
Immigrant rights advocates welcomed the changes but said there was still no
clear policy on how detention facilities would be penalized if problems were
found. "We are encouraged that the administration is taking a hard look
at what has traditionally been a dark spot in our immigration system,"
said Karen Tumlin, a staff attorney at the Los
Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center. "However, only time will
tell if the reforms announced today amount to lasting change or simply
creative repackaging of prior policies." Tumlin
and others said the detention standards needed to be made legally binding to
guarantee immigrants access to counseling, family visits, legal materials and
recreation time. Legislation has been introduced aimed at accomplishing this.
Advocates also said that the government should use less punitive and less
costly alternatives to detention, such as ankle bracelets or intensive
supervision, for certain immigrants. "We are very disappointed by the
failure to discuss alternatives to detention in the proposal," said Ahilan Arulanantham, an
attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
"The system now detains thousands of people who are not a danger and not
a flight risk." To increase oversight, the immigration agency would
place federal monitors in 23 large facilities, which house more than 40% of
the detainees. The agency also plans to hire experts in healthcare administration
and detention management, and someone to review medical complaints.
July 31, 2009 Gainesville Times
Attorney David Kennedy says clients of his who have been held in
immigration detention centers in South Georgia and eastern Alabama routinely
are denied fundamental rights. "I have had clients who have had no
access to phones for extended periods of time. I have had clients being
questioned and induced into signing things they did not understand,"
said Kennedy, a Gainesville immigration lawyer. "I have had clients
complain they were stuck in their cells for 23 hours a day. There’s
definitely a problem with immigration detention in this country." On the
eve of a new immigration detention center opening in Gainesville, a report
issued this week by National Immigration Law Center appears to validate
Kennedy’s complaints. The report, based on confidential Immigration and
Customs Enforcement documents obtained in litigation, alleges there are
pervasive problems throughout the country’s immigration detention facilities,
many of which are operated by private contractors. Detainees are routinely
denied visitation with family members, access to legal materials and regular
recreation, according to the report. Many never get an explanation of their
rights while being detained, the report claims. "The conditions are much
more harsh than they ought to be," said the
report’s co-author, Ranjana Natarajan. "This is a civil detention, and
these folks are being treated like hardened criminals." The Corrections
Corporation of America could begin boarding immigration detainees at its new
North Georgia Detention Center on Main Street as soon as next week. The site
of the old county jail adjoining the Hall County Sheriff’s office underwent
$4 million in renovations and is being leased from Hall County for $2 million
a year. CCA operates the detention center through an agreement with ICE and
the county. This week, ICE officials did not deny the allegations contained
in the report, vowing to continue to improve conditions. But Department of
Homeland Security officials recently decided against creating uniform
detention center standards that the National Immigration Law Center wants.
ICE is supposed to conduct yearly evaluations of every detention center, but
has no enforceable, binding legal rules on how inmates are treated, according
to the report. "It creates a lot of gray area," Natarajan said.
"Because (detention centers) are not expected to follow the rules,
they’re all over the map." ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said agency
officials "feel the NILC put together a very thoughtful report, and we
will carefully review and take seriously this report, as we would any report.
We are committed to continuously improving our immigration detention
system." Gonzalez noted that within 10 days of taking office, Secretary
of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano ordered all immigration enforcement
policies to undergo a review, "including detention." In February,
Napolitano appointed former Arizona Department of Corrections director Dora Schriro as a special advisor for detention and removal.
"Her position was created to focus exclusively on the significant growth
in detention and detainment in the last few years," Gonzalez said. On
any given day, ICE holds about 33,000 immigration detainees in facilities
across the country, and supervises another 17,000 people facing deportation
through electronic monitoring and other means. The National Immigration Law
Center estimates that in 2008 about 220,000 people were held in detention
centers prior to deportation. The typical stay is 30 to 90 days. The
Gainesville facility operated by CCA is expected to hold about 500 low- and
medium-security immigration detainees, many of them from North Carolina. CCA
spokeswoman Louise Grant referred questions on this week’s report to ICE
officials, but noted that "CCA does adhere in every one of our ICE
detention facilities to the detention standards set by our customer."
The company also has ICE officials on site for detainee access, Grant said.
This week’s report prompted two U.S. senators to call for a change to the
system. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., on
Thursday introduced the "Strong Standards Act," a proposed bill
that would set minimum detention standards and require the Department of
Homeland Security to ensure that laws concerning the treatment of detainees
are enforced. "These legislative initiatives will help reinforce what
our great country has always stood for: liberty, the rule of law and basic
human rights," Menendez said in a statement. To Kennedy, anything would
be an improvement. "If we’re comparing these (detention centers) to
their Turkish counterparts, they’re pretty good," Kennedy said.
"But by U.S. standards, they’re pretty poor."
July 29, 2009 AP
Immigrant advocates say the federal government has failed to meet its own
standards for detaining immigrants, making it unduly difficult for immigrants
to defend themselves in court and fight to remain in the country. A report
released Tuesday says detainees face limited access to phones, mail and law
libraries in violation of federal standards. The authors based their findings
on more than 18,000 pages of documents that showed facilities across the
country limited detainees' access to legal materials and transferred them
without proper notice. "Our concern is we have this deep belief in the
American justice system that the truth will eventually come out and those
individuals who have meritorious cases will be granted relief," said
Karen Tumlin, a staff attorney at the National
Immigration Law Center who co-authored the report. "We can't have any
faith that that proposition will actually hold true in this monstrous
immigration system." The study was based on inspection reports of dozens
of facilities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the American Bar
Association and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees between 2001 and
2005. It comes after criticism over medical care in facilities and
long-standing complaints by immigration attorneys that their clients are
transferred too often, making it hard to represent them. The authors
recommended that detention standards should be legally binding. They urged
the government to make reviews public and make it easier for relatives and
attorneys to track detainees' whereabouts. They also encouraged the
government to promote alternatives to detention, such as the use of
electronic ankle bracelets. ICE created new performance-based detention
standards in 2008. It also hired outside companies to carry out inspections. Tumlin said detainees continue to report the same
problems today as those outlined in the inspection reports.
July 8, 2009 Government Executive
The Federal Protective Service is failing to properly oversee its
13,000-strong contract guard force, causing grave security gaps at federal
buildings nationwide, Government Accountability Office officials told
senators on Wednesday. As part of a recent review, investigators from the
watchdog agency successfully entered 10 high-security federal buildings
carrying components for a bomb through doors being monitored by contract
guards. Once inside, the investigators assembled an improvised explosive
device and walked freely around the buildings and into various legislative
and executive branch offices with the IED in a briefcase, GAO said in
testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee. Lawmakers called GAO's findings disturbing, shocking and
outrageous, and asked urgently and repeatedly what they could do to help FPS
gain control of the situation. "In this post-9/11 world that we're now
living in, I cannot fathom how security breaches of this magnitude were
allowed to occur," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of
the committee. Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said that in all his
years of reading GAO reports, this one represented "about the broadest
indictment of an agency in the federal government I've heard." Mark
Goldstein, GAO's director of physical infrastructure issues and author of the
report, told lawmakers the review revealed significant shortcomings in FPS'
ability to monitor and verify contract guard training and firearms
certifications. In reviewing 663 randomly selected guards, GAO found that 62
percent had at least one expired certification. Goldstein said a lack of
funding has hindered the agency's ability to reach appropriate staffing
levels and provide the technological tools necessary to protect federal
buildings. But a number of the problems with the contract guard program are
unrelated to budgetary constraints, he said. "Not having national
standards and guidance for inspecting the guards, [and] better standards for
knowing when certifications have expired -- things like that, are not
resource-based," Goldstein said. "I think there has been a lack of
attention to this part of the protective requirements for federal
buildings." Lieberman said he and Collins are aware of management
problems at FPS and that is one reason why they have not pressed to increase
the agency's budget. "We didn't want to just throw more money at the
problem until we fix the agency," he said. FPS Director Gary Schenkel
did not dispute GAO's findings and said he takes full responsibility for the
failures as head of the agency. He assured the committee that FPS officials have
been making progress in addressing deficiencies and are working even faster
now that they are aware of GAO's findings.
April 3, 2009 New York Times
The document that follows, “List of Detainee Deaths since October 2003,” is
the government’s latest account of deaths in immigration detention, through
Feb. 7, 2009. Compiled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and obtained by
The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, it lists the names
of 90 people who died, their dates of birth and death, their nationality,
where they died or were last held, whether an autopsy report or death
certificate was secured, and the cause of death. The chart updates the first
government list of 66 names, also attached, which covered a period between
Jan. 1, 2004, and November 2007. The new chart adds deaths that occurred
before and since, and corrects some omissions. Notably, it adds the Sept. 9,
2005, death of Tanveer Ahmad, also known as Ahmad Tanveer, 43, of Pakistan.
Officials had maintained for months that no records of his death could be
found, despite complaints that he had died after his severe and obvious
symptoms of a heart attack went untreated for hours at the Monmouth County
Correctional Institute, in Freehold, N.J. New errors appear on the latest
list, and it omits at least one known death from 2008: that of Ana Romero
Rivera, 44, of El Salvador, found hanged in a cell at the Franklin County
Jail in Frankfort, Ky., on Aug. 21. Ms. Romero, a cleaning woman, had been
placed in isolation for not eating, according to local newspaper reports.
Though she was being held for deportation, federal officials now disagree
whether she was legally in immigration custody when she died. The list no
longer distinguishes between where the detainee was last held and where the death
occurred. Sometimes it cites the hospital where a dying detainee was taken,
but not the jail involved, and sometimes the reverse. Some information has
been changed without explanation. For example, the cause of death for
Boubacar Bah, 52, who was held at the Corrections Corporation of America
detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., previously was listed as “brain
hemorrhage, fractured skull” and now reads “undetermined.” The government has
reported one more death since the list was issued, bringing the known total
to 92: that of Roberto Martinez Medina, 39, of Mexico, who had been held at
the Correction Corporation’s Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. He died
March 11 at St. Francis Hospital in Columbus, Ga., apparently of a heart
attack. There are more than 500 detention centers around the country, but one
private operator, the Correction Corporation, had at least 18 deaths,
including eight at its Eloy, Ariz., center alone, three of those since July
2008. The 18 Correction Corporation deaths include one in 2004 that the new
list mistakenly places at the “Jefferson County jail.” After correcting for
such errors, The Times counted 32 of the 92 deaths at jails run by private
companies; 37 of them at county or regional jails, and 20 at federally run
detention centers. The remaining 3 deaths fall into other categories. That
breakdown differs from one provided at a March 3 House subcommittee hearing
that cited only six deaths in private facilities. That low figure was based
on a classification supplied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which
reflected who owned the jail building and the type of government contract in
effect, not the operator. Both lists sometimes obscure who was operating
detention centers where people died, or even in which state a death occurred.
A 2007 death first listed at the Otero County jail, in New Mexico, is now
incorrectly placed at “El Paso SPC,” referring to a service processing center
in Texas. The Otero County jail, where there was another death in 2008, is
operated by Management and Training Corporation, a private company. Of the 92
people who died in detention, 21 were from Cuba, 19 from Mexico, 6 each from
Guatemala and Honduras, 5 from El Salvador, three each from Colombia, Haiti
and Jamaica; two each from Ghana, Guinea, India, Korea and one each from 18
other countries, including Germany, Brazil, Afghanistan and the Philippines.
Readers with information about the men and women listed on the document, or
with knowledge of other deaths in immigration detention, can contact The
Times by using this link.
March 26, 2009 Houston Chronicle
If you were to stop on a street corner anywhere in America and knowingly
hire an illegal immigrant to do your laundry or clean your basement, you
would be breaking the law. But for years, the federal government has been
paying immigration detainees $1 a day to perform menial work in the nation’s
public and private detention centers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officials insist there is no double standard, saying the Voluntary Work Program
offers detainees a break from the monotony of incarceration and a chance to
earn money while they are locked up. Rutgers University criminal justice
professor Michael Welch called the program a “paradox.” “It’s ironic that
these undocumented immigrants are barred from working legally in the
community, but while behind bars, they are not only allowed but encouraged to
work for a dollar a day,” Welch said. ICE officials have found an eager work
force in their growing network of detention centers, which house an estimated
400,000 immigrants annually. The agency does not track participation in the
work program on a national level, said ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore, though
more than 11,000 detainees participated last fiscal year at one Houston
detention center alone. Immigrant advocates offered general support for the
program, saying it at least gives detainees an opportunity to pass the time
by doing something other than sitting in a cell. But the irony of the program
is not lost on some. “Why can the U.S. government hire undocumented
immigrants? And not only hire them, but get a day’s work for a dollar?” said
Brittney Nystrom, senior legal advisor at the National Immigration Forum, an
immigrant advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. “It really is an absurdity.”
ICE says program legal -- ICE officials say the program is perfectly legal.
There is no specific statute, regulation or executive order authorizing the
program, ICE said in a statement. The program “does not constitute employment
and is done by detainees on a voluntary basis for a small stipend,” according
to ICE. Nystrom had a hard time buying that legal explanation, citing ICE’s
own detention standards, which describe the program as providing “monetary
compensation for work completed.” “That sounds like employment to me,”
Nystrom said. Variety of jobs performed -- At Houston’s Contract Detention
Facility on the city’s north side, about 200 immigration detainees are
currently participating in the work program, performing jobs including
cleaning and washing dishes, laundry, and maintenance of the facility,
according to ICE. Others jobs include working as a barber and helping in the
medical clinic, law library or commissary. ICE officials said no detainees
from the Houston facility performed work outside of the detention center
grounds. The Houston detention center is owned and operated by Corrections
Corporation of America, one of the nation’s largest private prison companies.
CCA’s warden in Houston, Robert Lacy, referred questions about the program to
ICE. Work programs are commonplace in state and federal prisons. The
lowest-paying jobs in the Federal Bureau of Prison system, such as cleaning
and grounds keeping, pay 12 to 40 cents per hour. In its statement, ICE
officials said the program gives detainees “an opportunity to be gainfully
occupied on a voluntary basis.” The agency added that perhaps the most
important benefit from the program is “reducing inactivity and disciplinary
problems.”
January 13, 2009 Press Release
A report released today by the Southwest Institute for Research on Women
and the Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program describes harsh conditions
of confinement for the roughly three hundred women housed in immigration
detention facilities in Arizona. The report, Unseen Prisoners: A Report on
Women in Immigration Detention Facilities in Arizona, is based on over a year
of research, including over 40 interviews with detainees, their family
members, attorneys, and service providers. “Few people realize that we are
locking up huge numbers of immigrants every day and holding them for months
and in some cases years at a time. They are not being punished for a crime,
and yet they are held in facilities that are identical to, and often double
as, prisons or jails,” said Nina Rabin, the lead researcher and author of the
report. “Women immigration detainees in particular are an invisible
population. We hope this report will raise awareness about women locked up
just an hour away from here in conditions that would shock most Americans. We
also hope to raise awareness about the U.S. citizen children separated from
their mothers right now because of immigration detention.” The report
provides detailed information about day-to-day life in the three facilities
that house women immigration detainees in Arizona: Central Arizona Detention
Center, Pinal County Jail, and Eloy Detention Center. Rabin and several
University of Arizona law students conducted interviews and extensive
background research for the report over a twelve month period between August
2007 and August 2008. Rabin described the study’s participants: “In our small
sample size of detainees who agreed to participate in this research study, we
encountered pregnant and nursing mothers, domestic violence victims, low-wage
workers swept up in worksite raids, and asylum-seekers fleeing persecution
and sexual violence.” The federal agency in charge of the detention and
removal of immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), contracts
for two of the facilities to be run by the private prison company the
Corrections Corporation of America. In the case of Pinal County Jail, ICE
contracts with the county. ICE permitted the researchers access to two of the
three facilities, but declined requests to interview ICE representatives or
facility personnel for the report. Rabin met with ICE representatives in
December to discuss the report’s findings and recommendations. Key findings
of the report include: • Family separation: The majority of women interviewed
were separated from at least one U.S. citizen child under the age of 10 and
were transferred to Arizona from out of state. As a result, they were
hundreds or at times thousands of miles away from their families and
communities during their time in detention. • Severe penal conditions for women
who are not serving criminal sentences: Women described conditions of
confinement that are in many cases more restrictive than in county jails or
prisons, including limited access to recreation, a complete absence of
programming or activities, frugal provision of food and other supplies, and
the routine use of strip searches and shackling during transport. •
Aggressive government prosecution and detention of women who pose no security
threat or flight risk: Attorneys reported that ICE routinely appeals decisions
to release pregnant women on bond; rejects or does not respond to
applications for humanitarian parole of victims of domestic violence,
refugees, or women with serious health conditions; and refuses to reduce
bonds for families unable to pay. • Inadequate medical care: Women reported
inadequate gynecological and obstetrical care, long waits for medical
attention, and dismissive responses to medical requests. The report contains
detailed recommendations for Congress, the Department of Homeland Security,
ICE, and the individual facilities researched. Recommendations range from
broad policy changes, including the need for increased consideration of the
impact of immigration detention on families, to specific facility-level
concerns, such as the lack of outdoor recreation in Pinal County Jail. The
report will be available beginning on January 13, 2009, at
http://www.law.arizona.edu/depts/clinics/ilc//UnseenPrisoners.pdf. For more
information, please contact Nina Rabin at (520) 621-9206 or rabin@email.arizona.edu.
July 21, 2008 First Amendment Center
A bill before Congress would extend the Freedom of Information Act to
require private prisons contracted by the federal government to release
records under the same standards as federal prisons. The Private Prison
Information Act of 2007 (H.R. 1889), introduced by Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa.,
would require private prisons and other correctional facilities under
contract with federal agencies to house federal prisoners to make their
records accessible under the same FOIA requirements that govern federal
prisons. An identical bill was introduced in the Senate (S. 2010) by Sen.
Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. Prison privatization has increased rapidly in the
face of growing concerns over overcrowding, safety and poor health care in
public institutions. Desire to control costs has also led to an increase in
privatization. However, privately owned and operated facilities are not
subject to the same FOIA scrutiny as public agencies. Although the press and
public can retrieve information about privately run prisons from the
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and other government agencies, private prisons remain largely
outside the scope of FOI laws. Of the almost 1.6 million prisoners in the
United States in June 2007, 7.4% of them were held in privately operated
correctional facilities, according to the June 2008 Bureau of Justice
Statistics bulletin. At last count, in 2000, the BJS reported 264 private
facilities under state and federal contracts used to house prisoners. And
there were 5.4% more prisoners in private facilities in June 2007 than in
June 2006, according to BJS. Private detention centers are also used to house
immigrant detainees. Two lawsuits filed in the last two months aim to force
private prisons to release records, including one filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union investigating the deaths of immigrant detainees in federal
custody. In May 2008, The Washington Post ran a four-day series investigating
medical conditions in immigrant prisons. "Careless Detention"
explored the deaths of 83 prisoners and detainees in custody between March
2003 and May 2008. "Our correctional system is broken. It is overcrowded
and unsafe," said Mike Flynn, director of government affairs for the
Reason Foundation. "Contracting with private prisons gives us an ability
to better manage outcomes. I think contracts should require certain
benchmarks, like treatment programs, continuing education and job
training." The Reason Foundation is a nonprofit think tank that promotes
"libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and
the rule of law," according to its Web site. The largest private
corrections-management service in the U.S. is Corrections Corporation of
America, which is headquartered in Nashville. CCA posted $35 million in
profits during the first quarter of 2008, according to a company press
release. CCA and other private corrections companies have seen rapid growth
from contracts with states and the federal government. The Los Angeles Times
reported in August 2007 that California state officials had signed a contract
with CCA to hold about 4,000 prisoners for $63 per prisoner, per day. It
would cost the state an average of $123 per prisoner, per day in a state
prison. As private corrections companies grow, so do questions about their
methods, success and profitability. The recent lawsuits seek answers to some
of those questions. The ACLU filed an FOI lawsuit against the Department of
Homeland Security last month in the U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia after DHS failed to turn over documents related to the deaths of
immigrants held in public and private detention centers. The lawsuit also
named Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Office of the Inspector
General for DHS. "DHS must not be allowed to keep information about
in-custody deaths secret," said Elizabeth Alexander, director of the
ACLU National Prison Project, in a press release. "It is imperative that
ICE be held publicly accountable." Prison Legal News, a monthly magazine
that covers prison issues, filed a lawsuit against CCA in a Tennessee court
on May 19 after CCA did not respond to a public-records request. The lawsuit,
Friedmann v. CCA, argues that CCA performs a public function, and its records
should be public. In 2002, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that a private
company performing a public function must make its records available to the
public under the Tennessee Public Records Act. In Memphis Publishing Company
v. Cherokee Children & Family Services, the court ruled that a nonprofit
social service agency under state contract had to turn its records over to
the Memphis Commercial Appeal because it was the "functional
equivalent" of a government agency. "Public agencies cannot
contract away the public's ability to review records that otherwise would be
publicly accessibly under the state's open records law," said Paul
Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, in a press release. "The public's
right to know is not delegable to private corporations." One FOI expert
applauded the congressional bills that would make private-prison companies
accountable to the federal FOIA. "I think that is a long-overdue
fix," Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of
Information coalition, said of the Private Prison Information Act of 2007.
"This is a problem on the state level. This would fix it at the federal
level in a way that would bring a whole lot of otherwise private operations
into public scrutiny. We've seen lots of anecdotal evidence over the past
decade for the need for public oversight and scrutiny." Some aspects of
private-prison contracts are already accessible under FOIA, however. Flynn of
the Reason Foundation argued that those provisions provide enough information.
"The federal agencies that manage the contract with the private company
are subject to the FOIA process. The agencies engage in regular and ongoing
oversight of the contract, usually having [their] own employees in the
facility full-time. All reports and studies from these monitors are subject
to the FOIA process. Terms of the contract with the private company are
subject to FOIA. Their progress in meeting any benchmarks detailed in the
contract are subject to FOIA," said Flynn. "If there is relevant
information that isn't available, it can be [added to] terms of the contract
and then be subject to FOIA. There is no limit to what can be required to be
disclosed to the agency, which would then be subject to FOIA." Davis
agreed that FOIA's coverage of contracts between the government and
private-prison companies was important, but said it didn't go far enough.
"The contract piece is important and FOIA does do a good job with
that," he said. "The contract data is just a sliver of the overall
picture of what people should rightly have access to … .
The vast majority of the information isn't covered." Davis mentioned
"inspection reports, incident reports involving inmate violence, and
just about any narrative report documenting inmate treatment." If the
ACLU's or Prison Legal News' lawsuit succeeds in extracting records from
private-prison corporations or if Congress passes the Private Prison
Information Act, an increase in information from these prisons could bring
light to a host of new issues. Some of these may well involve the First
Amendment. U.S. courts frequently address issues related to access to
publications, religious material, special diets and other claims of First
Amendment violations from prisoners. "I think you could get better
protections," said Flynn when asked about the First Amendment rights of
prisoners in private facilities, "because they can be detailed in a
contract with the private company. These protections can be mandated into the
contract rather than litigated later." "The best part about having
this information is that we would be able to act on it. Private companies can
be fired. Public facilities cannot," Flynn said. Said Davis, "When
you start getting the human narrative of incident reports, what's going on in
these prisons on a day to day basis, they could be rife with corruption or
running like a Swiss cruise ship."
July 3, 2008 New York Times
The federal immigration agency should report all deaths in detention
promptly, not only to the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security,
but also to state authorities where required by law, the inspector general
has recommended after a “special review” of the deaths of two immigrant
detainees. The detainees — a 60-year-old South Korean woman in Albuquerque
and a 30-year-old Ecuadorean woman in St. Paul — were among dozens whose
deaths in the custody of the agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
have drawn scrutiny in the past year. Congress, advocates for immigrants and
the news media have highlighted the lack of systematic accountability in such
cases, and documented problems with the medical care provided in the
detention system, a patchwork of county jails, privately run prisons and
federal facilities. Both detainees died because of serious medical conditions
that existed before they were detained. But the review found that the cases
pointed to larger problems with oversight and medical care, including the
failure to recognize or act on serious health care deficiencies in both
detention centers that had been documented by routine inspections. The
55-page report, released Tuesday, did not name the two detainees, but one was
Young Sook Kim, a cook who died of metastasized pancreatic cancer on Sept.
11, 2006, a day after she was taken to a hospital from the Regional
Correctional Center in Albuquerque, a county prison operated by the Cornell
Companies. A complaint to the inspector general’s hot line, testimony by a
former employee, and an affidavit from a fellow detainee all contended that
Ms. Kim had pleaded in vain for medical attention. The review found that it
was already too late to save her life, and that Cornell clinical records
showed the staff had responded to her written medical requests — albeit only
by giving her antacid tablets when she complained of stomach pain. But the
review confirmed complaints that Cornell was slow to deal with sick calls
because of a nursing shortage: a government inspection in September 2006
found ailing detainees had to wait for as long as 30 days to see the medical
staff. That inspection, by the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, also
found that only 11 of 20 detainees with chronic conditions were regularly
scheduled for chronic care clinics, and that its policies did not fulfill
requirements to notify the Homeland Security Department — the system’s parent
agency — or the Justice Department of deaths. Ms. Kim’s death was not
reported, as required, to state medical investigators. The immigration agency
initially maintained that the county should have reported the death, but on
Wednesday, a spokeswoman, Kelly Nantel, said that
“as a result of the report,” the agency has directed that all deaths be
reported to the appropriate state and federal authorities. The report also
urged the immigration agency to pool information with the detention trustee.
In September 2006, it noted, trustee inspectors gave the Albuquerque prison
the lowest overall rating, “at risk” — two levels below acceptable. But
because the two agencies do not routinely share information, the report said,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed some 3,500 more detainees at the
facility. Last August, the immigration agency removed all detainees after its
inspectors found a host of other problems, including an inadequate suicide
watch. The Minnesota case involved Maria Inamagua Merchan, a department store worker who was detained in
the Ramsey County jail and died in April 2006. For more than a month, her
persistent headaches had been treated only with Tylenol; when she fell from a
bunk bed, several hours passed before she was taken to the hospital, where
physicians diagnosed neurocysticercosis, an infection of the brain by larvae
of the pork tapeworm. “We cannot determine with certainty whether this death
could have been avoided had the detainee received immediate medical attention
for head trauma,” the report said, after praising the authorities for
promptly reporting the incident and for notifying the Consulate of Ecuador
and the detainee’s spouse. But it recommended better medical screening and
education about the parasite, which is endemic in parts of Latin America.
June 25, 2008 Press Release
The American Civil Liberties Union today sued the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the DHS Office
of the Inspector General (OIG) for refusing to turn over thousands of public
documents in their possession detailing the deaths of immigration detainees
held in U.S. custody. The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court
for the District of Columbia, comes after repeated rejections by DHS
officials of requests by the ACLU for critical information about the deaths
of dozens of people in immigration detention. The lawsuit seeks a court order
requiring DHS to expedite the processing of the document request and conduct
a reasonable search of the records in its possession in an effort to fully
comply with the ACLU’s requests. “We know that the medical care provided in
many immigration detention centers is grossly inadequate and has resulted in
unnecessary suffering and death,” said Elizabeth Alexander, Director of the
ACLU National Prison Project. “DHS must not be allowed to keep information
about in-custody deaths secret. It is imperative that ICE be held publicly
accountable when it fails to provide the health care mandated by the U.S.
Constitution.” Deficient medical care is believed to be a leading cause of
death in immigration detention, and is the number one complaint the ACLU has
received from ICE detainees. The ACLU filed a lawsuit last year against the
San Diego Correctional Facility (SDCF), an ICE facility run by Corrections
Corporations of America, Inc. (CCA), the country’s largest for-profit
correctional services provider. In its lawsuit, the ACLU challenges flawed
medical care policies and the denial of needed treatment by ICE and the
Division of Immigration Health Services which has led to excruciating
suffering and even death of numerous detainees at SDCF. In its Freedom of
Information Act request submitted to DHS last year, the ACLU requested
information about whether ICE – or any independent monitoring agency –
adequately tracks deaths of immigration detainees, who are often housed in
county jails around the country alongside criminal detainees, or in one of
numerous immigration detention facilities managed by private prison companies.
Past OIG reports to Congress have contained only vague and sporadic
references to investigations into these deaths, and provide little useful
information that would ensure the public that meaningful investigations are
conducted into each death and that steps are being taken to guarantee that
detainees receive necessary medical services before it is too late. “Unless
ICE exhibits full transparency by releasing all of the information that we
have requested, we are left little choice but to believe that it has
something to hide,” Alexander said. Attorneys on the case include Tom Jawetz of the ACLU National Prison Project, Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, New
York-based attorneys Natalie N. Kuehler and
Benjamin R. Walker and Washington-based attorneys Margaret K. Pfeiffer and
Lee Ann Anderson McCall. A copy of the ACLU lawsuit filed today can be found
online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/35774lgl20080625.html A copy of
the original FOIA request filed by the ACLU can be found online at:
www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/30260res20070627.html Additional
information about the ACLU National Prison Project can be found online at:
www.aclu.org/prison/index.html
June 5, 2008 San Diego Union-Tribune
A class-action lawsuit alleging chronic overcrowding at an immigration jail
in Otay Mesa was settled yesterday. The lawsuit
said the overcrowding at the facility, run by Corrections Corp. of America
for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, subjected immigration violators
to health and safety risks. It also alleged the conditions violated
due-process rights under the Constitution. Before the suit was filed in
January 2007, the jail was so overcrowded it was “triple celling” hundreds of
detainees, the suit alleged. That involved putting three people into cells
designed for two, with the third sleeping on the cell floor in a plastic
shell or “boat.” The facility housed 1,000 people at one point. After the
suit was filed, federal authorities moved out more than 100 inmates,
according to the American Civil Liberties Union. According to Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, the facility now holds no more than 700 people. The
settlement agreement requires that detainee populations not exceed specified
limits for the next three years. Corrections Corp.of
America will have to show it is within the caps three times between now and
January. If the requirements are met, the suit will be dropped. The
settlement agreement is subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw. A spokesman for Corrections Corp.of
America directed requests for comment to the Department of Homeland Security,
the parent agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A spokeswoman for
ICE said the agency has not admitted fault. “The parties agree by settling
the case that there is no admission of wrongdoing, and ICE maintains that the
agency houses its immigration detainee population, including those at the San
Diego CCA facility, in a safe and secure environment that is in compliance
with its national detention standards,” said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for
the agency in San Diego. David Blair-Loy, legal director for the ACLU in San
Diego, said the lawsuit achieved the goal of stopping poor conditions for
immigration detainees. “The population was at a very high level before we
appeared in the case,” Blair-Loy said. “And after we appeared they reduced it
and then maintained that for a year and a half.”
June 1, 2008 Chicago Tribune
Yanira Castaneda weeps at the empty space in her living room where she spent
a year caring for her brother, who died last February at 36, a loss for which
she blames the U.S. government. Francisco Castaneda had been in a federal
immigrant detention center because he was an illegal immigrant with a drug
conviction. During his 10-month stay, his signs of cancer went untreated
until the facility made him a free, but sick, man. He died a year later.
"If they do a crime, they should do their time, but take care of
them," said a tearful Yanira Castaneda, 35, whose family in the Los
Angeles area is continuing her brother's lawsuit against the government.
"I think my brother could have been saved." His death is part of a
growing body count linked to the nation's beefed-up detention system,
alarming lawmakers and emerging as the newest Immigration controversy in a
spate of Capitol hearings and media exposés. Federal Immigration officials
say critics are exaggerating the problems. In the case of Castaneda, who fled
El Salvador's civil war at age 10 with his family, the U.S. government in
April admitted negligence. After federal authorities released him last year
with signs of penile cancer, doctors had to amputate that organ in February
2007. But it was too late. Since 2003, when the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency was created, 83 deaths reportedly have been linked to
detention sites run by ICE or by private contractors and local governments,
including one detainee with coronary artery disease in a Chicago detention
center and a suicide in McHenry County Jail. ICE said last month that it
counted 71 deaths since 2004, but no public reporting requirements exist.
Infrastructure expanded -- Unable to resolve what to do with the nation's 12
million illegal immigrants, Congress authorized ICE to build a vast detention
infrastructure that now holds more than 300,000 detainees a year. The
expansion, to 32,000 beds from 19,444 in 2004, has been fueled by recent
crackdowns such as the end of the "catch-and-release" of
unauthorized immigrants, experts say. "No bureaucracy can respond
quickly to the sort of dramatic change that the country has seen with
Immigration enforcement and detention over the last decade or so," said
Louis DeSipio, associate professor at the
University of California at Irvine. As the largest investigative arm of the
Department of Homeland Security, ICE "was ramping up quickly and wanted
to show or impress Congress that it was responding rapidly, but it didn't
respond to these other needs" such as medical care, DeSipio
said. Last month, legislation was introduced to mandate health-care standards
— now voluntary—in the more than 300 ICE detention facilities. It also would
require all deaths be reported to Congress. But ICE officials contend that
"detainees' health care is equal to or better than that provided to U.S.
citizens in custody," according to statements in response to news
reports. The death rate for detained immigrants is "dramatically
lower" than that of U.S. prisons and jails, federal officials say. The
2005 rate was 6.8 deaths per 100,000 in ICE facilities compared with 540.5
per 100,000 in U.S. prisons and jails, according to the agency. Its 2007
death rate dropped to 3.5 per 100,000, officials said. "ICE is committed
to providing all detainees in our care with humane and safe detention
environments and ensuring that adequate medical services are available,"
said spokesman Richard Rocha. Last year the government spent almost $100
million on detainee health care, double the amount from five years ago, and
did 184,448 medical screenings, with many detainees receiving health care for
the first time, Rocha said. But Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairwoman of a
subcommittee looking at detention medical care, contended that ICE failed to
fix its health system even after hearings last October. "If [ICE
officials] say they meet these standards, they are not to be relied on. I'm
often disappointed that what they say is true turns out not to be
correct," said Lofgren, who asserted that some detainees died because
staffers withheld required medicine. She said some medical procedures
recommended by physicians have to be reviewed in Washington by "a
non-physician who's never seen the patient." "The policies
themselves foster poor medical care," she said. "No matter where
you are on the spectrum of Immigration reform, you got people in custody. You
can't kill them." Tom Jawetz, an attorney for
the ACLU's National Prison Project, said the ICE figures don't include ill
individuals who die after being deported or released. Lawsuits filed -- In
the wake of the detention buildup, Jawetz began
filing class-action lawsuits against ICE last year, including one alleging
overcrowding and another for deficient health care at the same 800-bed
facility in Otay Mesa, Calif. That center is
operated by the private Corrections Corporation of America, which is seeking
a second facility with 3,000 beds there for an as-yet undisclosed use. In
court documents, Francisco Castaneda alleged ICE released him
"presumably" to avoid the cost of cancer treatment. "I can
tell you that Castaneda is a perfect example of why the [death] numbers are
skewed," said Castaneda's lawyer, Conal Doyle.
Human-rights advocate Homer Venters said ICE's figure of one out of every
three detainees having pre-existing chronic conditions shows the agency needs
a model for chronic health care, not just acute care. Detainees' average stay
of 37.5 days makes comparisons to U.S. prisons' death rates "unduly
rosy," according to Venters and Allen Keller, a physician and the
director of New York University's School of Medicine Center for Health and
Human Rights. To improve care, the federal agency has recruited
non-governmental groups and experts to rewrite detention standards, and has
hired two firms to inspect how centers are managed. "While a single
death of an ICE detainee is a serious matter," ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said, "we strive to maintain safe, secure and
humane detention conditions and to ensure that all detainees receive quality
health care."
May 11, 2008 Washington Post
At the agency in Washington responsible for foreign detainees' medical
care, internal documents reveal a tendency to conceal the truth by
withholding complete medical records or by offering misleading public
explanations. But e-mail exchanges speak for themselves in the death of
Francisco Castaneda. Castaneda's family had fled the civil war in El Salvador
when he was 10 years old, but his mother died of cancer before she could
obtain legal status for her children. Castaneda began working at 17 and
eventually got involved with drugs. After living for nearly a quarter-century
in Los Angeles, he was being deported after serving a four-month sentence for
drug possession. In March 2006, immigration officers took him into custody.
Medical staff members suspected that Castaneda, then 34, had penile cancer. A
lesion on his penis was bleeding and oozing. The staff sought approval for a
biopsy, but the Division of Immigration Health Services, or DIHS,
headquarters in Washington denied the procedure for 10 months. Along the way,
as he fought deportation, Castaneda filed several grievances. "I am in a
considerable amount of pain and I am in desperate need of medical
attention," he wrote in June. "I feel that I am entitled to a
healthy life." In July, David Lusche, a
physician assistant at the Otay Mesa facility in
California, where Castaneda was being held, realized that his grievances were
still pending and that an audit of the compound's medical files was
approaching. At 2:26 a.m. July 28, he e-mailed a colleague, asking him to
retrieve a handwritten grievance from Castaneda that Lusche
had left in a drawer in an examining room. "We need to write something
different, or make some amendment, on the Grievance for Francisco
Castaneda," Lusche wrote. ". . . Your
response starts, 'Grievance not resolved.' Those words are going to attract
all kinds of attention during an ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]
Jail Standards audit. . . . Could you somehow 'patch up' that Grievance with
an amendment then put it in my box. I just want to avoid problems when the
Auditors show up." Anthony Walker, a physician assistant at Otay Mesa, responded at 10:10 a.m. the next day:
"But it is true, unfortunately, this is a case where his grievance is
correct and I don't blame the detainee." After pressure from the
American Civil Liberties Union, a biopsy was finally scheduled for early
February 2007. But immigration officials suddenly released Castaneda from
custody days before the surgery, sparing the agency the cost. When the DIHS
medical director, Timothy T. Shack, was asked to review the case, he
concluded: "I looked over about 200 pages of medical records for this
case. In my opinion, the care provided to this detainee was, and is, timely
and appropriate." One week later after the review, UCLA doctors gave
Castaneda a diagnosis of invasive squamous cell carcinoma. On Valentine's
Day, surgeons amputated his penis. In October, after rounds of chemotherapy,
he testified before a congressional panel looking into detainee medical care.
"I am a 35-year-old man without a penis with my life on the line,"
he said. "I have a young daughter, Vanessa, who is only 14. She is here
with me today because she wanted to support me -- and because I wanted her to
see her father do something for the greater good, so that she will have that
memory of me. The thought that her pain -- and mine -- could have been
avoided almost makes this too much to bear." On Feb. 16, 2008, Castaneda
died. U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson denied a government request to
dismiss the lawsuit brought on Castaneda's behalf. In his March 11 ruling,
the judge said lawyers had "submitted powerful evidence that Defendants
knew Castaneda needed a biopsy to rule out cancer, falsely stated that his
doctors called the biopsy 'elective,' and let him suffer in extreme pain for
almost one year while telling him to be 'patient' and treating him with
Ibuprofen, antihistamines, and extra pairs of boxer shorts." Pregerson
added: "Defendants' own records bespeak of conduct that transcends
negligence by miles. It bespeaks of conduct that, if true, should be taught
to every law student as conduct for which the moniker 'cruel' is
inadequate."
May 11, 2008 Washington Post
Neil Sampson, who ran the DIHS as interim director most of last year, left
that job with serious questions about the government's commitment. Sampson
said in an interview that ICE treated detainee health care "as an
afterthought," reflecting what he called a failure of leadership and
management at the Homeland Security Department. "They do not have a
clear idea or philosophy of their approach to health care [for detainees],"
he said. "It's a system failure, not a failure of individuals." A
new director for health services arrived six months ago, following a stretch
when the agency was run first by Sampson and then by a second interim
director. The new boss is LaMont W. Flanagan, who
brought with him the credential of having been fired in 2003 by the state of
Maryland for bad management and spending practices supervising detention and
pretrial services. An audit found that Flanagan had signed off on payments of
$145,000 for employee entertainment and other ill-advised expenditures. His
reputation was such that the District of Columbia would not hire him for a
juvenile-justice position. "Another death that needs to be added to the
roster," Diane Aker, the DIHS chief health administrator, tapped out in
an e-mail to a records clerk at headquarters on Aug. 14, 2007. Juan Guevara-Lorano, 21, was dead. Guevara, an unemployed legal U.S.
resident with a young son, was arrested in El Paso for driving illegal
border-crossers farther into the city. He was paid $50. An entry-level
emergency medical technician, with barely any training, had done Guevara's
intake screening and physical assessment at the Otero County immigration
compound in New Mexico. Under DIHS rules, those tasks are supposed to be done
by a nurse. After two difficult months in detention, Guevara had decided not
to appeal his case. He would go back to Mexico with his family. But on Aug.
4, he came down with a splitting headache, what he called a nine on a pain
scale of 10, his medical records show. The rookie medical technician
prescribed Tylenol and referred Guevara to the compound's physician "due
to severity of headache ... and dizziness," according to medical
records. But Guevara never saw a doctor. Eight days after the first incident,
he vomited in his cell. The same junior technician came to help but was
unable to insert a nasal airway tube. Guevara was taken to a hospital, where
doctors determined an aneurism in his brain had burst. His wife, pregnant at
the time with their second child, recalled that she rushed to the hospital
but ICE guards would not let her inside, until the Mexican Consulate
interceded. Guevara's mother waited five hours before they let her in. By
then he was brain-dead. "My son is not coming back," sobbed Ana
Celia Lozano months later, sitting in Guevara's small mobile home as her
grandson played on the floor. "I want to know how he lived and died,
nothing more." What appears to be the most incriminating document in
Guevara's case has been partially blacked out. Still, what is left shows that
he did not receive adequate care. "The detainee was not seen or
evaluated by an RN, midlevel or physician. . . . At the time of the incident
on 8/12/2007, the detainee was seen and examined by EMTs." Each immigration
facility is allotted a different number of positions, and a shortage of
doctors and nurses is not unusual at centers across the country. Records from
February show that about 30 percent of all DIHS positions in the field were
unfilled. ICE officials said last week that the current vacancy rate is 21
percent. Concern about the vacancies is voiced repeatedly at clinical
directors' meetings. "How do we state our concerns so that we can be
heard? . . . this is a CRITICAL condition. . . . We
have bitten off more than we can chew," a physician wrote in the minutes
of one meeting last summer. In some prisons, the staffing shortages are
acute. The Willacy County detention center in South Texas -- the largest
compound, with 2,018 detainees -- has no clinical director, no pharmacist and
only a part-time psychiatrist. Nearly 50 percent of the nursing positions
were unfilled at the 1,500-detainee Eloy, Ariz., prison in February. At the
newly opened 744-bed Jena., La., compound, nurses run the place. It has no clinical
director, no staff physician, no psychiatrist and no professional dental
staff. Last August, Sampson, who was then DIHS interim director, warned his
superiors at ICE that critical personnel shortages were making it impossible
to staff the Jena facility adequately. In a vociferous e-mail to Gary Mead,
the ICE deputy director in charge of detention centers, he wrote: "With
the Jena request we have been re-examining our capabilities to meet health
care needs at a new site when we are facing critical staffing shortages at
most every other DIHS site. While we developed, executed and achieved major
successes in our recruitment efforts we have been unable to meet the
demand." The slow ICE security-clearance process forced many job
applicants to go elsewhere, Sampson wrote. Of the 312 people who applied for
new positions over the past year, 200 withdrew, he wrote, because they found
other jobs during the 250 days it took ICE, on average, to conduct the
required background investigations. Last week, ICE officials said the average
wait had decreased recently to 37 days. These shortages have burdened the
remaining staff. In July 2007, a year after Osman's death in Otay Mesa, medical director Hui strongly complained to
headquarters about workload stress. "The level of burnout . . . is high
and rising," she wrote in an e-mail. "I know that I have been
averaging approximately 2-6 hrs of overtime daily
for the past 2 months. I will no longer be able to sustain this pace and will
be decreasing the number of hours that I work overtime. This being said, more
will be left undone because we simply do NOT have the staff." The
overcrowding has created a petri dish for the spread of diseases. One mission
of the Public Health Service is to detect infectious diseases and contain
them before they spread, but last summer, the gigantic Willacy center was hit
by a chicken pox outbreak. The illness spread because the facility did not
have enough available isolation rooms and its large pods share recycled air,
but also because security officers "lack education about the disease and
keep moving around detainees from different units without taking into
consideration if the unit has been isolated due to heavy exposure,"
noted the DIHS's top specialist on infectious diseases, Carlos Duchesne. The
staff was forced to vaccinate the entire population in mid-July. In one 2007
death, memos and confidential notes show how medical staff missed an
infectious disease, meningitis, in their midst. Victor Alfonso Arellano, 23,
a transgender Mexican detainee with AIDS, died in custody at the San Pedro
center. The first three pages of Duchesne's internal review of the death
leave the impression that Arellano's care was proper. But the last page,
under the heading "Off the record observations and recommendations,"
takes a decidedly critical tone: "The clinical staff at all levels fails
to recognize early signs and symptoms of meningitis. . . . Pt was evaluated
multiple times and an effort to rule out those infections was not even
mentioned." Arellano was given a "completely useless"
antibiotic, Duchesne wrote. Lab work that should have been performed
immediately took 22 days because San Pedro's clinical director had ordered
staff members to withhold lab work for new detainees until they had been in
detention there "for more than 30 days," a violation of agency
rules. "I am sure that there must be a reason why this was mandated but
that practice is particularly dangerous with chronic care cases and specially
is particularly dangerous with . . . HIV/AIDS patients," Duchesne wrote.
"Labs for AIDS patients . . . must be performed ASAP to know their
immune status and where you are standing in reference to disease control and
meds." Given the frequency with which ICE moves people within the
detention network, keeping track of detainees is critical to stopping the
spread of infectious illnesses. The purchase of an electronic records system
named CaseTrakker in 2004 was supposed to help. But
according to internal documents and interviews, CaseTrakker
is so riddled with problems that facilities often revert to handwritten
records. A study at one site found that it took one-third more time to use CaseTrakker than to use paper. Thousands of patient files
are missing. Recorded data often cannot be retrieved. Day-long outages are
common. When detainees are transferred from one facility to another, their
records, if they follow them, are often misleading. Some show medications
with no medical diagnoses, or "lots of diagnoses but no meds,"
according to Elizabeth Fleming, a former clinical director at one compound in
Arizona. After Yusif Osman's death and the
discovery of the problem with his computerized records, the DIHS ordered a
review of all charts at the Otay Mesa center.
During the review, auditors also found that 260 physical exams were never
completed as required. The nurse responsible for the error in Osman's case
was reprimanded, but the computer problem was not fixed. The CaseTrakker system "has failed and must be
replaced," Sampson, the DIHS interim director, wrote to his ICE
supervisors in August. In January 2008, medical director Shack told
colleagues that CaseTrakker "is more of a
liability than the use of paper medical record system," according to the
minutes of a meeting. It "puts patients at risk." ICE officials said
last week that they are not satisfied with CaseTrakker
and are working to replace it. Along with being at the mercy of computer
glitches, detainees suffer from human errors that deny or delay their care.
And with few advocates on the outside, they are left alone to plead their
cases in the most desperate ways, in hand-scribbled notes to doctors they
rarely see. "I need medicine for pain. All my bones hurt. Thank
you," wrote Mexico native Roberto Ledesma Guerrero, 72, three weeks
before he died inside the Otay Mesa compound.
Delays persist throughout the system. In January, the detention center in
Pearsall, Tex., an hour from San Antonio, had a backlog of 2,097
appointments. Luis Dubegel-Paez, a 60-year-old
Cuban, had filled out many sick call requests before he died on March 14.
Detained at the Rolling Plains Detention Facility in the West Texas town of
Haskell, he wrote on New Year's Day: "need to see doctor for Heart
medication; and having chest pains for the past three days. Can't stand pain."
Ten days later he went to the clinic and became upset when he wasn't seen. He
slugged the window, yelled, pointed at his wristwatch. He was escorted back
to his cell. Another of his sick call requests said: "Need to see a
doctor. I have a lot of symptoms of sickness ... as soon as possible!"
The next was more urgent: "I have a
emergency to see the doctor about my heart problems ... for the last couple
days and I been getting dizzy a lot." The next day, Dubegel-Paez
collapsed and died. His medical records do not show that he ever saw a doctor
for his chest pains.
August 31, 2007 Government Executive
Federal officials reported this week that they have reviewed contracts
with private security firms hired to guard federal facilities and have made
overdue payments to them. But a lawmaker said she will continue to monitor
the situation. A report released by the Homeland Security Department's
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the bureau paid more than $2.6
million in undisputed claims by Aug. 3, and planned to review another $3.8
million of disputed invoices. But Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said
the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and
Emergency Management, which she chairs, will continue to monitor the disputed
claims. Norton said that reforms at ICE -- including appointing an ombudsman
to oversee the bureau's invoicing system and providing training for contract
guard vendors -- will help "eliminate security risks to federal
employees where they work." The report detailed steps the agency had
taken since July to solve problems with its invoicing system. ICE has
appointed additional financial personnel to "provide hands-on
support" to the Federal Protective Service, the agency responsible for
managing contract guards. ICE also sent a memo on July 30 to all its contract
guard vendors on new consolidated invoice procedures and instituted weekly
status reports and conference calls to assess progress on contract guard
payments. The report says the agency would continue to make adjustments
"if needed." Norton requested the ICE report to assess progress on
paying contract guards, some of whom claimed in July that they had gone into
bankruptcy or been forced to borrow money because the government did not pay
them in a timely manner. Some vendors found it difficult to meet their
payroll requirements as a result. "This large amount in overdue,
undisputed claims from FPS endangered security at federal sites because it
carried the risk that guards would fail to show up for work," Norton
said. Norton also has proposed the Federal Protective Service Guard
Contracting Reform Act, which would prohibit the federal government from
contracting with companies owned, controlled or operated by people who have
been convicted of felonies. Norton wrote the bill in response to the
discovery that STARTECH International Security, a private guard vendor, had
received funds from the government but had not paid its employees. STARTECH's
owner had served time in prison for fraud. The bill has passed the
subcommittee and will face full committee review in September.
March 6, 2006 USA Today
The guards have taken their concerns to Congress, describing inadequate
training, failed security tests and slow or confused reactions to bomb and
biological threats. For instance, when an envelope with suspicious powder was
opened last fall at Homeland Security Department headquarters, guards said
they watched in amazement as superiors carried it by the office of Secretary
Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then shook it outside Chertoff's window
without evacuating people nearby. The scare, caused by white powder that
proved to be harmless, "stands as one glaring example" of the
agency's security problems, said Derrick Daniels, one of the first guards to
respond to the incident. "I had never previously been given training ...
describing how to respond to a possible chemical attack," Daniels told
The Associated Press. "I wouldn't feel safe nowhere on this compound as
an officer." Daniels was employed until last fall by Wackenhut Services
Inc., the private security firm that guards Homeland's headquarters in a
residential area of Washington. The company has been criticized previously
for its work at nuclear facilities and transporting nuclear weapons. Homeland
Security officials say they have little control over Wackenhut's training of
guards but plan to improve that with a new contract. The company defends its
performance, saying the suspicious powder incident was overblown because the
mail had already been irradiated. Two senators who fielded complaints from
several Wackenhut employees are asking Homeland's internal watchdog, the
inspector general, to investigate. "If the allegations brought forward
by the whistle-blowers are correct, they represent both a security threat and
a waste of taxpayer dollars," Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan of North
Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote. "It would be ironic, to say the
least, if DHS were unable to secure its own headquarters." Daniels left
Wackenhut and now works security for another company at another federal
building. He is among 14 current and former Wackenhut employees — mostly
guards — who were interviewed by The Associated Press or submitted written
statements to Congress that were obtained by AP. A litany of problems were listed by the guards, whose pay ranges from $15.60 to
$23 an hour based on their position and level of security clearance. Among
their examples of lax security: •They have no training in responding to
attacks with weapons of mass destruction; •Chemical-sniffing dogs have been
replaced with ineffective equipment that falsely indicates the presence of
explosives. •Vehicle entrances to Homeland Security's complex are lightly
guarded; •Guards with radios have trouble hearing each other, or have no
radios, no batons and no pepper spray, leaving them with few options beyond
lethal force with their handguns. Over the last two years, the Energy
Department inspector general concluded that Wackenhut guards had thwarted
simulated terrorist attacks at a nuclear lab only after they were tipped off
to the test; and that guards also had improperly handled the transport of
nuclear and conventional weapons. Homeland Security is based at a gated,
former Navy campus in a college neighborhood — several miles from the heavily
trafficked streets that house the FBI, Capitol, Treasury Department and White
House. Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle said Wackenhut guards are
still operating under a contract signed with the Navy, and the agency has
little control over their training. A soon-to-be-implemented replacement
contract will impose new requirements on security guards, he said. Daniels,
the former guard who responded to the white powder incident, said the area
where the powder was found wasn't evacuated for more than an hour. Available
biohazard face shields went unused. Daniels said that after the envelope was
taken outside, and the order finally given to evacuate the potentially
infected area, employees had already gone to lunch and had to be rounded up
and quarantined. Former guard Bryan Adams recognized his inadequate training
one day last August, when an employee reported a suspicious bag in the
parking lot. "I didn't have a clue about what to do," he said.
Adams said he closed the vehicle checkpoint with a cone, walked over to the
bag and called superiors. Nobody cordoned off the area. Eventually, someone
called a federal bomb squad, which arrived more than an hour after the
discovery. "If the bag had, in fact, contained the explosive device that
was anticipated, the bomb could have detonated several times over in the hour
that the bag sat there," Adams said. The bag, it turned out, contained
gym clothes. Some guards who continue to work at Homeland, who would speak
only on condition of anonymity because of fear of losing their jobs, said they
knew of two instances in which individuals without identification got into
the sensitive complex. Another described how guards flunked a test by the
Secret Service, which sent vehicles into the compound with dummy government
identification tags hanging from inside mirrors. Guards cleared such vehicles
through on two occasions, this guard said, and one officer even copied down
the false information without realizing it was supposed to match information
on the employee's government badge. Marixa Farrar, a
former guard, said two guards always should have been stationed inside the
main building where Chertoff had his office, but she often was on duty alone.
One day last fall a fire alarm rang. As employees walked by Farrar, they
asked if this was a fire or a test. "There were no radios, so I couldn't
figure out if it was a serious alarm," she said. There was no fire.
Department of
Justice
Jun 17, 2017
motherjones.com
Lawsuit Accuses Private Prison Company of Illegally Funding a Trump
Super-PAC
It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has been very good for private
prison executives. After the Justice Department announced earlier this year
that it would continue using private lockups—a reversal of an Obama policy
announced in 2016—prison companies’ stock prices soared. Now, a campaign
finance watchdog is suing to figure out whether one of these prison companies
influenced the Trump administration’s policy reversal by donating large sums
to a pro-Trump super-PAC during the 2016 presidential campaign. In August and
November, GEO Group, the country’s biggest private prison company, donated a
total of $225,000 through a subsidiary to a pro-Trump super-PAC, according to
campaign disclosures. The super-PAC, Rebuilding America Now, had been
heartily endorsed by the Trump team; Mike Pence said contributions to the
group would be “one of the best ways to stop Hillary Clinton and help elect
Donald Trump our next president.” But according to a lawsuit filed Thursday
by the Campaign Legal Center, the prison company’s decision to fund the
super-PAC allegedly violated federal law, which prohibits government
contractors from making political contributions. GEO Corrections Holdings
made a donation of $100,000 on August 19, just one day after the Obama
administration announced that it would phase out its use of private prisons
because of their high rates of violence. In November, before Election Day,
the GEO subsidiary made another donation to Rebuilding America Now. After
Trump’s inauguration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the
Justice Department would continue its relationship with private prisons. The
following month, GEO won a $110 million contract to build a federal immigrant
detention center in Texas. In its lawsuit, the Campaign Legal Center is
asking the Justice Department to turn over documents related to the
administration’s decision to keep working with private prisons. In
particular, the nonprofit watchdog is seeking records that might shed light
on whether the administration’s decision was influenced by GEO contributions
to the pro-Trump super-PAC. The Campaign Legal Center filed a Freedom of
Information Act request for these records more than three months ago. But the
Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has delayed the fulfillment of
the request, according to the lawsuit, which seeks to speed up the disclosure
process. “GEO made illegal contributions to influence the election, and now
DOJ is refusing to release the documents that might show whether the
Administration rewarded GEO for its illegal spending,” Adav
Noti, a senior director at the Campaign Legal
Center and a former associate general counsel for policy at the Federal
Election Commission, said in a statement. GEO Group denies the allegation
that its contributions broke campaign finance laws. “These are absolutely
baseless and meritless allegations. All of our company’s contributions have
been fully compliant with all applicable laws,” the company said in a
statement to Mother Jones. It defended its $110 million contract to build an
immigrant detention facility in Texas. “The contract we were awarded by the
Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Justice, was part of a
competitive procurement process which was initiated by the Obama
Administration in 2015.” It also noted that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has
worked with private prison companies since the 1990s.GEO noted in December
that its subsidiary’s super-PAC donations were legal because its subsidiary
“is a non-contracting legal entity and has no contracts with any federal
agency.” However, a page on USASpending.gov, a government website, suggests
the subsidiary did receive funds from a federal contract in the past. A
spokesman for the GEO Group told Mother Jones that the information on the
USASpending.gov page was incorrect and “GEO Corrections Holdings has never
held any federal contracts.” The Federal Election Commission has yet to weigh
in on the matter.
Apr 27, 2017
themarshallproject.org
Congressman Calls
for Probe into Private Prisoner Transport
A Florida congressman urged his colleagues and the Department of Justice on
Wednesday to investigate deaths and abuses on for-profit prisoner transport
vehicles, renewing calls for scrutiny of the industry first raised on Capitol
Hill last summer. Rep. Ted Deutch (D.-Fla) cited a
recent Marshall Project story of a 29-year-old New York man who died in March
on a bus operated by Prisoner Transportation Services, the nation’s largest
extradition company. It was at least the fifth prisoner death on a PTS
vehicle since 2012. “I am extremely concerned with recent reports describing
horrific conditions and loss of life,” Deutch said
at a general Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the U.S. Bureau of
Prisons and U.S. Marshals. Deutch has repeatedly
called for a hearing to probe the lack of federal oversight of private
prisoner transport companies. After a Marshall Project investigation on the
industry was published in the New York Times in July, then-U.S. Attorney
General Loretta Lynch promised her office would report back to the committee
on the issue. But there has been little follow-up. After Deutch’s
remarks, the subcommittee moved onto other topics without comment, as is
common at general oversight hearings. It is not clear if a hearing will be
scheduled. Every year, tens of thousands of men and women — many of whom have
not been convicted of a crime — are transported by private extradition
companies to faraway jurisdictions where they have open arrest warrants or
pending criminal cases. Countless state and local law enforcement agencies
hire these companies, paying by the mile. Since 2000, the industry has been
responsible for 16 deaths, 14 alleged sexual assaults, 60 escapes, and more
than 50 crashes, The Marshall Project found. Kevin Eli, the Queens man who
died last month, was being transported from Virginia to Florida to face a
nine-year-old burglary charge. Passengers said he begged for medical
attention but was ignored by guards until it was too late. At Wednesday’s
hearing, Deutch noted that lawmakers could revisit
and strengthen a 2000 federal law meant to regulate the extradition industry,
commonly known as Jeanna’s Act. The law has been enforced only once. Deutch then asked the two witnesses at the hearing —
Thomas Kane, acting director of the Bureau of Prisons, and David Harlow,
acting director of the U.S. Marshals — whether the federal government
contracts with PTS. Both said no and added that extradition companies are
used mainly by state and local agencies.
Dec 11, 2016 themarshallproject.org
Federal Official Urges Probe of ‘Abuse’ on Private Prisoner Transport
A federal transportation regulator has urged the Justice Department to
investigate accusations of “human rights violations” on privately run vans
that carry tens of thousands of prisoners across long distances every year.
Deb Miller, vice chairman of the Surface Transportation Board, made her
comments last month, echoing calls from lawmakers this summer for a probe of
Prisoner Transportation Services, the nation’s largest private extradition
company, and others in the field. The company was highlighted in a Marshall
Project investigation that revealed a pattern of deaths and abuse in the
industry. “The problems of prisoner abuse, sexual assault, and medical
neglect by Prisoner Transportation Services, LLC… are very concerning,”
Miller wrote in a comment appended to the board’s Nov. 10 decision to grant
approval for PTS to merge with its largest competitor, U.S. Corrections.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the House Judiciary Committee in July —
shortly after The Marshall Project story was published — that her office
would review apparent lapses in federal oversight of prisoner transport
companies. A spokesman for the Justice Department said recently the agency is
still working on a report. The merger between PTS and U.S. Corrections had
been put on hold on Aug. 9 after the Human Rights Defense Center, a nonprofit
prisoner advocacy group, filed an objection to the deal, arguing that both
companies have a history of prisoner abuse. Those concerns, however, were
deemed to be outside of the Surface Transportation Board’s purview, which is
focused narrowly on the economic impact of a merger. For-profit extradition
companies transport suspects, fugitives, and others with open arrest warrants
across state lines to where they are wanted. Many of these prisoners are
first held in a local jail, sometimes for weeks, before they are picked up
for the transport. The companies are governed by a 2000 federal law commonly
known as Jeanna’s Act, which sets out some broad standards for treatment of
prisoners. But the legislation has only been enforced one time in the 16
years since, despite at least 60 prisoner escapes, 50 crashes, 14 alleged
instances of sexual assault, and 16 deaths on these vans during that time,
The Marshall Project investigation found. The story prompted some changes at
PTS, which is based in Tennessee and has contracts with state corrections
departments and hundreds of local law enforcement agencies. At least four
prisoners have died aboard PTS vans from alleged abuse or medical neglect
since 2012. PTS officials declined to comment on those deaths. In a recent
interview at the company headquarters, Alan Sielbeck,
the chief owner of PTS, and its new president, Joel Brasfield, said six of
their 29 vans have been outfitted with cameras, although the software for
recording and saving footage has not yet been installed. They said they hoped
it would be available soon and the entire fleet would have cameras within 12
months. When asked how the video will be used, the officials said it would be
too costly to record and preserve all of it for more than a few weeks. Simply
having the devices in the fleet would influence guards and inmates to behave
better, they said. In addition, PTS officials said they have increased their
staffing to 80 guards from about 35 so each of them can have more time off.
Instead of getting only 12 hours to rest in between every 36 hours of
driving, they will now have 24-hour breaks every two days — although that
schedule depends on finding a jail along the way that is willing to take the
inmates overnight. To prevent further deadly emergencies during transit, Sielbeck and Brasfield said they have prioritized the
position of “medical verification” officer to obtain advance information from
jails about medical problems of inmates picked up by PTS. If an inmate has a
severe diagnosis, he or she can be escorted on a commercial flight instead of
a days-long trip in one of the vans. PTS said it does not yet have enough
data to determine whether air transports have become more common. “We’re kind
of a slave to that holding agency,” Brasfield said. He said jails can
withhold medical information either intentionally or unintentionally.
Meanwhile, classroom training for guards has been upped to two weeks from
three days, including lessons on what to do if an inmate is in distress.
Seatbelts have also been installed in six of the vans, although Brasfield
acknowledged they may be removed because “the industry has gone back and
forth” about whether the straps and buckles can be used as weapons or to pick
locks. Florida Rep. Ted Deutch, who questioned
Lynch about the federal government’s role in monitoring prisoner
transportation companies, called PTS’s efforts encouraging but said he plans
to continue advocating for oversight of the industry. “We need to stay on
this and make sure things are carried out effectively,” Deutch
said. “We’re going to share this information with Justice and hope that it
spurs action,” he added, noting that the department’s upcoming report will
allow him to “determine whether additional legislative action is necessary.”
Despite emphasizing the improvements, PTS officials defended their business
model. Sielbeck, who described himself as “a
self-avowed capitalist,” said there’s no clear alternative to for-profit
prisoner transport. “The government can do it different but very seldom does
the government do it better,” he said, referring to the U.S. Marshals and
local sheriffs. Asked about claims of abuse and neglect that have been made
by inmates, Sielbeck said, “The transported
community can take stories and embellish them.” Sielbeck
and Brasfield also pointed out that PTS is more compliant with federal
regulations than some of its mom-and-pop competitors, which use minivans not
covered by the same passenger carrier rules. They suggested they might even
advocate more scrutiny of the industry and demand that states put more safety
requirements in their contracts with these companies. But when pressed on
whether PTS would actually demand such higher standards, the officials said
they do not have a large budget for lobbying and would only share their ideas
about how to better regulate the industry if contacted by the government.
They added that they believed chances of that happening under the incoming
Trump administration are slim.
Oct 20, 2016
motherjones.com
Private Prison
Company Bankrolls Pro-Trump Super-PAC
It's unusual for a
publicly traded corporation to donate to a super-PAC, but in August, private
prison company GEO Group steered $150,000 to Rebuild America Now, a
pro-Donald Trump outfit launched by the GOP nominee's longtime friend,
developer Tom Barrack. The timing of the GEO Group's contribution is
significant. It cut a $100,000 check to the super-PAC on August 19, the day
after the Justice Department announced that it would phase out the use of
private prisons. (The company's political action committee donated $50,000 to
Rebuild America Now a week before the announcement.) The
multibillion-dollar-a-year private prison industry has been under increasing
scrutiny, in part thanks to a groundbreaking investigation by Mother Jones
that revealed a litany of disturbing practices at a Louisiana prison run by
the Corrections Corporation of America. GEO Group is one of just three
companies that operate prisons and detention centers on behalf of the federal
government. It's no surprise the company is putting its money behind Trump.
While Hillary Clinton has sharply criticized private prisons, Trump has
expressed support for expanding their use, and his policy proposals,
including his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, could be a
boon for the industry. In addition to backing Trump, the company recently
brought on three lobbying firms to represent its interests in Washington. Trump
was not the GEO Group's top choice for president. During the Republican
primary campaign, the GEO Group gave $100,000 to a super-PAC backing Sen.
Marco Rubio of Florida. The company's CEO, George Zoley,
also donated to Rubio's presidential campaign. A spokesman for the GEO Group
did not respond to a request for comment.
Oct 14, 2016 washingtonpost.com
Private prison industry fights Justice Department directive to end the use
of contract facilities
The private prison industry is lobbying against a Justice Department
directive to end the use of their facilities, encouraging legislators to
question the policy change and legally protesting one significant contract
reduction. The moves by the GEO Group and others demonstrate the practical
and political hurdles that stand in the way of the Bureau of Prisons actually
ending its use of for-profit facilities to manage federal inmates. The
private prison industry claims that the decision to do so was based on faulty
research and that officials need contractors because of overcrowding in the
federal prison system. “We think the private sector facilities did very well,
that they were comparably secure, and in some important respects, they were
better,” said George Zoley, chairman and chief
executive of the GEO Group, which operates six facilities. The private prison
industry, which generates billions of dollars in revenue, has become a
powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill, and officials say they have tried
since the Justice Department announcement to rally legislators to their side.
Last month, six Republican representatives from Texas, California and Georgia
sent a letter asking the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons to
“step back” from the directive until they provided Congress with more
information. “We are concerned that the DOJ’s instructions put politics ahead
of policy when it comes to maintaining flexibility in our prison system,
encouraging vital criminal alien law enforcement and providing the best value
for our taxpayers,” the lawmakers wrote. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chair
of the House Oversight Committee, wrote in a separate missive with two other
Republicans that the Justice Department’s plan would “undermine the
effectiveness of the system’s rehabilitation programs.” The directive by Deputy
Attorney General Sally Q. Yates in August that said the Bureau of Prisons
should end its use of private facilities was greeted with widespread praise
by advocates who have long been calling for the end of for-profit
incarceration. Its effect, though, was limited to the 13 privately run
facilities, housing a little more than 22,000 inmates, in the federal Bureau
of Prisons system. Officials said it was unclear precisely how soon the
contract prisons could be phased out. One of those 13 prisons in New Mexico
has since had its inmates moved out, and the population in the rest stood
just above 21,600 on Friday, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said in a statement that Yates’s
directive was “in effect and the Bureau of Prisons is committed to
implementing it.” “Since August, the overall prison population has continued
to decline and the Bureau continues to modify its contracts to reflect the
reduced need for bed space in private facilities,” Iverson said. “As private
prison contracts come up for renewal in the coming months and years, BOP will
be terminating or renegotiating those contracts consistent with the
continuing decline in the overall prison population.” Yates has not minced
words in criticizing the privately run facilities. “They simply do not
provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources;
they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by
the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same
level of safety and security,” she wrote in her directive. That report found,
among a litany of problems, private facilities had higher rates of assaults —
both by inmates on other inmates and by inmates on staff — and had eight
times as many contraband cellphones confiscated each year on average than
government prisons. A cornerstone of Yates’s memo was the revelation that the
Bureau of Prisons would amend a solicitation for a 10,800-bed contract to one
for a maximum 3,600-bed contract. That, Yates wrote, would allow the Bureau
of Prisons over the next year to discontinue housing inmates in at least
three private prisons, and by May 1, 2017, the total private prison
population would stand at less than 14,200 inmates. The GEO Group initially tried
to compete for that modified contract, but earlier this month, it lodged a
formal protest with the Government Accountability Office. The company argued
that the reduced request was an “improper and illogical change” that did not
take into account what the Bureau of Prisons actually needs, given its
problems with overcrowding. It asked the Government Accountability Office to
recommend that the Bureau of Prisons issue a new solicitation for the 10,800
beds initially sought. “We believe the need is still there, because the
Bureau of Prisons is still overcrowded, and these communities have extended
themselves financially,” Zoley said. The GEO Group
is one of three companies that operate private facilities for the Bureau of
Prisons. The others are Corrections Corporation of America and Management and
Training Corporation. Issa Arnita, a spokesman for Management and Training
Corporation, said while the company had not lodged formal protests, it
believed “phasing out the use of contractors will result in greater
overcrowding in public BOP facilities and an increased cost to the BOP and
ultimately taxpayers.” Jonathan Burns, a Corrections Corporation of America
spokesman, said that company was “aware of and monitoring the issue.” The
private industry already had criticized the inspector general’s report for
what it said was an unfair comparison to public facilities, which hold an
eclectic mix of inmates, to private ones, which hold predominantly “criminal
aliens.” The report acknowledged that investigators did not “know the extent
to which demographic factors” might have played a role in contributing to
some problems, and it said investigators were “unable to compare the overall
costs of incarceration between BOP institutions and contract prisons in part
because of the different nature of the inmate populations and programs
offered in those facilities.” But the inspector general’s report was not the
first public critique of private facilities, and some problems, such as
concerns over medical care, seem to have little to do with inmate population.
Justin Long, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman, said the bureau supported the
deputy attorney general’s directive and believed it could be practically
implemented over time. That is largely because of declining inmate populations.
In fiscal 2016, the bureau saw a population decline of more than 13,500
inmates and sits now at 191,965 — 205 fewer than the year before. Young said
the decline in population has led to a reduction in overall crowding, from 40
percent to 15 percent, as of Oct. 6. He said officials believed the inmate
population would shrink further in 2017. The vast majority of those
incarcerated in the United States are housed in state prisons — rather than
federal ones — and Yates’s memo does not apply to any of those, even the ones
that are privately run. Nor does it apply to Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service detainees, who are technically in the
federal system but not under the purview of the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Advocates have said, though, that it could serve as a catalyst for broader
reform.
Oct 14, 2016 benzinga.com
The 2016 Economics Nobel Prize Winner's Case Against Private Prisons:
Contracts Are The Key
Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström were the two winners
of this year’s Nobel Prize for economics for their “contribution to contract
theory” in the '70s and '80s. Hart, now based at Harvard University, has been
a long-time critic of the private prison system. Twenty years ago, he wrote a
paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research where he suggested that
privatization of prisons created pressure to cut costs and increase profits,
and this translated into under-trained, under-paid, overly-violent guards.
Two decades later, the U.S. Justice Department finally arrived to a similar
conclusion and decided to phase out the use of private prisons, arguing that
these facilities were not run as safe, efficient or effective as
government-run prisons. But the extreme violence and poor living conditions
in these prisons is no coincidence, Hart contended. Taking a page or two from
his previous research, he claimed that the roots of the issue could be traced
to how the contracts between these private companies and the government were
structured. Interestingly, Hart and Holmström
research “has wide implications: Hart's conclusions about privatization, for
example, may extend beyond prisons to decisions about whether education and
even garbage collection should be public or private,” a recent Mic article
pointed out. Some companies that are very likely not big fans of Hart include
private prisons operators The GEO Group Inc
Oct 5, 2016 houstonchronicle.com
Company challenges fed decision to phase out private prisons
One of the nation's largest corrections companies is challenging the
Department of Justice's decision to phase out the use of 14 private prisons
nationwide, saying the department acted "illogically" and
illegally. Florida-based GEO Group, which operates two of the five facilities
facing possible closure in Texas, launched the attack this week in what it
says is the nation's first legal challenge to the recent decision out of
Washington. The official protest, a primary step toward a lawsuit, could
freeze any changes in the procurement process until an administrative judge
can consider the issue, including questions about how private prisons measure
up to those run by the government. Six congressman, including three from
Texas, have entered the fray, asking the Department of Justice and its Bureau
of Prisons to explain the decision to stop using the private prisons, which
primarily hold foreign-born people who have nine years or less left on their
sentences and face deportation upon release. "We are concerned that the
Department of Justice's instructions put politics ahead of policy when it
comes to maintaining flexibility in our prison system," states a recent
letter signed by each of lawmakers, all Republicans. They also questioned the
impact the directive will have on the local communities they represent. Texas
officials say thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in government
contracts could be in jeopardy. "In many of these areas, the contract
prison is one of the largest employers and citizens have few other job
opportunities," states the letter. The Department of Justice did not
respond Tuesday to a request for comment. Three companies - the GEO Group,
Corrections Corporation of America and the Management and Training
Corporation - run private prisons nationwide on behalf of the Department of
Justice. They also have contracts with Homeland Security and other entities.
The five facilities in Texas are centered in West Texas. They include two
side-by-side facilities at the Reeves County Detention Complex in Pecos, west
of Midland; the Big Spring Correctional Facility in Howard County; Eden
Detention Center in Concho County; and the Giles W. Dalby Correctional
Facility in Garza County near Lubbock. The justice department recently
directed the Bureau of Prisons to cut its business with private corporations as
contracts expire over the next five years. Groups including the American
Civil Liberties Union have long questioned the use of for-profit corporations
to house prisoners, and have praised the recent decision. The federal
government has used private prisons since 1997 to relieve crowding, but a
recent Office of Inspector General review noted an array of problems in the
privately run facilities, including what it contends is an abuse of solitary
confinement and more fights and contraband seizures than in facilities run by
government. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates sent a memo to the Bureau of
Prisons in August that announced the about-face. "Private prisons served
an important role during a difficult period, but time has shown that they
compare poorly to our own bureau facilities," Yates said. Private
facilities don't save substantially on costs, don't provide the same level of
safety and security and are lacking when it comes to educational and job
training programs that reduce the likelihood of a person returning to prison,
she continued. GEO Group, which has 20,500 employees globally and operates
facilities in Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, as well as
facilities abroad, challenges any contention that privately run facilities
perform poorly or cost more than government-run facilities. GEO contends that
even the government's own OIG report concluded that private prisons had fewer
problems than those of the government when it comes to inmate fights,
suicides, sexual misconduct by staff, overall grievances and a host of other
areas. At a minimum, the company says that Yates and other officials must
follow certain procedures when it comes to altering the government contracts
procurement process. Amber Martin, an executive vice president for the GEO
Group, said in the protest filed this week in Washington that in late August
– just two weeks after the Department of Justice announcement – her company's
operation in Georgia was given a "superior" rating by the Bureau of
Prisons and has also been paid a "multi-million-dollar" additional
payment for its performance, including quality of service and lack of
contractual violations. U.S. Rep Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, who was among
those who signed the letter, said he wants to see what specific data was used
in deciding that the federal government should step away from two prisons in
his district. He said he's also concerned about jobs. "From the
perspective of the local communities, the Dalby prison is the largest
employer in Garza County, and the prison in Big Spring has nearly 500
employees," he said. "The local governments also receive tax and
other revenue from the prisons, so a reduction in these contracts will impact
the economy of a largely rural area with few other large employers."
Texas Congressmen Will Hurd, R-Helotes, and K. Michael Conaway, R-Midland,
also signed the letter, along with Congressmen Austin Scott and Earl L.
"Buddy" Carter, both of Georgia, and Kevin McCarthy, of California.
Howard County Judge Kathryn Wiseman said losing the Big Spring prison would
"greatly affect" her county. Commissioners recently passed a
resolution challenging the legality of the Department of Justice decision.
"It would be a double hit," she said of a closure, noting that the
county is already facing trouble from declining mineral values. "Almost
500 jobs, that is a big hit for a small community."
Oct 4, 2016
chicagotribune.com
Municipal prison bonds turn to junk as inmate population falls
The privately run prison in Walnut Grove, Mississippi, was besieged for
years by violence and legal fights over deplorable conditions. Then last
month, with local sentencing reforms keeping fewer behind bars, officials
shut it down, leaving the state on the hook for $121 million of debt left
behind. "The taxpayers are paying for that building and it's just
sitting there," said Chip Jones, an alderman for the 1,600-person town
about 63 miles (101 kilometers) east of Jackson, the state capital. The
closing is part of a shift taking place nationwide among states and local
governments that have sold $30 billion of bonds to build prisons and jails,
some of which were leased to for-profit operators. With officials
re-evaluating tough-on-crime laws that caused inmate populations to soar and
the federal government moving to jettison its use of private prisons, the
reduced need for such facilities is rippling through a niche of the $3.8
trillion municipal-securities market. On Friday, a Texas prison that serves
as a U.S. detention center had its credit rating cut to junk by S&P Global Ratings, joining half a dozen others
that were downgraded below investment grade by the company since federal
officials in August announced plans to phase out for-profit facilities. About
$300 million of tax-exempt debt issued for almost two dozen prisons has
already defaulted, and investors are demanding higher yields on other
securities amid speculation the distress will spread. "At any point
there are only so many prisoners out there to fill the private prison
beds," said Matt Fabian, managing director for Municipal Market
Analytics Inc. "It creates unequal distribution and you have prisons
competing against one another." The number of Americans behind bars has
been on a steady decline. After peaking at 1.62 million in 2009, the state
and federal prison population dropped over the next five years, reducing it
by 54,000, or 3 percent, by 2014, the most recent year for which figures are
available, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. It's not
certain that such reductions will continue, said Daniel Hanson, an analyst
who follows the municipal-bond market for Height Securities in Washington.
Even with the decrease, some federal prisons are still over capacity and
states may already have done much of what they can to keep non-violent offenders
out of their penal systems, he said. "The low hanging fruit of
criminal-justice reform is already done," said Hanson. At the federal
level, the impact is poised to trickle down. The Department of Justice on
Aug. 18 said it will cancel or scale back the scope of private prison
contracts after the number of federal inmates fell by about 25,000 over the
past three years. About two weeks later, the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, which houses immigration detainees in privately run facilities, said
it will review whether to curb their use too. Such a step would jeopardize
the repayment of local-government bonds issued for prisons, which are
typically repaid with revenue from leasing them instead of with taxpayer
money. Since August, S&P has lowered to
junk debt issued by, among others, the Washington Economic Development
Financing Authority, the Garza County Public Facility Corp. in Texas, and the
La Paz County Industrial Development Authority in Arizona. The prices of some
securities have tumbled, pushing up the yields as investors demand higher
compensation for the risk. The yield on bonds issued for the Reeves County
detention center in Pecos, Texas, which mature in 2021 and were among those
downgraded, rose to as much as 6.4 percent last month from 4.6 percent in
early August. Additional closures could spread the impact. In Florence,
Arizona, a 31,000-resident town southeast of Phoenix, the seven prisons --
four of which are privately-run -- are a major employer, said Jess Knudson,
town spokesman. One of them is an immigration facility that could be hit if
Homeland Security follows Justice's lead. "Our ability to influence that
decision doesn't exist," Knudson said. The Mississippi Department of
Corrections closed the Walnut Grove prison because of budget constraints and
the number of inmates, with the annual average population dropping by about
10.5 percent between fiscal 2011 and 2016, bond documents show. The decline
was driven in part by the passage of criminal-justice reform that gave judges
more discretion over sentencing, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts,
which partnered with a state task force to push the 2014 law. The measure is
projected to save the state $266 million over 10 years while also
"safely reducing" the number of inmates, the group said. With less
need for prison beds, Mississippi chose to shut down a facility that had a
troubled history under former operator Geo Group. After it was sued by
inmates, the Justice Department faulted it in 2012 for widespread staff
misconduct and deliberate indifference to the welfare of the young offenders
housed there. A federal judge said the description of life inside painted
"a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the
civilized world." Mississippi said it has been pleased with Management
and Training Corp., the for profit company that took over Geo Group after the
Justice Department investigation. The prison was closed last month and its
900 inmates were moved to other facilities. Mississippi still owes $121 million
of debt for Walnut Grove, which the department of corrections has an
"absolute and unconditional" obligation to pay off, according to
bond documents. There state is considering using the emptied prison for
another purpose. "Anything's better than nothing," said Jones, the
local alderman. "The taxpayers are paying for that building, and it's
just sitting there."
Sep 27, 2016 thedailybeast.com
Hillary Clinton’s Pitch to End Private Prisons Is the Surprise Hit of the
Presidential Debate
An issue that rarely—if ever—gets play during presidential elections
might give Hillary Clinton a surprising leg-up in Pennsylvania. That’s what
was indicated by feedback from a swing-voter focus group that Frank Luntz conducted during the debate. Attendees gave Clinton
sky-high feedback during the debate when she criticized private prisons, and
said afterwards that it’s an important issue in their state. And, of course,
that means the issue could help Clinton excite her supporters there and pick
up some votes. Twenty-seven people participated in the focus group (it would
have been 28, but Luntz kicked one guy out when he
said he planned to vote Trump), and Luntz’s team
tracked their responses to the debate as it progressed. A screen visible to
the handful of reporters observing the focus group showed when participants
felt positively or negatively about what the candidates said. The lines
tracked particularly high for Trump when he bashed the NAFTA trade deal and
promised to renegotiate trade agreements. His numbers dipped, and
dramatically, when he tried to explain his refusal to release his taxes and
his rationale for demanding Obama’s birth certificate. Clinton had her fair
share of ups and downs as well; the Democratic nominee’s favorability among
the completely undecided participants dipped when she went on a lengthy riff
about Trump’s birtherism, and nosed up when she
talked about her dad’s small business. But her numbers among completely
undecided voters went high and higher during her discussion of criminal
justice reform. When she pointed out that crime isn’t nearly as high as Trump
suggests and that the criminal justice system punishes African-American and
Hispanic men more harshly than white men, the favorability number kept going
up. And it went even higher when she praised the Department of Justice’s
announcement that it would phase out Bureau of Prisons contracts to stop
doing deals with private prison companies. And the number went up even more
when Clinton reiterated her position to end all federal contracts with the
for-profit corporations. After the debate wrapped up, focus group
participants explained why they liked Clinton’s answer on private prisons so
much: Over the last few years, a so-called “kids for cash” scandal has rocked
Pennsylvania. In 2011, a Pennsylvania judge got a 28-year sentence for
accepting bribes from a private prison company owner. The owner paid him to
send children to his prison, often violating their rights to have an
attorney. Because of the scandal, the AP reported, Pennsylvania’s state supreme
court tossed about four thousand sentences. The scandal impacted a massive
number of people; not just children wrongfully sentenced in violation of
their Constitutional rights, but also their families, friends, and, well,
anyone who reads the news in Pennsylvania. And even though the judge’s
sentencing was several years ago, the cash-for-kids scandal is still fresh in
the minds of swing voters. A number of Luntz’s
focus group attendees said Clinton’s opposition to private prisons made them
think more highly of her. And none saw it as a negative. Clinton didn’t focus
heavily on private prisons during the debate. But it might help her. Though
she has led Trump in every public poll of Pennsylvania voters since July, her
lead has contracted. The RealClearPolitics average gave her a 6.6-point lead
as recently as Sept. 22, but now shows her leading Trump by just 2.4 points.
And Trump’s backers hope that lead will vaporize over the next few weeks. If
he picks up the Keystone State’s 20 electoral votes, it will be tough for
Clinton to forge a path to the White House. But if Clinton keeps bashing the
companies that profit from mass incarceration, it may be a little tougher for
him to do that.
Sep 26, 2016 moodys.com
Cash flows to prison REITs less certain as use of private operators
questioned
New York, September 26, 2016 -- Cash flows from the Bureau of Prisons to
Moody's-rated prison real estate investment trusts (REITs) are less certain
following the announcement by the US Department of Justice that it will phase
out its use of privately operated prisons, the rating agency says in a new
report. Moody's downgraded the senior unsecured ratings of Corrections
Corporation of America and GEO Group, Inc., and revised their rating outlooks
to negative from stable, on August 19, the day after the announcement.
"Our recent rating actions reflect the substantial uncertainty
surrounding the ultimate effects of the Department of Justice's move to stop
using private prison operators," says Moody's analyst, Reed Valutas. "Private operators might as a result earn
less revenue from owning and actively managing prison facilities, which could
impact cash flows to prison REITs." The active management of prison
facilities by private companies is today a particularly contentious political
issue, with politicians, unions and reform advocates all weighing in, Valutas says in "Justice Department Plan to Phase
Out Use of Private Prisons Is Credit Negative for Prison REITs." As a
result, private prison operators could be eliminated altogether from
management of federal and, potentially, state prisons. Despite the
uncertainties surrounding the effects of the Justice Department's
announcement, private prisons remain a necessity. Currently, many of the
Bureau of Prisons' facilities are running at or above planned capacity and
are also nearing obsolescence. While contracts to privately operate US
prisons facilities are less assured as political pressures mount, the
industry could transform itself by selling or leasing, rather than operating,
some of its facilities, Moody's says. In addition, capacity constraints,
aging prison stock and budgetary concerns could all drive this trend.
Aug 30, 2016 qz.com
Private prison
companies in the US lost more than $2 billion in value—and counting
Earlier this
month, the US Department of Justice announced it would move away from using
private prison companies for federal inmates, citing inefficiency and
problems with safety and security. On Aug. 29, Jeh
Johnson, the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced
that the agency would also re-evaluate its cooperation with those companies,
which run immigration detention facilities, too. The first announcement sent
tumbling the stocks of the largest private prison companies, Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group. The latest news deepened their
losses. Together, the two companies have now lost more than $2.2 billion in
value—CCA $1.2 billion in market capitalization and the GEO Group $917
million. Since the DHS just started its evaluation process, more bad news for
the private prison companies is likely. Privately-run immigration detention
facilities are as notorious for their conditions as for-profit prisons.
Advocates have been exposing problems plaguing the facilities for years.
Aug 30, 2016 cnbc.com
Private prison stocks keep crumbling
Prison stocks slid again Tuesday, extending Monday's declines after the
federal government said it will examine its use of privately managed
immigration detention facilities. The two major publicly traded prison
stocks, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, declined more than
4 percent and more than 7 percent, respectively. With Tuesday's decline, both
stocks were on pace for a weekly loss of more than 8 percent and down more
than 40 percent for the month so far. Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson announced Monday that the
Homeland Security Advisory Council will create a subcommittee to "review
our current policy and practices concerning the use of private immigration
detention and evaluate whether this practice should be eliminated."
Representatives from both GEO Group and CCA told CNBC Monday that they
welcome the review. The announcement calls for the subcommittee to submit a
report by Nov. 30. The Department of Justice also recently announced that its
Bureau of Prisons will begin phasing out the use of private contractors for
federal prisons. After the DOJ's Aug. 18 announcement, private prison stocks
shed 50 percent of their value before bouncing back. Analysts called the
market reaction to that announcement excessive. Unlike the Department of
Justice, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not maintain any of its
own facilities.
Aug 18, 2016
washingtonpost.com
Justice Department says it will end use of private prisons
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates instructed Justice Department
officials Thursday to end its use of private prisons. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) The Justice Department plans to end its use of
private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe
and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the
government. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on
Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the
contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially
reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and
ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.” “They simply do
not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources;
they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by
the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same
level of safety and security,” Yates wrote. In an interview, Yates said there
are 13 privately run facilities in the Bureau of Prisons system, and they
will not close overnight. Yates said the Justice Department would not
terminate existing contracts but instead review those that come up for
renewal. She said all the contracts would come up for renewal over the next
five years. The Justice Department’s inspector general last week released a
critical report concluding that privately operated facilities incurred more
safety and security incidents than those run by the federal Bureau of
Prisons. The private facilities, for example, had higher rates of assaults —
both by inmates on other inmates and by inmates on staff — and had eight
times as many contraband cellphones confiscated each year on average,
according to the report. Disturbances in the facilities, the report said, led
in recent years to “extensive property damage, bodily injury, and the death
of a Correctional Officer.” The report listed several examples of mayhem at
private facilities, including a May 2012 riot at the Adams County
Correctional Center in Mississippi in which 20 people were injured and a
correctional officer killed. That incident, according to the report, involved
250 inmates who were upset about low-quality food and medical care. The
Post’s Matt Zapotosky explains why the Justice
Department announced Aug. 18 that it plans to stop contracting private
prisons across the country. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The
Washington Post) “The fact of the matter is that private prisons don’t
compare favorably to Bureau of Prisons facilities in terms of safety or
security or services, and now with the decline in the federal prison
population, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to do
something about that,” Yates said. The problems at private facilities were
hardly a secret, and Yates said Justice Department and Bureau of Prisons
officials had been talking for months about discontinuing their use. Mother
Jones recently published a 35,000-word exposé detailing a reporter’s
undercover work as a private prison guard in Louisiana — a piece that found
serious deficiencies. The Nation magazine wrote earlier this year about
deaths under questionable circumstances in privately operated facilities. It
is possible the directive could face resistance from those companies that will
be affected. In response to the inspector general’s report, the contractors
running the prisons noted that their inmate populations consist largely of
noncitizens, presenting them with challenges that government-run facilities
do not have. Scott Marquardt, president of Management and Training
Corporation, wrote that comparing Bureau of Prisons facilities to privately
operated ones was “comparing apples and oranges.” He generally disputed the
inspector general’s report. “Any casual reader would come to the conclusion
that contract prisons are not as safe as BOP prisons,” Marquardt wrote. “The
conclusion is wrong and is not supported by the work done by the [Office of
the Inspector General].” Yates, though, noted that the Bureau of Prisons was
“already taking steps” to make her order a reality. Three weeks ago, she
wrote, the bureau declined to renew a contract for 1,200 beds at the Cibola
County Correctional Center in New Mexico. According to a local TV station,
the county sheriff said the facility’s closure would have a negative impact
on the community. Yates wrote that the bureau also would amend a solicitation
for a 10,800-bed contract to one for a maximum 3,600-bed contract. That,
Yates wrote, would allow the Bureau of Prisons over the next year to discontinue
housing inmates in at least three private prisons, and by May 1, 2017, the
total private prison population would stand at less than 14,200 inmates. She
said it was “hard to know precisely” when all the privately run facilities
would no longer have federal inmates, though she noted that 14,200 was less
than half the inmates they held at their apex three years ago, a figure she
said indicated the department was “well on our way to ultimately eliminating
the use of private prisons entirely.” “We have to be realistic about the time
it will take, but that really depends on the continuing decline of the
federal prison population, and that’s really hard to accurately predict,”
Yates said. According to the inspector general’s report, private prisons
housed roughly 22,660 federal inmates as of December 2015. That represents
about 12 percent of the Bureau of Prisons total inmate population, according
to the report. In her memo, Yates wrote that the Bureau of Prisons began
contracting with privately run institutions about a decade ago in the wake of
exploding prison populations, and by 2013, as the federal prison population
reached its peak, nearly 30,000 inmates were housed in privately operated
facilities. But in 2013, Yates wrote, the prison population began to decline
because of efforts to adjust sentencing guidelines, sometimes retroactively,
and to change the way low-level drug offenders are charged. She said the drop
in federal inmates gave officials the opportunity to reevaluate the use of
private prisons. Yates wrote that private prisons “served an important role
during a difficult time period,” but they had proven less effective than
facilities run by the government. The contract prisons are operated by three
private corporations, according to the inspector general’s report:
Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and Management and Training
Corporation. The Bureau of Prisons spent $639 million on private prisons in
fiscal year 2014, according to the report. Yates said it was “really hard to
determine whether private prisons are less expensive” and whether their
closure would cause costs to go up, though she said officials did not
anticipate having to hire additional Bureau of Prisons staff. “Bottom line,
I’d also say, you get what you pay for,” Yates said.
Aug 14, 2016 theguardian.com
Private federal
prisons more dangerous, damning DoJ investigation
reveals
Privately operated
government prisons, which mostly detain migrants convicted of immigration
offenses, are drastically more unsafe and punitive than other prisons in the
federal system, a stinging investigation by the US Department of Justice’s
inspector general has found. Inmates at these 14 contract prisons, the only
centers in the federal prison system that are privately operated, were nine times
more likely to be placed on lockdown than inmates at other federal prisons
and were frequently subjected to arbitrary solitary confinement. In two of
the three contract prisons investigators routinely visited, new inmates were
automatically placed in solitary confinement as a way of combating
overcrowding, rather than for disciplinary issues. The review also found that
contract prison inmates were more likely to complain about medical care,
treatment by prison staff and about the quality of food. Contract prisons
almost exclusively incarcerate low-risk inmates convicted of immigration
offenses. These facilities house around 22,000 individuals, mostly deemed
“low risk”, at an annual cost of $600m. They are operated by three private
companies: Geo Group, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), and
Management and Training Corporation (MTC). Investigators determined that
these facilities were also more dangerous than others in the federal system.
For example, the report found that inmate on inmate assaults were 28% higher
in contract prisons, and confiscation of contraband mobile phones occurred
eight times more. At the Eden detention center in Texas, operated by CCA and
one of the three institutions routinely visited by investigators, the
inspector general found that staff failed to discipline inmates in over 50%
of disciplinary incidents. “This is the latest in a whole series of reports
and investigations that have found very serious issues with Bureau of Prisons
shadow systems of private prisons,” said Carl Takei, a staff attorney with
the ACLU’s national private prison project and one of the authors of the 2014
report Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped In Our Shadow Private
Prison System, which investigated contract prisons in Texas. “Federal officials
should be reconsidering their alliance on private prisons and developing
plans to begin cancelling these contracts, rather than continuing this
experiment.” Among the most stark of the ACLU’s 2014
findings was the severe medical understaffing and “extreme cost cutting” that
limited inmates access to healthcare. Elements of these findings are
replicated in the inspector general’s report, which identified serious flaws
in the oversight of medical care in a number of contract prisons. “In one
instance,” the report documents, “when an inmate had trouble breathing, the
contract prison medical staff told him to place a sick call, which would put
him on a list of inmates waiting to be seen by medical personnel instead of
being treated immediately. “However, after he died, the mortality reviews
showing this deficiency gave the onsite monitors no guidance on what steps to
take to require corrective action. As a result, contractor deficiencies went
uncorrected and corrective actions were delayed.” The inspector general
recommends that the US justice department should convene a “working group” to
probe the causes of the disparity in safety standards between contract
prisons and publicly operated facilities, and states that federal government
should strengthen oversight provisions across the board.
Federal Bureau of Prisons
August 30, 2012 Great Falls Tribune
Richard Flor, a former Miles City medical marijuana caregiver sentenced in April
to five years in federal prison on charges that he illegally maintained
drug-related premises, died in federal custody Wednesday. Flor, who suffered
from a lengthy list of serious medical conditions, died in a Las Vegas
hospital a day after suffering two heart attacks while awaiting transport to
a federal medical facility, according to his attorney, Brad Arndorfer of Billings. At Flor’s sentencing last April,
U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell recommended that he “be designated for
incarceration at a federal medical center” where Flor’s “numerous physical
and mental diseases and conditions can be evaluated and treated.” Arndorfer said that never happened, and instead Flor was
for months housed at the Crossroads Correctional Facility in Shelby until a week
ago, when U.S. marshals began the process of transporting him to an unknown
medical facility. Arndorfer said Flor was in Las
Vegas as a layover, but he did not know where his client was being taken.
“It’s incredible to me to take a man with dementia, failing kidneys, severe
diabetes and unable to care for himself and incarcerate him,” Arndorfer said Thursday. “He required nursing home care,
and as far as I can tell he didn’t receive any care while he was incarcerated
in Shelby. It doesn’t make any sense to me.” Crossroads spokesman Steven
Owen, citing privacy concerns, declined to comment on the specifics of Flor’s
medical conditions or any treatment he received while at the prison. “Our
dedicated, professional corrections and medical staff at Crossroads are
firmly committed to the health and safety of the inmates entrusted to our
care; we meet or exceed the rigorous and comprehensive standards of our
government partners, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Montana Department of
Corrections, as well as those of the independent American Correctional
Association,” Owen said in a written statement. Flor, along with his wife,
Sherry, and their son, Justin, ran a medical marijuana caregiver business out
of their home and from a Billings dispensary. Richard Flor was also a
co-owner of Montana Cannabis, one of the state’s largest medical marijuana
operations and a target in the March 2011 raids by federal agents on
marijuana providers across Montana. At the time of the raids, Montana law
allowed for the production of medical marijuana for use by patients with
approved medical conditions. The state’s medical marijuana industry was
booming after a top U.S. Justice Department official released a memo in 2009
indicating that the Obama administration would not prosecute people who were
in “clear and unambiguous compliance” with state medical marijuana laws.
However, federal law still considers marijuana a dangerous narcotic in the
same class as heroin or methamphetamine. Last month, Arndorfer
filed a motion requesting the court release Flor pending an appeal of his
sentence due to health concerns. Arndorfer’s brief
supporting the motion detailed how Flor suffered from severe osteoporosis and
on multiple occasions while in custody, Flor had fallen out of bed breaking
his ribs, his clavicle and his cervical bones as well as injuring vertebrae
in his spine. Flor also suffered from dementia, diabetes and kidney failure
among other ailments, Arndorfer said. “He is in
extreme pain and still is not being given round-the-clock care as is required
for someone with his medical and mental conditions,” Arndorfer
wrote in his brief to the court. “It is anticipated he will not long survive
general population incarceration.” In his Aug. 7 order denying the motion,
Lovell wrote that it was unfortunate the Flor had not yet been transferred to
an appropriate medical facility but that the concerns detailed in the motion
were “not factually or legally significant.” Lovell wrote that the federal
Bureau of Prisons could provide the necessary medical care and that recent
tests found kidney dialysis wasn’t needed, despite the fact that a year
earlier a VA health care provider discussed with Flor the possibility that he
might need dialysis in the future. Lovell wrote that “defendant has no such
present need.” In a statement released by his staff, Lovell said he was sorry
to learn of Flor’s death but that judicial ethics prevented him from
commenting further. Kristin Flor, 36, confirmed her 68-year-old father’s
death early Thursday. Kristin Flor said she was at her father’s bedside when
the decision was made to remove him from life support after he suffered a
serious heart attack, renal failure and kidney failure. Kristin Flor said her
father had complained to her regularly that his kidneys and back were hurting
him and that he wasn’t receiving proper medical treatment while incarcerated
in Shelby. “They didn’t give him any of the medical attention he needed, and
they never took him once to a medical doctor,” Kristin Flor said. “When he
broke his clavicle and shoulder blade it took him two days to get doctors to
look at it.” Arndorfer said he’s “more than
interested” in the possibility of filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Marshals
Service and the Bureau of Prisons for the alleged mistreatment of Flor. “He had
been complaining to his family and to me about kidney pain. They knew that
his VA doctors were considering putting him on dialysis prior to him being
placed in Shelby and they did nothing. They ran a blood test and said he was
fine,” Arndorfer said. “I don’t believe he was
giving any medical care at all at Shelby.” U.S. Marshals Service spokesman
Rod Ostermiller said Flor was not in the custody of
the U.S. Marshals Service at the time of his death and directed calls to the
agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. A call was not returned as of press
time. Arndorfer said his former client believed he
was following all state laws governing the production of marijuana at the
time federal agents raided his home and business. “These are good people who
were doing what they believed were good works,” Arndorfer
said. “ The political system is out of control with
the states saying it’s legal and the federal government is deciding who they
want to prosecute, when or if with no rhyme or reason.” Kristin Flor said he father
suffered what amounted to cruel and unusual punishment at the hands of the
federal justice system. “It’s a disgrace for a government and a country to
treat a man like this,” Flor said. “He never hurt anybody. Even the crimes
they claim he committed, they still are not to me great enough to justify all
the pain and suffering he went through.”
August 21, 2012 PR Web
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), America’s leader in partnership
corrections, is proud to announce that Kim White has joined the team as the
new managing director of Inmate Programs. With more than 30 years of industry
experience, White will bring fresh and innovative ideas to both the company
and the field of inmate rehabilitation and reentry programming. “Ms. White
has a strong passion for helping inmates build better lives and creating
programs that will contribute to their development,” said Harley G. Lappin,
CCA’s Chief Corrections Officer. “This passion will be reflected in her work
at CCA and we are excited to see her impact on the department.” White will be
overseeing CCA’s Inmate Programming department, which offers
recidivism-reducing programs and helps prepare inmates for a successful life
upon release. The department develops and offers a variety of rehabilitation
programs and resources across CCA's system of more than 60 correctional and
detention facilities nationwide. Programs address the unique needs of the
inmate population, including addictions treatment, education courses,
vocational trades and faith-based programs. White most recently served as
assistant director of the Human Resources Management Division for the Federal
Bureau of Prisons (BOP). She began her career as a correctional officer and
over the years has ascended the ranks including nearly seven years as a Regional
Director. Her interests in the corrections industry stems from a course she
completed in college on correctional institutions, which led to an internship
with the BOP. White also holds a degree from Kent State University and
completed Harvard University’s Executive Education Program for senior
managers in government.
March 12, 2012 Marketwatch
The Council of Prison Locals (CPL) of the American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE) today denounced a privatization plan by the Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA) that would weaken prison security, jeopardize
community safety and encourage states to take on additional debt. CCA Chief
Corrections Officer and former Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director
Harley Lappin recently sent a letter to officials in 48 states announcing
what the company is calling a "corrections investment initiative,"
in which CCA is offering to purchase and operate state prisons under the
following conditions: The facility to be sold must have at least 1,000 beds,
is filled to at least 90 percent capacity and the state agrees to pay CCA to
operate the facility for a minimum of 20 years. "This is yet another
example of a private prison company looking to bolster its bottom line with
no regard for safety or fiscal responsibility," said CPL President Dale Deshotel. "Instead of investing in privatization
with taxpayer funds, we should be investing in the correctional officers
currently tasked with securing the nation's federal prison system. We're
understaffed, underfunded and our inmate population is spiraling out of
control." AFGE, which joined a coalition headed by the American Civil
Liberties Union in asking state governors to oppose CCA's plan, has long
opposed the privatization of prisons. The union says federal prisons are
safer and more cost-effective than private prisons and maintains that private
prisons have a history of slashing operating costs through the reduction of
prisoner programs, reducing employee benefits and wages, and routinely
operating with low, dangerous staff-to-inmate ratios. "Federal
correctional officers are the most professional, highly-trained correctional
workforce in the world and uniquely equipped to handle the demands of prison
security and operation," AFGE National President John Gage said. "Taking
this responsibility out of their hands puts communities around the country in
grave danger." BOP correctional officers and other staff members inside
federal prisons are unarmed, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by inmates
with homemade weapons. For years, AFGE and CPL have fought not only for
additional staffing and funding at BOP but also for protective equipment such
as stab-resistant vests and pepper spray. The need for additional resources
can be seen with the countless violent outbreaks occurring at BOP facilities
across the country. A correctional officer can be responsible for supervising
as many as 150 inmates at once and is unarmed inside the facility. Low
staffing levels and a more aggressive inmate population have led to a spike
in violence - something AFGE says cannot continue.
March 7, 2012 USA Today
A private prison management company's proposal to buy government prison
facilities, criticized for requiring states to maintain high occupancy rates,
also is prompting debate about the firm's executive who circulated it. Harley
Lappin, the former director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, made the offer to
48 prison officials across the country in a January letter on behalf of
Corrections Corporation of America, less than a year after retiring from his
federal post. Civil rights advocates, a state lawmaker and the chief of the
federal prison employees union said Lappin's involvement with the firm's
offer, so soon after leaving his high-profile government post, raises ethical
concerns. "He's clearly using his connections (in the public prison
industry) and is now attempting to profit from it," said Texas state
Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, who has spoken against
high-incarceration rates. David Shapiro, staff attorney for the ACLU's National
Prison Project, said Lappin's role is "part of the continuing revolving
door" between government and private industry. "It is definitely a
concern," he said. Company spokesman Steve Owen said Lappin's
involvement as the firm's corrections director was "very
appropriate," and did not include solicitations of his former agency.
USA TODAY initially sought to speak with Lappin, but questions were referred
to firm's media relations office. Federal law prohibits designated senior
federal government executives from doing business with their former agencies
for at least a year after leaving their posts. Owen said Lappin's letter was
not sent to his former agency. And Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci
Billingsley said the agency has received no such proposal.
October 7, 2011 Forbes
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Harley Lappin (55) enjoyed a 25 year career
of distinguished service when he announced that May 7, 2011 would mark the
beginning of his retirement. He had been director for about 8 years. That
announcement also came at around the same time as a revelation that Lappin
had been arrested for driving under the influence near his home in Annapolis,
MD. According to numerous news sources, the BOP has stated that Lappin’s
resignation had nothing to do with the DUI event. Okay, we’ll give him that.
We all make mistakes, some worse than others, but for a man who made a career
of holding inmates accountable for their actions it must have been a serious
blow to Lappin and those that knew him. However, we live in a forgiving
society and, lucky for Lappin, some are more forgiving than others. In his
case, Corrections Corporation of America had an offer to not only forgive
Lappin for his lapse in judgement for driving drunk, but also to bring him
out of retirement. Less than a month after leaving the BOP, Corrections Corp
offered Lappin the role of Chief Correctional Officer (don’t see many of
those positions in corporate America….but maybe we should). Upon accepting
the job, Lappin said, “I look forward to continuing my career in corrections
with a reputable organization like CCA.” Nice touch. On May 25, 2005, while
Lappin was Director, the BOP awarded a $129 million contract to Corrections
Corp. for management of a low-security federal factility
in Youngstown, OH. In April 2009, again while Lappin was Director, the BOP
awarded Corrections Corp a contract to house criminal alien offenders at its
facility in Adams County, Mississippi. In fact, these are just a few of the
awarded contracts to Corrections Corp. from federal agencies, including the
BOP. According to 10-K (SEC Annual Filing for 2010), the federal government
accounts for 43% of the total revenue of the company. Business is booming in
the prison sector these days. According to Market Watch, activist investor Bill
Ackman made a good call on the prison industry back in October 2009 (before
the big insider cases) by saying about an investment in Corrections Corp
that, “It’s also a hedge against your hedge fund business, because as the SEC
ramps up….”, prompting laughter at the Value Investing Congress in New York
where he was speaking. He got that call right. Ackman’s real interest in
Corrections Corp was for a play on the real estate it owns….hey, he’s an
investor but it seems a little cold. However, many investors think it’s a
good call. I’m sure Ackman and many other investors in the publicly traded
Corrections Corp. (NYSE: CXW) are looking for a good return on their
investment. There are a lot of pressures to perform and earn a profit. My
hope is that Lappin will be the best Chief Corrections Officer that he can be
without having to call in any favors from his old friends he made at the BOP.
Like I said, I’m HOPING.
September 29, 2011 Los Angles Times
Arrests of federal prison guards soared nearly 90% over the last decade,
possibly because of poor hiring practices during a 25% increase in prison
growth, the Justice Department's inspector general reported. Misconduct
investigations doubled, and more than half of the offenses were committed
during the officers' first two years on the job. The inspector general
recommended that the Federal Bureau of Prisons improve its background
investigation of job applicants and find better ways to assess rookie
officers. But other factors have contributed to the problem, including private
prisons and increasing numbers of female prisoners and young offenders in
federal facilities, the inspector general found. The report did not specify
how many misconduct cases came out of private federal prisons, which have
increased their populations by 120% in the last decade, according to the
Justice Policy Institute, a Washington prison issues think tank.
"Private prisons aren't always held to the same standards as public
ones," said Joe Baumann, a corrections officer at the state California
Rehabilitation Center in Norco. "That's where so much of the stuff I
come across is from, the private contractors."
June 3, 2011 Mother Jones
Less than a month after retiring from his post as Director of the Federal
Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Harley G. Lappin has been hired to a top position at
the nation's largest private, for-profit prison contractor, Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA). In a move that has gone virtually unnoticed by
the press except on the business pages, Lappin, who had run the BOP since
2003, has been named CCA's Executive VP and Chief Corrections Officer.
According to a company press release, his responsibilities will include
"the oversight of facility operations, health services, inmate
rehabilitation programs, [and] purchasing." Lappin announced his
retirement in March, a few days before making public his arrest, the previous
month, on DUI charges in Maryland. In a memo apologizing to BOP employees,
Lappin admitted to a "lapse in my judgment...giving rise to potential
embarrassment to the agency," but he refused to acknowledge a direct
link between his arrest and his retirement. The announcement of his
appointment to a leadership position at CCA came just over three weeks after
his effective retirement date of May 7. Taking advantage of two concurrent
30-year trends--toward mass incarceration and toward privatization of
government services--CCA has grown to a $1.6 billion company that operates 66
facilities in 20 states, with approximately 90,000 beds. It has become
notorious for its poor treatment of prisoners, and for numerous preventable
injuries and deaths in its prisons and immigrant detention centers. About 40
percent of CCA's business comes from the federal government, including
Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Bureau of Prisons. As BOP
director, Lappin would have overseen government contracts with CCA worth tens
of millions of dollars. CCA spends approximately $1 million annually on
lobbying on the federal level alone. A press release from the invaluable
Private Corrections Working Group notes that Lappin's quick trip through the
government-to-industry revolving door is hardly unique in the Bureau of
Prisons' history: "Lappin joins another former BOP director already
employed with CCA, J. Michael Quinlan, who was hired by the company in 1993.
He retired as director of the BOP in 1992, several months after settling a
lawsuit that accused him of sexually harassing a male BOP employee. While
settling the suit, Quinlan denied allegations that he made sexual advances to
the employee in a hotel room." Advertise on MotherJones.com In addition,
there's the case of the recently appointed head of the U.S. Marshals Service,
Stacia Hylton, who until 2010 was the Federal
Detention Trustee. In between serving in these two high-ranking government
positions, Hylton worked as a consultant for the
GEO Group, the nation's second largest private prison contractor. During Hylton's tenure, the Office of the Federal Detention
Trustee gave several contracts to GEO; and the U.S. Marshals Service, like
ICE and the BOP, houses federal detainees in privately owned prisons,
including some run by GEO. "Federal ethics rules do not prohibit former
high-ranking employees such as Lappin and Hylton
from working for private companies, even when those companies contract with
the same federal agencies where those former officials were employed,"
the Private Corrections Working Group points out. "An Executive Order
issued by President Obama restricts appointees from taking official actions
that directly and substantially affect immediate former clients and
employers; however, that ethics rule was not applied to Hylton
and it has been waived for over two dozen other federal officials, according
to a report by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics."
June 1, 2011 Market Wire
CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) (NYSE:CXW - News), America's leader
in partnership corrections, announced that effective June 1, 2011, Harley G.
Lappin, 55, shall serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Corrections Officer
(CCO). In this role, Mr. Lappin will be responsible for the oversight of
facility operations, health services, inmate rehabilitation programs,
purchasing and TransCor, the Company's wholly-owned
transportation subsidiary. He succeeds Richard P. Seiter, who announced his
decision to step down as CCO earlier this year, effective May 31, 2011. Mr.
Lappin, as a career correctional administrator, previously served as the
Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) -- the nation's largest
correctional system, a position he held since 2003, prior to retirement in
May 2011. He served in a variety of roles with the Bureau of Prisons for more
than 25 years, beginning in 1985, including Regional Director, Warden of the
United States Penitentiary in Indiana, and Warden of the Federal Correctional
Institution in North Carolina, among other positions. As Director of the BOP,
Lappin had oversight and management responsibility for 116 federal prisons,
14 large, private contract facilities and more than 250 contracts for community
correction facilities, in total comprising more than 215,000 inmates managed
by 38,000 employees, with a $6.4 billion budget.
September 2, 2010 Press Release
A federal judge today rebuked the federal Bureau of Prisons’ refusal to
disclose basic information about immigrant detention centers operated by
private contractors. The ruling arose in a lawsuit brought by recent law
school graduate Stephen Raher, who had requested
documents from the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) in 2008 pursuant to the Freedom
of Information Act (“FOIA”). The documents, which Raher
requested as part of a law school research project, pertain to a series of
contracts that BOP has issued for privately-operated immigrant detention
facilities. BOP has refused to release the documents, which specify the work
private prison companies must perform and how much the government pays them
in return, citing FOIA’s protections for confidential business information.
In response to the BOP’s argument that it could not disclose how much it pays
the private prison companies, the court concluded that BOP’s “categorical and
conclusory assertions do not provide the particularized explanation necessary
to show that disclosure of a specific document or part of a document would
damage the interest in private competition protected by” FOIA’s commercial
information provision. During the course of the lawsuit, BOP has advanced
many arguments justifying its protection of contractor secrecy. The court
rejected most of the arguments, repeatedly calling the government’s
allegations conclusory and unsupported by the evidence. In response to the
BOP’s claims that some documents contained sensitive security information,
the court agreed that FOIA does protect bona fide security details, but noted
that BOP’s “conclusory statements that a security risk exists categorically
for all information related to staffing, computers, security, and operations
does not provide the specificity needed to satisfy the agency’s burden of
proof under FOIA.” Today’s ruling by Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart gives
the BOP 60 days to provide precise descriptions of the documents and legal
justifications for withholding them. “The case is far from over, but this
ruling is important,” said Raher, who graduated
from Lewis & Clark Law School in May 2009. “Immigrant detention is a
lucrative business that negatively impacts thousands of families, but for too
long BOP has refused to release basic information on the companies that
profit from our nation’s disruptive immigration policy. Today’s ruling
reiterates that the government cannot withhold information simply because
private contractors would rather not be exposed to public scrutiny.”
January 20, 2003
Four former inmates of a
halfway house operated by a private company under contract to the Federal
Bureau of Prisons brought this action to recover for injuries after being
sexually abused by a company employee.
Background: In 1998, Susan Scainetti, Yvette
Adorno, Stephanie Womble and Rosemarie Johnson were federal inmates at a
community corrections facility In New York City, Le Marquis Community
Correctional Center. The facility is
owned, operated and maintained by Correctional Services Corporation, under
contract with the BOP. Between Nov. 6
and Dec. 28, 1998, Miguel Carriera, an inmate
counselor And CSC employee, allegedly lured the individual inmates
individually into his office and sexually assaulted them. The assaults were
facilitated by the fact that Carriera's office was
at the end of a hallway and was isolated by double doors though which no
sound could be heard. Within two years
after the alleged sexual assaults, the inmates filed claims with
the BOP for damages. When no settlement was offered, Scainetti
filed suit, and CSC moved to dismiss.
Company representatives said the claim was time-barred. Ruling: On its
face, the three-year statue of limitations barred Scainetti's claims, since her complaint was filed three
years and three days after the date of the alleged assault. However, after filing her complaint, Scainetti received BOP records under a Freedom of
Information request that showed she originally complained about The incidents
on Dec. 30, 1998. Scainetti had told investigators
that Carriera had made numerous sexual advances
toward her and others over a period several months. She said the sexual
assaults occurred on at least four occasions, "from
sometime in October through December 1998." Since the alleged assaults continued
through December 1998, at least some - if not all - of the assaults were
within the statute of limitations, the court said. The CSC's motion to dismiss was
denied. Scainetti,
et al., v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, et al., No. Civ. 9970(SHS) (S.D.N.Y.
12/18/02). (Corrections Professional)
January 23, 2003
At a time when tight budgets have forced many states to consider the early
release of hundreds of inmates to cut costs, the federal prison system is
bursting at the seams and ranks as the largest in the nation. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reported a
population of nearly 165,000 this month, making the system larger than
perennial prison giants California and Texas. (Related story: Drugs getting
into federal prisons too easily) At least part of the increase, officials
say, is because of a growing pool of non-citizen offenders who represent
nearly one-third of the federal inmate population. The majority have been convicted of
drug-related crimes, and their numbers jumped from 22% in 1998 to 28% in
2002. (USA Today)
December 26, 2002
FORMER INMATES of a community confinement center operated by a private company
under contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons brought this action to
recover his injuries they suffered when allegedly sexually abused by an
employee of that company. The court rejected defendant Correctional
Services Corp.'s motion to dismiss, holding that a corporation that runs a
correctional center for the federal government cannot invoke the government
contractor defense. The court noted that the Second Circuit found that
the defense "only shields a government contractor from claims arising
out of its actions where the government has exercised its discretion and
judgment in approving precise specifications to which the contractor must
adhere." The instant court added that a contractor can still be
found liable where it exceeded authority given it by the federal government,
or "where the federal government's authority was not validly
conferred." (New York Law Journal)
Federal Elections Commission
Sep 29, 2017 courthousenews.com
FEC Fines Hillary Clinton PAC Contributor $34,000
WASHINGTON (CN) — The Federal Election Commission on Thursday fined
Suffolk Construction Co. of Massachusetts $34,000 for making two $100,000
contributions to a Hillary Clinton-affiliated super PAC in 2015, in violation
of a ban on federal contractors making political contributions. The Campaign
Legal Center and Democracy 21 sued the construction company in 2016. The
Washington, D.C.-based groups said Thursday they believe this is the first
time the FEC has fined a federal contractor for making a contribution to a super
PAC. “Hopefully this decision by the FEC deters companies with business
before the government from attempting to buy influence in the future,”
Democracy 21 general counsel Donald Simon said in a statement. “We look
forward to the FEC taking action on our outstanding complaint against GEO
Group for violating the contractor contribution ban with its contribution to
a pro-Trump super PAC.” That complaint claims that GEO Group, one of the
country largest operators of private prisons, contributed $225,000 to the
Trump-affiliated super PAC Rebuilding America Now.
Dec 14, 2016 thedailybeast.com
Did Private Prison Contractor Illegally Boost Trump?
In the final days of the presidential campaign, a pro-Trump super PAC may
have taken illegal contributions from a private prison company that stood to
profit handsomely off a Trump win. That’s the argument that the Campaign
Legal Center, a nonpartisan campaign watchdog group, is making about
contributions that a subsidiary of the GEO Group private prison company made to
the Rebuilding America Now super PAC. Federal Election Commission filings
released last week showed the group took $125,000 from the company on Nov. 1
of this year. It is illegal for federal contractors to make campaign
contributions, both to campaigns themselves and to outside super PACs. GEO
Group, one of America’s largest prison companies, contracts with the federal
government to house prisoners, as well as state governments and governments
in Australia, the U.K., and South Africa, according to their annual filings
with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Their business would have
suffered if Hillary Clinton had become president; she promised on the stump
that she would end government contracts with companies like GEO, while Trump
praised the privatization of the prison industry. GEO was one of the
companies to see the biggest stock-price jump after Trump won the presidency
on Nov. 8. So it’s understandable that in people affiliated with the company
would have wanted to help Trump. GEO Group defends the contributions to
Rebuilding America Now, arguing they were made through a company subsidiary
that doesn’t contract with the federal government. “The donation was fully
compliant with all applicable federal election laws; although GEO Corrections
Holdings Inc., the company that made the donation, is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the GEO Group, it is a non-contracting legal entity and has no
contracts with any governmental agency,” said GEO spokesperson Pablo Paez in a statement to The Daily Beast. The Campaign
Legal Center doesn’t buy it. Brendan Fischer, associate counsel for the
group, argues that GEO Correction Holdings, Inc. actually does contract with
the federal government. He points to a filing the subsidiary made with the
National Labor Relations Board in 2013 as evidence of this. That filing, from
a case closed on Dec. 3, 2013, names GEO Corrections Holdings Inc. as the
employer, and refers to it throughout as GEO. “GEO is a large operator of
prisons and other correctional facilities,” the brief says, adding that it
“has contracts with several state and federal agencies” including the Bureau
of Prisons and Department of Homeland Security. At issue in that suit was the
contract for the D. Ray James Detention Facility in Georgia. On Sept. 30 of
this year, GEO Group announced that the federal government extended its
contract with the company for operating that particular prison. Also,
USASpending.gov, the site that lists federal government contracts, has a page
showing that Geo Corrections Holdings Inc. received a $266,666 grant from the
federal government on Feb. 1, 2015. GEO told The Daily Beast that the NLRB
filing was an error. “The D. Ray James facility’s federal contract has never
been with GEO Corrections Holdings; nor have any of our contracts,” said Paez in a statement. That statement described GEO
Corrections Holdings this way: “The entity houses all of our administrative
functions and as a holding company it has no operations. GEO Corrections
Holdings employs all of our corporate employees. GEO Corrections Holdings
does not employ any of our facility employees.” The Campaign Legal Center
argues that this is a distinction without a difference, and that the federal
contractor ban should apply to the company’s subsidiary. “GEO Corrections
Holdings Inc. and its parent company are indistinguishable,” Fischer said.
We’ll see if the Federal Election Commission agrees.
Nov 2, 2016 lawnewz.com
Trump PAC Accused of Illegally Taking Money from Private Prison Company
The Campaign Legal Center, a non partisan
Washington D.C. based group, filed a complaint with the Federal Elections
Commission alleging that a pro-Donald Trump super PAC, Rebuilding America
Now, accepted a large donation from a private prison company, which does
business with the federal government. Government contractors have long been
prohibited from making political donations. According to the Campaign Legal
Center, GEO Corrections Holdings donated $100,000 to Rebuilding America Now
just one day after the Obama administration announced they would likely be
phasing out federal private prison contracts.
Trump has apparently come out supporting the industry. “I do think we
can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons,” Trump said during a June
interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. “It seems to work a lot better.”
“Contrary to these frivolous and baseless claims, this contribution was made
by Geo Correction Holdings, Inc., a non-contracting legal entity, and is
therefore fully compliant with all applicable federal election laws,” said
Pablo Paez, a GEO spokesperson. “It is obvious GEO
has a personal interest at stake this election,” said Brendan Fischer,
associate counsel of the Campaign Legal Center in a statement. “One day after
the Obama administration announced it would be ending GEO’s contracts, the
company spent $100,000 to support the one presidential candidate likely to
reinstate those contracts. It’s for this exact reason why we have the federal
contractor ban in place. Officials are supposed to make contracting decisions
based on what’s best for the public, not based on what’s best for their big
money backers.” Shortly after Obama made his announcement, Corrections Corp.
of America and GEO‘s stock both plunged more than 40 percent in midday
trading. Interestingly, the announcement does not affect state contracts, ICE
and U.S. Marshal contracts. We’ve reached to GEO Corrections and Rebuilding
America Now for comment. We will update accordingly.
Government Privatization
Apr 12, 2017 press@ccrjustice.org
Private Prison Corporations Fail to Prevent Release of Immigration
Detention Documents
NEW YORK - Last night, the two largest private prison corporations in the
U.S. suffered their third defeat in the courts over whether they could keep
the details of their government contracts secret. The full Second Circuit
Court of Appeals declined to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel
dismissing their appeal as they sought to block the release of government
documents about their immigration detention practices. In a case brought by
Detention Watch Network (DWN) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR),
a federal judge ruled in July that under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) the government must release details of its contracts with private
prison corporations. The government chose not to appeal, but the United
States’ two largest private prison corporations, the GEO Group and
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), recently rebranded as “CoreCivic,” intervened to stop the release and filed an
appeal of their own. The appellate panel dismissed that appeal in February.
“The court’s ruling is yet another victory against private prison
corporations who are fighting hard to avoid accountability,” said Mary Small,
Policy Director of Detention Watch Network. “It’s astounding that private prison
contractors thought they had the right to dictate the scope of government
secrecy. But the Second Circuit has shown that courts can still exercise
oversight over frivolous attempts to hide the profiteering schemes that
devastate immigrant communities and the American public. This victory is
especially important as we face a presidential administration committed to
mass privatization and a retrenchment in transparency in addition to
increasingly aggressive detention and deportation.” “The Second Circuit has
rightly ruled, again, that private contractors cannot be allowed to stand in
the shoes of government and make decisions about dissemination of government
information to the public,” said Jennifer-Brooke Condon of the Center for
Social Justice of the Seton Hall University School of Law, which co-counsels
the case with CCR. “CCA and GEO sought
to interfere with the balance Congress sought to strike between the public
and their elected representatives regarding the transparency appropriate in
our democracy.” “The court has rightly affirmed that private corporations
that take on public functions must be subject to public scrutiny,” said
Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Ghita Schwarz. “This
is an important decision at a time of increasing privatization and
increasingly abusive immigration practices: private detention does not mean
decreased transparency.” The Second Circuit’s decision lets stand the July
ruling by the district court, which
rejected arguments by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that the terms of government
contracts constitute corporate trade secrets that may be withheld from the
public. The court reasoned that the contract terms were not “confidential commercial
information” and that releasing them would not harm the competitive advantage
of the private prison companies. The court also ordered the release of
details about staffing levels of medical and social service personnel in
privately-run immigration detention facilities. Detention Watch Network and
the Center for Constitutional Rights filed the FOIA litigation to obtain
information about the workings of the detention bed quota, which requires the
funding of 34,000 immigration beds at any given time. DHS and ICE have
interpreted the quota as a requirement that at least 34,000 immigrations beds
must be filled at any given time. Critics say immigrants, including children
and families, have been rendered a source of profit for contractors. In June,
Detention Watch Network and the Center for Constitutional Rights released a
report, Banking on Detention 2016 Update, showing the extent to which ICE
grants financial benefits to private and public entities that detain
immigrants through government contracts requiring ICE to pay for guaranteed
minimums at detention facilities. The case is Detention Watch Network et al.
v. ICE et al. Read yesterday’s orders
from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals here and here. Detention Watch
Network (DWN) is a national coalition of organizations and individuals
working to expose and challenge the injustices of the United States’
immigration detention and deportation system and advocate for profound change
that promotes the rights and dignity of all persons. Founded in 1997 by immigrant
rights groups, DWN brings together advocates to unify strategy and build
partnerships on a local and national level to end immigration detention.
Jan 12, 2016 publicnewsservice.org
Report: For-Profit Prison Lobby Influences Immigrant Detention Policy
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Immigration is a hot-button topic among presidential
candidates campaigning in the Granite State, and a new report links lobbying
money to the proportion of immigrants being held in detention in for-profit
prisons. Arnie Alpert, co-director of the American Friends Service
Committee's Presidential Campaign Project, said the group's new report shows
that for-profit prison corporations, which invest millions in lobbying, also
end up housing nearly two-thirds of the immigrants currently in detention.
"We want to get for-profit prison companies out of the business of
lobbying and using their political influence in ways that are violations of
human rights," Alpert sid. He said his group
delivered copies of the report to a dozen presidential campaign offices or
representatives in New Hampshire and Iowa. Alpert said the group is calling
its effort the "Quota Caravan," because federal budget policy
requires 34,000 immigrants to be held in detention on a daily basis.
"More than 60 percent of those immigrants are being held in prisons that
are owned by for-profit corporations - which, not by coincidence at all,
happen to be companies that spend millions of dollars a year lobbying,"
he said. "It's a classic case of what we call 'governing under the influence,'
and we want it to stop." The Obama administration also needs to be held
to task, Alpert said, because on its watch, a for-profit company -
Corrections Corp. of America - received a record $300 million in earnings
from government contracts in 2013. "We're also calling on the Obama
administration to reverse its policy which has led to an increase in the
number of raids, increase in deportations of people - most of whom are
fleeing from situations of extreme violence and desperate policy in Central
America and Mexico," he said.
Jan 11, 2016 benzinga.com
Cannacord Sees Election Rhetoric Limiting
Prison REIT Upside
The GEO Group Inc shares are down 14 percent since October 12, while
shares of Corrections Corp Of America have lost 12 percent. Canaccord
Genuity's Ryan Meliker maintained a Buy rating for
GEO Group and a Hold rating for Corrections Corp. Election rhetoric
propagating the closure of the private prison industry would limit upside for
private prison REITs in the near term, Meliker
stated. With election rhetoric propagating a shutting down of the private
prison industry, the private prison REITs could face substantial headwinds in
the near term, which would limit upside to the stocks in the coming months,
analyst Ryan Meliker said. He added, “We believe
the anti-private prison presidential stance is largely a posturing move.” The
costs associated with this would be extremely high, and unlikely to be
approved by Congress. With the Congress unlikely to pass the inflated budget
and in view of the jurisdictional control, the actual exposure of the prison
REITs “is minimal at best,” Meliker wrote. The
current dividend yields are around 8-10 percent, which limits near-term
downside. The analyst believes that yield-oriented investors would support
the stocks at yields above 10 percent, given the steady cash flows and high
coverage levels. In the report Canaccord Genuity noted, “Additionally, we
don't expect the elimination of private prisons across the US or sentencing
reform to have negative cash flow implications and maintain our favorable
view on the industry’s fundamentals.” The companies have positive
fundamentals and heavily discounted valuations. Given these, patient
investors are likely to be “rewarded with material upside to the stocks over
time,” Meliker commented. The sentencing reform
would be less detrimental to GEO Group and Corrections Corp than is being
currently perceived, the analyst stated, citing the state prisoner capacity
and the portfolios of the two companies. The price target for GEO Group has
been reduced from $43 to $37, while that for Corrections Corp has been
lowered from $31 to $30.
March 4, 2011 Government Executive
Private security guards hired by the Social Security Administration to
protect its facilities spent their shifts watching television, engaged in
hour long phone conversations and chatting with their co-workers when they
should have been on patrol, according to a report released in early March by
the agency's inspector general. The report identified a multitude of
performance issues with the contractor, Paragon Systems Inc. of Chantilly,
Va., which SSA has paid roughly $71 million since 2008. In the most serious
instances, weapons and ammunition have gone temporarily missing and a guard
was seriously injured when a co-worker failed to properly operate a vehicle
barrier on an SSA loading dock. "Our audit work determined that Paragon
was not complying with certain terms of the contract," wrote SSA
Inspector General Patrick O'Carroll Jr. "We found guards were not
following post orders as stated in the contract, and supervisors were not
providing sufficient post inspection checks. There were excessive errors and
discrepancies on the forms used to track post hours worked and account for
firearms. These errors and discrepancies could indicate that posts were
unattended."
October 15, 2010 Bloomberg
Computer Sciences Corp., an information-technology company that relies on
government business for almost 40 percent of its revenue, won $4 billion in
U.S. contracts in fiscal 2009 after failing to pay more than 250 employees
the wages and benefits they were owed. Computer Sciences, based in the
Washington suburb of Falls Church, Virginia, topped a list of 15 companies
that received more than $6 billion in federal contracts despite records of
wage, health or safety violations, according to a report by the Government
Accountability Office. Tyson Foods Inc., the largest U.S. chicken processor;
Corrections Corp. of America, the nation’s biggest private operator of
prisons; and Wackenhut Services Inc., owned by U.K.- based security
contractor G4S Plc, are also among the contractors identified. The names of
the companies, not revealed in the public report released Oct. 1, were
provided by Representative Robert Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat who
criticized the awarding of contracts to companies that didn’t meet required
standards. “If a company has a pattern of violations, at the very least, it
should raise greater scrutiny before they get government contracts,” Andrews,
chairman of the panel that requested the investigation, said in a telephone
interview. “There doesn’t seem to be much incentive to follow the laws
because you can still get a contract anyway.” The report by the GAO, the
investigative arm of Congress, covered a sample of contracts in the fiscal
year that ended on Sept. 30, 2009. ‘Work to Do’ -- Computer Sciences, which
was awarded the $4 billion from the Defense Department and NASA, was assessed
$1.6 million in back pay by the Labor Department covering a five-year period.
Tyson, with more than $500 million in Defense, Agriculture and Justice
department contracts, was cited for more than 100 health and safety
violations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the GAO
said. Wackenhut, which received $200 million in security contracts with the
Defense, Agriculture and Homeland Security departments and NASA, violated
fair-labor laws, according to Labor Department data cited by the GAO. “Some
companies that continue to receive lucrative government contracts not only
pay rock-bottom wages, but have long histories of labor and workplace safety
violations,” Representative Patrick Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat who joined
in requesting the GAO report, said in an e-mailed statement. “We have a lot
of work to do to ensure that the federal contracting process encourages safe
and good-paying jobs.” Workers Misclassified -- In addition to the pay
violations, Computer Sciences didn’t provide protections against cave-ins for
employees working in a trench more than 10 feet (3 meters) deep, according to
a 2006 inspection by the occupational safety agency cited by the GAO. Chris
Grandis, a company spokesman, said Computer Sciences paid the back wages to
employees assigned to a U.S. immigration office in Vermont in 2009, after the
Labor Department found they had been misclassified as contract workers
entitled to less compensation. The company also received a minor citation
from the occupational safety agency and agreed to pay a small fine, he said.
Computer Sciences, a government contractor since 1961, received 37 percent of
its $16.1 billion in revenue from federal contracts in the fiscal year ended
April 2, according to a regulatory filing. Army, Immigration -- It ranked
12th in U.S. government contracts in fiscal 2009, the year studied by the
GAO, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Its biggest federal contract
that year was with the U.S. Army to provide engineering and logistics support
for the Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command. Computer
Sciences also has a contract with the Homeland Security Department for a
processing system used in applications for immigration benefits and services.
The company said on Oct. 4 that it was one of four firms that will share in a
$2.8 billion contract by the Social Security Administration for consulting
and information technology services. Tyson has received more than 100 U.S.
health and safety citations, including for an incident in which a worker died
after being asphyxiated in a pit of wastewater debris, according to the GAO
report. Last year, Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson won $500 million in
federal contracts, the GAO’s report showed. Gary Mickelson, a Tyson spokesman,
said the company seeks to comply with federal regulations and the report
doesn’t give “the full context of the issues involved, nor does it report the
measures our company takes to operate responsibly.” Corrections Corp. --
Corrections Corp., based in Nashville, Tennessee, was cited for five safety
violations since 2005 and for failing to follow labor laws when firing an
employee for union participation, according to the GAO. Last year, it was
awarded $800 million in contracts, the agency said. Steve Owen, a Corrections
Corp. spokesman, said the U.S. contracts are subject to oversight and
accountability. He declined to comment on safety and labor violations cited
in the GAO report. Wackenhut, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, received
$200 million in contracts, the GAO said. From 2005 through 2009, the Labor
Department said the company owed $4.4 million in back wages to more than
2,100 employees, and OSHA cited the company for seven cases of health and
safety violations, resulting in $9,000 in fines. The company agreed this year
to pay $290,000 in back pay and interest to 446 rejected black job
applicants. Susan Pitcher, a Wackenhut spokeswoman, said the company had no
response to the report. Violations by other federal contractors included
hiring undocumented workers, failing to meet environmental standards and
fraudulently billing Medicare or Medicaid, according to the report.
June 8, 2010 Federal Times
One of the most heated debates over which government tasks can be
outsourced and which should be done only by federal employees is centering on
security jobs. The government employs thousands of contractors who perform
security tasks: security guards at federal buildings, personal bodyguards for
federal officials working in combat zones, and guards at federal detention
facilities. But that could change later this year, depending on how the
government decides to define "inherently governmental" work.
Thousands of citizens and numerous industry groups have weighed in with
public comments after the Office of Management and Budget announced March 31
it will clarify later this year which jobs cannot be done by contractors.
Public comments are available online at www.regulations.gov. The National
Association of Security Companies — whose members include Wackenhut, DSI
Security and other companies providing contracted security at federal,
commercial and other government buildings — said it may make sense to
insource combat-related security services, but not building security
services. "For the sake of performance and cost, federal agencies must
proceed cautiously with their insourcing efforts, especially in function
areas such as ‘security' and ‘guard services' that, for the most part, cannot
be considered critical," the trade group said. OMB specifically asked for
comments on the types of security services that could be considered
inherently governmental, closely associated with inherently governmental work
or critical to the agency's mission. Existing regulations already exclude
building security functions, such as those performed by Federal Protective
Service contract guards, from the list of jobs that should be considered
inherently governmental. But the Homeland Security Department already is
reviewing whether to bring some or all of those FPS contract guards in house,
following scathing reports of security lapses. And the Obama administration's
insourcing initiative could pave the way for additional contracted security
functions to be declared off limits to contractors. More than 4,900 people
submitted a form letter urging the administration to expand the types of
security services that must be performed by federal employees. The letter,
circulated by the petition website CredoMobile.com, says the list of
inherently governmental jobs should include physical security guards, prison
and detention center security teams, security activities currently contracted
out to private military contractors such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and "any security operations that reasonably require the use of deadly
force."
October 4, 2007 Government Executive
The former owner of a Maryland security firm pleaded guilty Wednesday to
lavishing an ex-General Services Administration contracting officer with
shopping bags filled with cash and an expensive Caribbean cruise in exchange
for federal contracts worth more than $130 million. Michael Holiday, 50, of
Silver Spring, Md., admitted in U.S. District Court to bribing a federal
official and then failing to pay more than $400,000 in federal taxes on his
ill-gotten earnings. A former Montgomery County police officer, Holiday also
pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of transporting child pornography by
computer. Dessie Nelson, 65, a former GSA contracting officer, and Richard Hudec, 44, a former top official with the security firm,
then known as Holiday International Security, were charged Wednesday in
connection with the scheme. The company was sold in 2003 to Hudec's wife, Lisa, and renamed USProtect
Corp. Lisa Hudec has not been charged with any
criminal wrongdoing. The case is the largest corruption case ever prosecuted
in Maryland, in terms of the size of the contracts involved, according to
U.S. attorney Rod Rosenstein. "Government employees are given broad
discretion about how to spend taxpayer money," Rosenstein said.
"Their decisions must be based on which contractor provides the best
service to the public at the lowest price, not on which contractor offers the
best bribe to the employee at the highest price." According to
prosecutors, the plot traces back to May 2000 when Nelson awarded Holiday
International Security a $50 million, five-year contract to provide armed
security guards at GSA buildings in Southern California. The company's
proposal was $10 million higher than that of the lowest bidder. The following
February, Nelson awarded the firm a five-year, $30.5 million contract --
again not the lowest offer -- to protect GSA buildings in Northern
California. Prosecutors said the company's poor performance on the contract
attracted the attention of GSA officials. In a May 2002 "cure
letter," GSA cited the company's unqualified employees, its lack of
required training, the absence of medical and drug test forms and missing
firearms licenses. Despite threats to cancel the contract, GSA exercised all
four option years. Nelson also allegedly helped Holiday International earn a
$50 million contract to protect a Social Security Administration facility in
Baltimore by providing an overly favorable review of the company's work on
the West Coast. In her recommendation, Nelson made no mention of GSA's
complaints about the firm's work. In exchange for the advantageous treatment,
Holiday said he plied Nelson with more than $100,000 in bribes and gifts. On
one occasion, he reportedly gave Nelson a shopping bag filled with $35,000;
another time it was an envelope stuffed with $10,000. An April 2002 deposit,
Holiday said, included a $7,000 cruise. The arrangement came to light when
SSA's Office of Inspector General received an anonymous letter alleging
improprieties with the agency's contract with Holiday International. Michael
Robison, special agent in charge of the investigation for the SSA IG's
Philadelphia office, said the letter sparked a far-reaching and surprisingly
complex investigation. Neither SSA nor the U.S. Attorney's Office would elaborate
on the contents of the letter. "It is our hope that today's announcement
will serve as a clear warning to those who would attempt to defraud Social
Security that neither we, nor any of the agencies represented here today,
will allow such crimes to go unpunished," Robinson said at a press
conference Wednesday. Holiday is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 23, 2008.
He faces a combined 20 years in prison on the bribery and tax evasion charges
and another 20 years for the child pornography charge. Prosecutors said
Holiday agreed to trade sexual videos of underage children with an undercover
FBI agent in an Internet chat room. Nelson is charged with accepting bribes
and later evading taxes on the payments. She faces 20 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine if convicted of both charges. Nelson began working for the
federal government in October 1979 and retired last November from the Public
Buildings Service, according to a GSA spokesman. Hudec,
the company's former chief financial officer and chief operating officer, is
charged with scheming to conceal information from federal contracting
officials -- including four prior felony convictions that would have hindered
the contract awards -- and tax evasion. Hudec, who
left USProtect in January 2005, faces 10 years in
prison if convicted. Attorneys representing Holiday, Nelson and Hudec did not return calls requesting comment. USProtect has provided both armed and unarmed security
guards for at least 18 federal agencies, including for the FBI Academy in
Quantico, Va., and for the Air Force at more than a dozen bases. Many of the
contracts cited in the indictments have since been re-competed and won by USProtect.
July
2, 2003
This may be the last summer when visitors to national parks and national
forests are greeted by public servants rather than low-bid
"rent-a-rangers," environmental groups and top Democrats in
Congress claim. Federal land management agencies are studying
converting thousands of positions now held by government workers to private
contractors as part of a White House directive to meet quotas for
"outsourcing" certain federal jobs. On Tuesday, a leaked copy
of an internal Forest Service memo showed the agency is considering replacing
its entire law enforcement staff with private security officers, as well as
contracting out parts of its fire suppression, environmental monitoring and
timber sales work force. (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Hispanic Caucus
Jul 11, 2020 thehill.com
Hispanic Caucus requests meeting with
private detention center CEOs
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC)
on Friday formally requested a meeting with the CEOs of the two largest
private detention center operators, as COVID-19 cases have spread among
detainee and employee populations alike. In a letter to CoreCivic
CEO Damon Hininger and GEO Group CEO George Zoley, CHC Chairman Joaquín Castro (D-Texas) and Rep.
Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) wrote that in the three months since President Trump
declared a health emergency, the number of COVID-19 positive cases in
detention centers has increased "exponentially." "Since both CoreCivic and GEO Group are ICE’s top operators of
detention centers, we would like to request a virtual meeting with you and
Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Members at your earliest
availability," wrote Castro and Vargas. The CHC has previously
unsuccessfully attempted to meet with Hininger and Zoley, according to people with knowledge of the
situation. Steve Owen, a spokesman for CoreCivic,
said the company is reviewing the letter. "COVID-19 has created
extraordinary challenges for every detention system in America – public and
private. We have worked together closely with our government partners and
state health officials to respond to this unprecedented situation
appropriately, thoroughly and with care for the well-being of those entrusted
to us and our communities," wrote Owen in an email to The Hill.
"Our facilities are fully transparent to our government partners and
elected officials, and we have accommodated several onsite visits from
members of Congress since the pandemic began," Owen continued.
Representatives for GEO Group did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. Castro and Vargas were joined by 22 members of the CHC in signing
the letter. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the law
enforcement agency that runs immigrant detention centers, there are 22,579
foreign nationals in custody. Of those people, 11,828 have been tested for
COVID-19, and 883 have tested positive and remain in custody. Among ICE
employees, 45 who work in detention centers have tested positive for
COVID-19, as have 153 agency employees assigned elsewhere. Two detainees have
died from the disease while in custody so far. "As many public health
experts have already pointed out, congregate settings like detention
conditions do not allow individuals to observe safe social distancing
guidelines, which, especially during a global health pandemic, increase the
risk of accelerating transmission of the virus among detainees and facility
staff," wrote Castro and Vargas. "Further, we are alarmed by
reports that individuals held in detention with symptoms of COVID-19 have
reported being denied necessary medical care; some have complained of being
placed in solitary confinement; other have been ignored outright," they
added. While the death rate of detainees is relatively low, the positive
testing rate is much higher than for the general population, according to an
analysis by the Center for American Progress. CoreCivic
built and operates the South Texas Family Detention Center under contract
with ICE, and GEO Group operates at least nine ICE processing centers
throughout the country. Castro and Vargas were joined in the letter by
Democratic Reps. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Nanette Diaz Barragán
(Calif.), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Albio Sires (N.J.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.),
Darren Soto (Fla.), Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (Fla.), Filemon Vela (Texas), Grace Napolitano (Calif.), Henry
Cuellar (Texas), Luis Correa (Calif.), Jesús García (Ill.), Jim Costa
(Calif.), Jimmy Gomez (Calif.), Linda Sánchez (Calif.), Lucille Roybal-Allard
(Calif.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Pete Aguilar (Calif.), Raúl Grijalva
(Ariz.), Sylvia Garcia (Texas) and Xóchitl Torres
Small (N.M).
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
Dec 22, 2018
capitalandmain.com
ICE’s Missing Death Reports
One hundred eighty-eight men and women have died in U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement custody since 2003 — nine of them during Fiscal Year 2018
(from October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018). On December 18, ICE released
brief reports on six of those deaths, as required by Congress in its March
budget bill. ICE’s record-breaking $4.4 billion budget for immigration
enforcement came with a requirement that the agency report on each in-custody
death within 90 days of its occurrence. But immigrant and human rights groups
argue that the two-to-three-page reports are of little use in figuring out
why the deaths occurred or how they could have been prevented. The reports
detail each individual’s immigration history and contacts with law
enforcement, which activists say are irrelevant to their deaths’
circumstances. “ICE’s newly posted reports lack the information the agency
has made available in the past,” said Grace Meng, a senior researcher for
Human Rights Watch. “Unless the reports provide that information, ICE is
unable to correct any underlying problems that led to the person’s death.” In
a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigrant Law
Center, Human Rights Watch and Detention Watch Network have called the
reports a sham whose release “dodges accountability and flouts congressional
requirements.” The groups argue that they provide no analysis of the medical
treatment detainees received. Nor do they note errors or violations of
detention standards in each individual’s care, or make recommendations to
improve care in the future. All six reports are late – exceeding the 90-day
deadline for their release. Three FY 18 deaths are omitted altogether, as
they occurred before the congressional mandate went into effect. The current
batch of reports don’t replace the agency’s more comprehensive detainee death
reviews, which are conducted by its Office of Professional Responsibility and
are available through Freedom of Information Act requests, ICE spokeswoman
Danielle Bennett wrote in an email. However, these reports have also been
criticized for not being comprehensive enough and often take months to
fulfill. In September 2017, Capital & Main requested reviews of 18
detainee deaths which had occurred in 2016 and early 2017. ICE has still not
released four of the reports. One of the current reports concerns Roxsana Hernandez, a 33-year-old HIV-positive transgender
woman, who was found to be feverish, starving and dehydrated when she saw a
nurse at the Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico eight days after
being placed in government custody. The New York Times reported last month
that Hernandez, a Honduran citizen, appeared to have been physically abused
before she died, according to an independent autopsy. The report also cited
accounts of fellow detainees who said Hernandez, who died May 25, 2018, was
dehydrated for days and received no medical treatment until she was seriously
ill. ICE’s report on Hernandez’s death says she received a medical screening
after four days in ICE custody, and more than a week after turning herself in
to Border Patrol officers. It mentions no medical visit prior to that. (ICE
detention standards require a medical screening within 12 hours of a detainee’s
arrival.) The ICE report does not note the hemorrhages of soft tissue and
muscles over Hernandez’s ribs found by the independent pathologist, according
to the Times report, and said its autopsy is pending. ICE also released
reports on the deaths of:
— Efrain de la
Rosa, a 40-year-old man who suffered from mental illness and apparently
committed suicide while in an isolation cell at the Stewart Detention Center
in Georgia.
— Huy Chi Tran, a 47-year-old Vietnamese immigrant,
who suffered from schizophrenia and depression, and was found unresponsive in
his cell at Arizona’s Eloy Detention Center. (No cause of death is included
in Tran’s report.)
— Ronal Francisco Romero, 39, a Honduran citizen, who died of complications
of diabetes and sepsis at Texas’ Port Isabel Detention Center.
The reports also covered the deaths of Gourgen Mirimanian, a 54-year-old from Armenia, of apparent heart
disease at the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, and 62-year-old
Augustina Ramirez Arreola, who died after aortic valve replacement surgery
while detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in
San Diego. In the nearly three months since FY 18 ended, three more men have
died in immigration custody.
May 30, 2017
thedailybeast.com
Immigrant Deaths
in Private Prisons Explode Under Trump
DALLAS—Men and
women held by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are on pace to die at
double the rate of those who died in ICE custody last year, a Daily Beast
review of ICE records found. And most will die in privately run facilities.
Eight people have died in ICE custody in the 2017 fiscal year, which began on
Oct. 1, 2016. That’s almost as many as the 10 who died in the entire 2016
fiscal year. All but one of the deaths this year, and all but two last year,
occurred in privately run prisons. Nine of the 18 deaths occurred at
facilities run by GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison
company. Jean Jimenez-Joseph hanged himself two weeks ago at a CoreCivic-run facility in Georgia after 19 consecutive
days in solitary confinement, according to immigrant advocates in the state.
Days earlier at a GEO-run facility in Texas, an Afghan mother seeking asylum
from the Taliban tried to hang herself but lived. Atulkumar
Babubhai Patel died of congestive heart failure in Georgia’s Atlanta City
Detention Center that same week. The uptick in deaths have come after a spike
in arrests of immigrants thanks to executive orders signed by President
Trump. In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, ICE said it
arrested more than 41,000 people—an increase of 37 percent over the same
period last year. On any given day, 35,000 men, women, and children are held
inside more than 200 immigrant detention facilities, according to ICE’s 2017
budget. Attorneys and advocates are concerned that the arrests are
overcrowding facilities already criticized by watchdogs over understaffing,
poor medical care, and violence. “You’re guess is as good as mine,” said
Matthew Kolken, a Buffalo-based immigration attorney, when asked if
overcrowding and worsening conditions could be resulting in more deaths. “But
if I were in one of these facilities, I wouldn’t want to bet my life on the
staff and conditions there.” Jimenez-Joseph hanged himself at Stewart
Detention Center, run by CoreCivic. Azadeh Shashahani of Project
South, a Georgia-based immigrant advocacy group, told The Daily Beast that
Jimenez-Joseph was being kept in solitary as punishment for complaining about
conditions at Stewart—not an uncommon practice, she added. On May 13,
Jimenez-Joseph’s mother went to Stewart to visit her son but was turned away,
allegedly because detainees in solitary are not allowed to have visitors.
Just before 1 a.m. on May 15, Jimenez-Joseph was found unconscious in his
cell. He was taken to a hospital located 35 miles away, where he was
pronounced dead. In a statement, CoreCivic, which
is under contract from ICE to run Stewart, declined to comment on why
Jimenez-Joseph was placed in solitary confinement. “We are fully cooperating
with ICE as it investigates this incident,” CoreCivic
spokesperson Jonathan Burns wrote in an email. “In deference to our
government partner, I encourage you to contact ICE directly with your
inquiry.” ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding
Jimenez-Joseph’s death. “What we’ve seen is that solitary is used as
punishment for a variety of things, but especially for protesting
conditions,” said Shashahani of Project South.
“They’re far away from their homes and families, they don’t have access to an
attorney, so, really, putting their bodies on the line is often their only
form of protest.” amira Hakimi would have been
another suicide death, had she succeeded in her attempt in the Karnes County
Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas, on May 12, according to advocates.
Hakimi, her husband, and their two daughters arrived at the U.S.-Mexico
border in December and turned themselves into authorities. The family was
seeking asylum after being threatened by the Taliban for running
Western-style schools near their home in Afghanistan. After being taken into
custody, Hakimi was separated from her husband and taken to Karnes, a
facility that holds immigrant mothers and their children, according to Amy
Fischer of RAICES, an immigrant advocacy group. Hakimi and her
sister-in-law—who was also separated from her husband at the border—passed a
credible fear interview, the first step toward being granted asylum in the
U.S., according to Fischer. But the mothers were denied release by ICE. The
agency has not said why Hakimi and her family have not been released. “She
has watched other people pass their credible fear interviews and be released,
and I think that’s part of the difficulty for Samira,” Fischer said. “She and
her kids are constantly seeing people leaving in short periods of time but
her, her sister-in-law, and her sister-in-law’s child are still stuck there.”
RAICES has asked ICE to release Hakimi and her family, but she said those
requests have been denied. ICE has not given a reason for continuing to hold
Hakimi and her family, something that is common for release denials, Fischer
said. Lisa Graybill of the Southern Poverty Law Center is among those who
have seen releases become less common under the Trump administration. But
even before Trump took office, releases were used sparingly under former
President Obama. “At Stewart, we’re working with an incredibly low percentage
of detainees being granted release after passing credible fear interviews,”
Graybill told The Daily Beast. CoreCivic and GEO
Group have seen their stocks rise thanks to the Trump administration’s
cancellation of a Justice Department order to phase out the use of private
prisons both for American citizens. The decree was seen by criminal justice
reform advocates as a hopeful sign that private prison companies might soon
be out of the business of running immigration detention facilities as well.
GEO runs the two facilities with the most amount of deaths in the last two
years, The Daily Beast found. Four have died at the LaSalle Detention Center
in Jena, Louisiana, since October 2016. Three have died at the Adelanto
Detention Center in Adelanto, California, during that same time. Despite the
deaths and rampant complaints of poor conditions in its facilities, GEO has
been the recipient of at least three large contracts since Trump took office.
In December, the company opened an immigration detention center in Folkston,
Georgia, that was funded partly by $116 million in taxpayer money. At the
time, the company said in a press release the facility will result in $21
million in annual revenue. In April, the company announced it will build a
$110 million facility near Houston to hold immigrants—the first new immigrant
prison of the Trump administration. That facility is expected to bring in $44
million in annual revenue, the company said. Last week, the company announced
it was awarded contracts with the Bureau of Prisons worth $664 million for
two Texas facilities that hold illegal immigrants with criminal records.
Jos-Arz Therapeutic Public Charter School
Washington, DC
Cornell
November 6, 2005 Washington Post
The reddish-brick building sits vacant on a tree-lined lot in Northeast
Washington, a three-story monument to a failed experiment to bring down the exorbitant
costs of special education in the District. Five years ago, the former
seminary on Taylor Street became a public charter school for children with
severe emotional disturbances. Officials from the school system and the
city's youth services agencies enthusiastically endorsed the plan, seeing an
opportunity to reduce the $40 million annual cost of sending such children to
private facilities as far away as California and Utah. The D.C. Council also
liked the idea -- and provided an unusual emergency allocation of $9.2
million so the charter school could increase its staff and convert the
building to a 24-hour treatment facility. But instead of saving D.C.
taxpayers money, the Jos-Arz Therapeutic Public
Charter School turned into a costly failure. Jos-Arz,
embroiled in a political battle between the council and the school board,
enrolled fewer than half the number of students projected and never received
enough money to complete the planned renovations. In June, the school moved
out of its home on Taylor Street because it could not keep up with the rent,
and the school board is considering revoking its charter. In all, Jos-Arz received about $15 million in city funds, of which
$2.3 million was used for renovation expenses, former officials from the school
say. Although there is sharp debate over who is to blame, everyone involved
agrees that the city's investment essentially was wasted. "We spent a
whole lot of money, and what do we have to show for it? Nothing," said
former council member Kevin P. Chavous, one of the
school's early supporters. In the early days, the plans of Jos-Arz founders Rollie and
Gwendolyn Kimbrough resonated strongly with both city and school officials.
But Jos-Arz opened only as a day school in fall
2000 because the building was not yet configured to serve residential
students. Charter schools normally receive an allocation from the city based
on their current enrollment. That formula was not going to work in the case
of Jos-Arz, its advocates said, arguing that it
needed a large infusion of funds so it could build a residential wing and
hire medical specialists. The school was soon hemorrhaging money because of
its low enrollment, Jos-Arz officials said. They
said the situation was exacerbated by a city funding formula that did not
take into account the high cost of the residential program. In June 2003,
Gwendolyn Kimbrough quit as Jos-Arz's executive
director, saying she had depleted her personal savings on the school.
Houston-based Cornell Cos., which runs some of the private out-of-state
facilities that enroll D.C. special education students, took over. Paul
Doucette, a Cornell spokesman, said city officials assured the company that
Jos-Arz would get more referrals from the D.C.
Department of Mental Health and other agencies involved in the placement of
special education students. But the department instead began putting more
emphasis on community-based day programs. The school continued to receive
"only a trickle of students," Doucette said, and Cornell pulled out
in June.
October 12, 2005 Washington Post
The District school board is considering shutting down a public charter
school for severely emotionally disturbed students that received $9 million
from the city to buy a facility but did not come close to reaching the
enrollment level it had promised and has since moved out of the building. The
D.C. Council issued the $9 million revenue bond for the Jos-Arz Therapeutic Public Charter School in 2002 so it could
buy a former seminary at 220 Taylor St. NE and renovate the property. Supporters
of the unusual financing arrangement said it was an investment in the school
system's effort to place a larger percentage of disabled students in public
facilities. Placement of special education students in private facilities has
cost the city tens of millions of dollars a year in tuition. But Jos-Arz, chartered in 2000 as a residential school for 70
students, has never enrolled more than 20 students and is no longer operating
as a residential program, said Paul Doucette, a spokesman for the management
company that ran the school from 2003 until early this year. The school moved
out of the Taylor Street building before the summer and is now at 1401
Brentwood Pkwy. NE. The D.C. school board, which gave the school permission
to open and is responsible for monitoring its progress, put Jos-Arz on probation in July, saying the school had violated
the conditions and standards set forth in its charter. The board is scheduled
today to discuss a recommendation to revoke the charter because the school
has not submitted a satisfactory plan for improvements. The school "is
not performing as agreed to under its charter. It wasn't serving the number
of students in the program it said it would," said school board member
Tommy Wells (District 3), who supports closing Jos-Arz.
"Frankly, the investment the city made into this group -- the purpose is
no longer being met." Doucette blamed the school's enrollment problems
largely on the District government's bureaucracy.
Prison Fellowship
University of Pennsylvania's Center for Research on Religion and
Urban Civil Society
August 7, 2003
The White House, the Wall
Street Journal, and Christian conservatives have been
crowing since June over news that President George W. Bush's favorite
faith-based initiative is a smashing success. When he was governor of
Texas, Bush invited Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship to start InnerChange
Freedom Initiative, a fundamentalist
prison-within-a-prison where inmates undergo vigorous evangelizing, prayer
sessions, and intensive counseling. Now comes a study from the University of Pennsylvania's
Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society reporting that InnerChange graduates have been rearrested and reimprisoned at dramatically lower rates than a matched
control group. For those who know how hard it is to reduce recidivism,
the reported results were impressive. Colson celebrated the report by
visiting the White House for a photo op with the president. House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay issued a triumphal press release. The Journal smacked critics of
faith-based programs for "turning a blind eye to science" by
opposing InnerChange. The report heartened
officials in the four states that have InnerChange
programs and buttressed President Bush's plan to introduce the Christian
program in federal prisons. You don't have to believe in faith-healing
to think that an intensive 16-month program, with post-release follow-up, run
by deeply caring people might be the occasion for some inmates to turn their
lives around. The report seemed to present liberal secularists with an unpleasant
choice: Would you rather have people "saved" by Colson, or would
you rather have them commit more crimes and go back to prison? But when
you look carefully at the Penn study, it's clear that the program didn't work. The InnerChange participants did somewhat worse than the controls:
They were slightly more likely to be rearrested and noticeably more likely
(24 percent versus 20 percent) to be reimprisoned.
If faith is, as Paul told the Hebrews, the evidence of things not seen, then InnerChange is an opportunity to cultivate faith; we
certainly haven't seen any results. So, how did the Penn study get
perverted into evidence that InnerChange worked?
Through one of the oldest tricks in the book, one almost guaranteed to make a
success of any program: counting the winners and ignoring the losers. The
technical term for this in statistics is "selection bias"; program
managers know it as "creaming." Harvard public policy professor
Anne Piehl, who reviewed the study before it was
published, calls this instance of it "cooking the books."
Here's how the study got adulterated. InnerChange
started with 177 volunteer prisoners but only 75 of them
"graduated." Graduation involved sticking with the program, not
only in prison but after release. No one counted as a graduate, for example,
unless he got a job. Naturally, the graduates did better than the control
group. Anything that selects out from a group of ex-inmates those who hold
jobs is going to look like a miracle cure, because getting a job is among the
very best predictors of staying out of trouble. And inmates who stick with a
demanding program of self-improvement through 16 months probably have more
inner resources, and a stronger determination to turn their lives around,
than the average inmate. The InnerChange
cheerleaders simply ignored the other 102 participants who dropped out, were
kicked out, or got early parole and didn't finish. Naturally, the
non-graduates did worse than the control group. If you select out the
winners, you leave mostly losers. Overall, the 177 entrants did a
little bit worse than the controls. That result ought to discourage InnerChange's advocates, but it doesn't because they have
just ignored the failure of the failures and focused on the success of the
successes. The Penn study doesn't conceal the actual poor outcome: All
the facts reported above come straight from that report. But the study goes
out of its way to put a happy face on the sad results, leading with the
graduates-only figures before getting to the grim facts. Apparently, the
Prison Fellowship press office simply wrote a press release off the spin, and
the White House worked off the press release. Probably no one was actually
lying; they were just believing, and repeating as fact, what they wanted to
believe. It's hard to know for sure what those involved were thinking: Study
author Byron Johnson canceled a scheduled interview at the last moment. The
White House didn't respond to requests for comment. InnerChange
program manager Jerry Wilger says he doesn't know much
about research, but he doesn't think it's fair to count the performance of
the people who dropped out of his program against him, a fair-sounding
objection that misses the point entirely. If InnerChange's
177 entrants were truly matched to the control group but ended up having more
recidivism, then either the apparent success with the graduates was due to
"creaming" or the program somehow managed to make its dropouts worse than they were to
start with. If the program genuinely helped its graduates and didn't harm its
dropouts, and if the whole group of entrants was truly matched to the
controls, then the group of 177 should have done better than the controls.
And they didn't. So, the feel-good winners-only analysis simply isn't
worth the paper it's printed on. Only the full-group analysis (known
technically as "intent-to-treat," a holdover term from its origins
in medical research) has any real value. And on that analysis, the program
has a net effect of zero or a little worse than zero. That makes it a
loser. |
