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Correctional Industrial
Facility
Pendleton, Indiana
Correctional Medical Services
December 4, 2007 The Herald Bulletin
A contractual employee at a Pendleton prison has resigned after she admitted
to trafficking with an inmate. Tim Horan, public information officer for the
Correctional Industrial Facility, said Margie Rickner
resigned Friday after admitting to Indiana State Police investigators she
brought in tobacco for an inmate. Rickner, a
behavioral clinician employed by Correctional Medical Services, had been
working at the prison since Dec. 3, 2006. Her job duties included counseling
inmates. Rickner has not been charged with any
crime, but Horan said ISP is pursuing charges against her. Trafficking in
tobacco with an inmate is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in
prison and up to a $5,000 fine. The $5,000 fine is mandatory if the person
who committed the crime is a Indiana Department of
Correction employee or is an employee of a penal facility, according to state
law. CMS provides medical services for about 250,000 inmates in 24 states, according
to the company’s Web site. The inmate’s name and the amount of tobacco
brought into the prison weren’t released, Horan said, because the case
remains under investigation. He could also not release when Rickner allegedly began bringing the contraband inside.
Her age and city or residence were also unavailable
from prison officials. “CIF staff are due all the
credit,” Superintendent Tom Hanlon said in a news release. “Through their
observations and communication, this trafficking incident was detected.”
Elkhart
County Jail
Elkhart, Indiana
Correctional Medical Services
June 24, 2009 The Goshen News
It was good news all around this week for the Elkhart County Sheriff’s
Department and other named defendants connected to a multi-million dollar
wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of deceased county inmate Nicholas
Rice. According to Nathaniel Jordan, an attorney at Yoder Ainlay
Ulmer & Buckingham, Goshen, Judge Robert Miller of the Federal District
Court in South Bend recently issued a decision in favor of the Elkhart County
Sheriff and Sheriff’s Department officers named in the case of Estate of
Nicholas Rice v. Correctional Medical Services, et al. “The decision also
finds in favor of the other remaining defendants in the case, most of which,
like Oaklawn Psychiatric Center, Inc., are located
in Elkhart County,” Jordan said. “Certain defendants, such as Elkhart County,
had been dismissed previously in this case.”
October 10, 2006 South Bend Tribune
The attorney for a Michiana family whose
22-year-old son reportedly starved to death while inside the Elkhart County
Jail has filed a $24 million lawsuit against the county. Nicholas Rice was
detained inside the jail for more than a year on an attempted bank robbery
charge while doctors and court officials disputed whether he was competent to
stand trial. The diagnosed schizophrenic inmate was found dead in his cell
Dec. 18, 2004. Autopsy reports later listed malnourishment and dehydration as
factors in Rice's death. The Tribune first reported on Nicholas Rice's case
-- "Out of Sight: Mental illness and the criminal justice system"
-- in a six-day series in February. Niles-based attorney Sean Drew filed the
suit last week, alleging that Rice was "denied the ultimate liberty
interest of life guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment" and
"subjected to inhumane treatment amounting to torture and as a result
died." Elkhart County sheriff officials did not return messages Friday
and Monday seeking comment. A secretary referred all questions Monday to
Elkhart County attorney Michael DeBoni. He had not
returned a message or e-mail by late Monday. The negligence suit filed in
federal court names multiple defendants, including the Elkhart County
Sheriff's Department, Oaklawn -- a Goshen mental
health facility -- and Correctional Medical Services, a private company that
provides medical services to the jail.
Indiana Department of Corrections
Aramark, Correctional Medical Ser
vices (formerly run by Prison Health Services, Universal Behavioral
Services)
October
20, 2006 Herald-Tribune
The state's top auditor is calling for an overhaul of the state's contracting
laws that exempt more than $1 billion of government contracts from strict
oversight. The money spent at the Communities at Oakwood, the state's troubled home for the mentally handicapped, shows
the need for reform, the report released yesterday concluded. State Auditor Crit Luallen, in the third and
final report on the state's contracting laws, says the 1998 law regarding
privatization of government services is ineffective. Under the law, agencies
have to provide a cost-benefit analysis to show that a private vendor could
deliver services cheaper than the state, before the deal is signed. Larger
contracts must be annually reviewed, the law says. However, almost all contracts
to private vendors are exempt from the law because of various loopholes, the
audit said. The Department of Corrections pays Corrections Corp. of America
about $18.2 million to operate three private prisons. Auditors found that the
Department of Corrections used an average cost of three public prisons to
determine whether the company could run the Marion Adjustment Center at 10
percent less than the state. But the cost for only one state-run prison was
used to do the same calculations for the contract with Lee Adjustment Center
in Beattyville. Auditors recommended a standardized methodology to determine
the 10 percent threshold. They are also recommending that a third party
analyze those numbers. "Some of the things that they have recommend make sense," said John Rees, corrections
commissioner. He said he is not opposed to creating a standardized
methodology, as long as someone familiar with corrections is developing those
standards. Rees said corrections is realizing a more
than 10 percent savings on the three private prison contracts. In the case of
Otter Creek, the privately run women's prison, the savings is almost 15
percent, he said.
August 7, 2006 Call 6 TV
Several prison mental health workers say they went unpaid when the
subcontractor that employed them was dropped by a contractor, Call 6 for
Help's Rafael Sanchez reported. Universal Behavioral Services was contracted
by Missouri-based Correctional Medical Services to provide metal health
services in Indiana Department of Correction facilities. UBS, based in
Indianapolis, claims that CMS cancelled its contract with UBS without warning
on July 19, and that CMS failed to pay UBS for services rendered in July. UBS
said that because CMS failed to pay for July, UBS is unable to pay its
employees for the corresponding pay periods. UBS said it is filing to the
state a claim against CMS for $584,475. CMS told Call 6 that it parted ways
with UBS in July. It said it met its financial obligations to UBS, and that
it began employing and contracting with former UBS staff members to make sure
that services were provided to the Department of Correction facilities. Since
then, CMS has paid those workers, according to CMS. "It is absolutely
incorrect to say that CMS is somehow responsible for UBS's obligations to its
former employees," CMS wrote to Call 6 on Friday. The Department of
Correction said it paid CMS last week for July services. The department said
it would have more comment about the situation on Monday.
August 3, 2005 AP
The new health care provider for the Indiana Department of Correction has
come under sharp criticism by prisoner rights’ advocates and faced lawsuits
over the quality of health care it has provided inmates in other states. The
department has signed a four-year contract with St. Louis-based Correctional
Medical Services Inc. to provide health care services to more than 23,000
adult and juvenile offenders beginning Sept. 1. The American Civil Liberties
Union sued Correctional Medical in June over prison health care in
Mississippi, and the company also has faced claims in the past nine months in
Kentucky and Missouri after the deaths of inmates. In the Missouri case, the
family of a 33-year-old female inmate sued after the woman died in 2003 of a
ruptured brain aneurysm days after complaining of blinding headaches. That
case and the death of a second inmate at the same prison led to an
investigation by the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The
division closed the investigation this year without filing charges. Elizabeth
Alexander, director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil
Liberties Union, said Correctional Medical routinely has failed to provide
the minimal level of health care to prisoners required by law. Her criticisms
included the company not providing sufficient access to medical care, timely
referrals to specialists and appropriate care for chronic ailments, such as
chemotherapy for cancer patients. In Michigan, where Correctional Medical
also provides statewide inmate medical care, a federal court found the
company’s delays in providing prisoners with referrals to outside specialists
contributed to three deaths within 18 months, Alexander said. “They have a
long record of not doing what they need to do in regard to health care,”
Alexander said in a telephone interview Tuesday. Alexander also criticized
the contractor that Correctional Medical is replacing. Prison Health Services
Inc., whose contract runs through the end of this month, has provided Indiana
health care since the state privatized it nearly eight years ago. Celia
Sweet, executive director of the Indiana chapter of the prisoner advocacy
group Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants,
or CURE, said the state is sacrificing prisoners’ health to save money.
“You’ve got to realize these people, they’re a private corporation and
they’re beholden to the stockholders, so they’re in it for the money,” Sweet
said.
June 26, 2005 Fort
Wayne Journal Gazette
A St. Louis-based company serving 300
prisons nationwide is the Indiana Department of Correction’s choice to take
over health care services at 31 state prisons after the agency decided to
drop the contractor that has provided them for eight years. Brentwood,
Tenn.-based America Service Group Inc., announced
late Thursday that the agency had informed its Prison Health Services Inc.
subsidiary that the agency would not renew a contract expiring Aug. 31 and
worth $35 million per year. America Service said it had expected to earn
$15.8 million from the Indiana contract over the final four months of the year.
June 24, 2005 America Service Group Inc.
America Service Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ASGR - News) announced today that its
subsidiary, Prison Health Services, Inc. (PHS), has been informed by the
Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) that, as a result of a rebid process,
it has not been selected to enter negotiations for a new inmate healthcare
contract scheduled to start September 1, 2005. PHS' current contract with the
IDOC expires on August 31, 2005.
March 2, 2005 Fort Wayne
Journal Gazette
The Department of Correction’s ombudsman should investigate the performance
of a private prison health care provider that receives $35 million annually
to provide care in Indiana’s jails. Since the late 1990s, Public Health
Services, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based organization, has provided health care for
about 24,000 inmates in Indiana. Given that the current prison health care
contract lapses at the end of July, investigating the company should be more
of an imperative for Indiana Ombudsman Bureau. The bureau, housed in the
state’s Department of Administration, has broad powers to investigate and
attempt to resolve complaints concerning the Department of Correction. In
Indiana, the company faces a lawsuit from one ex-employee, and the Indiana
Civil Liberties Union has been critical of prison health care for a number of
years. A Department of Correction spokesman would say only that Public Health
Services has met its obligation to Indiana’s prisoners. It has not been the
best week for Prison Health Services. The company is currently battling a
reputation-battering series in the New York Times that focused on inmates who
have died in New York state jails serviced by Prison Health Services. The
company characterizes the Times investigation as a “blatantly unfair story”
that contains many “mischaracterizations, exaggerations and
oversimplifications.” However, the story details plenty of damning
evidence, including New York State Commission of Correction reports that
faulted Prison Health Service’s “policies, or mistakes and misconduct by its
employees” in 23 deaths in New York City and six other counties. Prison
Health Services continues to dispute the commission’s analysis. Although
nothing like what’s happening in New York has been documented in Indiana,
Prison Health Services and the Department of Correction have had their fair
share of trouble. In 2003, the ICLU sued on behalf of an inmate who suffered
from a hernia since 1997. Although the lawsuit has not been settled, Prison
Health Services has changed its policy on hernia operations, the ICLU’s Ken
Falk says. The ICLU receives hundreds of letters annually from prisoners
complaining about health care, Falk says. Then there’s the case of Barbara
Logan, who, in April, filed a lawsuit against the correction department and
Prison Health Services for wrongful termination. Logan complained about
inmate care.
May 22, 2005 Fort Wayne
Journal Gazette
It seems when the Indiana Department of Correction touted a new
food-service contract for state prisoners last week they left a few details
out. Although billed as a 10-year contract valued at $258 million, the deal
is actually only four years – because that’s all state law allows. There are
options for the state to sign on for additional years. But most importantly –
despite the news conference promising $11.5 million in savings a year – the
contract with Philadelphia-based Aramark
Correctional Services hasn’t been finalized. In fact, when Political Notebook
requested information on the other potential bidders, corrections officials
said negotiations were still ongoing with Aramark.
No information on other offers can be released until the deal is executed –
perhaps June 1. “We’re still in the blackout period,” said Jeff
Underwood, deputy commissioner for the Indiana Department of Administration.
That means the public doesn’t get to know quite yet whether a Hoosier company
also bid on the contract, as rumored, and what the difference was in the
potential savings. After all, a key piece of Gov. Mitch Daniels’ platform was
for state government to use more Indiana companies to provide services and
goods, and he even signed an executive order giving them a purchasing
preference. But this $258 million contract would go outside Indiana with Aramark.
March 21, 2005 Indianapolis
Star
Indiana's new prisons chief says he's looking at building the state's first
private prison to help ride out a two-year budget freeze amid projections of
a surge in inmates. Department of Correction Commissioner J. David Donahue
has dropped the previous Democratic administration's plans for a new
state-run 1,800-bed prison for men and a juvenile prison dormitory in
Plainfield. Along with related moves such as outsourcing nursing care and
cooking, a private prison for Indiana's growing adult prison population
appears likely. "I'll be looking at an opportunity for a private
facility to be sited, financed, built and operated by private
companies," said Donahue, a former vice president and chief operating
officer for U.S. Corrections Corp., a private prison company. Any new prisons,
he said, should not be paid for by taxpayers. Gov. Mitch Daniels said he hasn't talked in detail with
Donahue about building a private prison but acknowledged the possibility.
Private prison companies such as Corrections Corp. and Prison Health Services
Inc. have contributed a total of more than $50,000 to Democrats and
Republicans in Indiana since 2000, with Daniels receiving about one-third of
this money. Among those working with Daniels' new administration is Geoffrey
Segal, director of government operations for the Reason Foundation, a Los
Angeles-based nonprofit that helps states privatize government operations.
Indiana
Legislature
September 14, 2008 Indianapolis Star
Attorney Paul Ogden has been kicking some dirt lately about potential conflicts
of interest involving the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg. Ogden's firm,
Roberts & Bishop, has four lawsuits pending against Corrections
Corporation of America, the company that manages the city's minimum-security
jail. The suits evolve from allegations of inadequate medical care at the
facility. Barnes & Thornburg represents CCA. Last week, Ogden wrote a
letter to Democratic council members noting that the chairman of the
council's Public Safety Committee is Ryan Vaughn, a Barnes & Thornburg
attorney. Vaughn said he's open to scrutiny of the relationship. He said he's
not a partner, so his salary does not change depending on the firm's
revenues. He acknowledged there could be a situation where he would face a
conflict in the future, such as if there were a proposal to privatize the
maximum-security jail. "That's the nature of a representative
legislature where the members have a full-time job," Vaughn sad.
"Unless you're retired, most people will have a conflict at some level
if you look hard enough." Vaughn said the solution is full disclosure
and abstaining from any matters where the benefit for his firm would be
obvious. Jackie Nytes, a Democratic council member,
agreed. She said Vaughn will have to be careful because conflicts can arise.
"The trouble with ethics legislation," Nytes
said, "is that people have to work for a living."
Indiana
State Prison
Michigan City, Michigan
Corizon (bought Correctional Medical Services), Aramark
March
23, 2012 WNDU
An employee with the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City has been arrested
for trafficking drugs. 41-year-old Phyllis Ungerank,
a practical nurse with Corizon Medical, was arrested for trying to traffic
marijuana and for possessing marijuana. Officials say around 8 p.m. on March
18, a check-point officer found Ungerank trying to
take a package of marijuana inside the jail with her. She was arrested and
taken to the LaPorte County Jail.
October 27, 2009 The
News-Dispatch
An Indiana State Prison offender reportedly didn't like the new heart-healthy
menu recently implemented by the Indiana Department of Correction. The
Michigan City prison has been on lockdown since last Tuesday, when a prisoner
allegedly dropped his tray on the prison dining-room floor, according to Pam
James, ISP administrative services secretary. "There was a commotion in
the prison's dining room," James said, noting one person dropped his
food tray on the floor. "He was peacefully making his point known. He
was displeased with the quantity of the food." Although she said the
complaint was about the quantity of the breakfast food, she also said the
quality "wasn't that bad." But she couldn't remember the exact menu
for the meal that sparked the protest. Carol Cogar
went to the prison to visit her son last Thursday and learned of the lockdown.
She knew it was about the food quality because she talked to her son about it
earlier. "One day, he called and said it's really rank, not any
good," Cogar said. James said 25 prisoners
were in the dining hall during the "commotion," but she didn't elaborate
on who was involved, saying only that just the one prisoner dropped a tray.
According to Cogar, though, more than one person is
behind the food protest. "Why would they lock the whole place down for
one person?" she said. The lockdown will end, James said, when the
prison is "safe and secure for the staff and offenders," but
couldn't explain how that would be determined. The IDOC switched to a
reduced-sodium, low-cholesterol diet Oct. 9, according to James. The new menu
has 20 percent less sodium and more fruit in place of baked desserts. Five or
more servings of fruits and vegetables are being served each day. The menu
aims to reduce fat and cholesterol by eliminating fried foods and serving
fewer high-fat menu items. The new menus were introduced this month in all 28
facilities statewide, and no other correctional facility has reported
resistance from offenders, according to Doug Garrison, IDOC chief
communications officer. Garrison said the revised diet should reduce the
costs of treating offenders by helping prevent heart attacks and strokes. He
also said lockdowns are not that unusual and are used for restoring a sense
of order. "It gives people a chance to cool down," he said.
"It's a relatively routine tool in corrections to reset the
button." The IDOC contracts with Aramark to
supply food for correctional facilities and has 10 full-time registered
dietitians who review meal plans according to American Correctional
Association nutritional guidelines, according to an official IDOC press
release.
September 12, 2008 South
Bend Tribune
A contractor was arrested Friday morning at Indiana State Prison in Michigan
City for reportedly attempting to smuggle tobacco into the facility,
according to a news release. During a routine search of contractors and prison
employees, two bags of tobacco weighing a combined 8.8 ounces were found
hidden in an Aramark food services employee’s
shoes, the release stated. The employee was charged with suspicion of
trafficking with an incarcerated offender, a Class A misdemeanor.
June 25, 2008 The
News-Dispatch
A contractual food service employee was arrested for trafficking early
Sunday morning at the Indiana State Prison when he allegedly brought
marijuana into work. Thomas Fly, 25, was seen with marijuana, wrapped in
plastic, falling out of his pants leg while reporting to work at 3 a.m., said
Barry Nothstine, spokesman for the prison. Prison
staff recovered the drug, which weighed two ounces. Indiana State Police took
Fly to the La Porte County jail, where he was charged with attempting to
traffic with an offender, a Class C felony, and possession of marijuana, a
Class D felony. Nothstine said he did not know how
long Fly had been assigned to the facility. He has been employed by ARAMARK
Correctional Services since 2000. The prison has been contracted with ARAMARK
for the past 18 to 24 months, he said. Nothstine
said there is no indication so far as part of the investigation that Fly has
brought drugs to the prison in the past. "The investigation report that
I have seen does not indicate that," he said.
June 22, 2008 News-Dispatch
Richard Blake, 48, Niles, Mich., was arrested Friday at at
6:45 p.m. at the Indiana State Prison on a charge of attempted trafficking
for allegedly bringing eight packages of cigarettes into the facility. Blake
is a registered nurse employed by Correctional Medical Services since
February, and was assigned to the prison. He was going through a routine
search process when custody staff found cigarettes wrapped in aluminum foil
inside a frozen TV dinner box in his lunch bag. An additional two cigarette
packs were found covered with food inside a plastic bowl. All Indiana
Department of Corrections facilities are smoke free and possession of tobacco
is forbidden. Prison internal affairs investigators Charles Whelan and Corey
McKinney were contacted by custody staff. Whelan called the Michigan City
Police Department and officers arrested Blake in the prison parking lot.
Blake had refused to make a statement without an attorney present and walked
out of the facility. After the arrest, investigators Whelan and McKinney
reviewed videotape of the prison search procedure and saw Blake twice had
difficulty getting through the metal detector. He then left the search area
and entered a restroom. A later search of the restroom turned up two packs of
cigarettes in the trash can that were reported to be the same brand as the
others found in Blake's possession.
Institute in
Basic Life Principles
Indianapolis, Indiana
February 5, 2002 Indianapolis Star
Child Protective Services is
reviewing the treatment a 10-year-old girl received
during a court-ordered stay at Indianapolis Training Center, a
private counseling facility for troubled youths. The girl's mother, Teresa Landis, contends her daughter was
hit with a wooden paddle 14 times, restrained by teen-age
"leaders" who sat on the girl and
confined in near-isolation for periods of up to five days.
Landis said that, at least once, the girl was prevented from
using the bathroom, then forced to sit in her own
urine. The center, managed by a Chicago-based evangelical
organization called Institute in Basic Life Principles,
has operated for nearly a decade in the former
Stouffer's Inn at 2820 N. Meridian St.
K.L. Presnell Development
Greenwood, Indiana
April 16, 2002 Indianapolis Star
A company that wants to build a juvenile detention center in Lebanon has
until Dec. 1 to secure its financing, address unresolved zoning matters and
close on the project with county officials. Since K.L. Presnell
Development of Greenwood signed a contract with the commissioners in December
2000, it has been plagued by a series of missteps and setbacks. For their
part, commissioners said Presnell defaulted on its
contract with the county by failing to submit earnest money in the required
time. Eventually, it did pay the money. In addition, commissioners said the
company has not kept them well-informed about the project's status. "I
think this has been a comedy of errors, sir," Commissioner Jo Baldauf told Curry.
Lake
County Jail
Lake County, Indiana
MedStaff
August 10, 2011 The Times
The president of a Hobart-based health care company is defending its job
performance in the Lake County Jail following a critical report by the U.S.
Department of Justice. "They put some of the blame on us and that was
really uncalled for," Robert Malizzo, owner of
Med-Staff Inc., said Tuesday. Malizzo is reacting
to a U.S. Department of Justice report showing the 1,040-bed holding facility
continues to lack adequate inmate services three years after federal
authorities began investigating inmate suicides and lawsuits over inmate
medical and mental health care. It was critical of MedStaff,
indicating that "no one in the organization has experience in
correctional medical care. ... The organization lacks leadership and
direction." Malizzo insists fault doesn't lie
with him or his employees, saying flawed new electronic medical records don't
reflect the complete care being offered. "The Department of Justice made
some incorrect statements in that report, although they may not have had the
knowledge they should have had prior to writing their report," Malizzo said. "We have never been in charge of
medical," he said, explaining his firm wasn't given the resources or
authority by the Sheriff's Department. "The electronic medical records
system is a complete disaster, because no one ever consulted with us as to
the needs of the medical department," he said, adding the result of
inmates' physicals and their medical histories are often lost in the system
despite the best efforts of his employees. To this day, they are making
corrections trying to get that system right for us to use," Malizzo said.
August 6, 2011 The Times
The Lake County Jail continues to lack adequate inmate services and
leadership within its medical programs, according to a federal report
released this week. The report is part of an ongoing review of the jail by
the U.S. Department of Justice that was prompted by a 2008 investigation
revealing numerous deficiencies in inmate care. The recent report, prepared
in June and filed Thursday in Hammond federal court, continues to find the
jail noncompliant in dozens of categories, including in leadership of its
medical and mental health programs for inmates. In the first of nearly 100
categories listed, the report criticizes the jail's medical service vendor, MedStaff, indicating that "no one in the
organization has experience in correctional medical care. ... The
organization lacks leadership and direction." Officials for MedStaff, which has had the jail's medical contract since
2007, have defended its level of service, indicating the private vendor is
doing all it can to comply with federal demands. But the report indicates MedStaff has no policy manual specific to the jail's
needs — just a manual, dated 2009, that mimics standards of the National
Commission of Correctional Health Care. "However, the manual does not
reflect actual practice at the facility," the Thursday report states.
Among other things not actually performed that are listed in the manual are
quarterly administrative meetings and a quality improvement committee,
according to the report. The report also indicates that none of the medical
staff have a clear grasp of who is in charge, prompting personnel to come up
with their own procedures. The report did find the jail compliant — or
partially compliant — in several categories, including inmates' access to
hygiene supplies and reviews of allegations of excessive force against
inmates by jail staff.
Liberty
Hall
Indianapolis, Indiana
Community Education Centers
March 7, 2011 Indianapolis Star
Sheriff John Layton is shaking up Marion County's privately run jails after
staff at Liberty Hall two weeks ago let hours slip away before they called an
ambulance for an inmate who later died from pregnancy complications.
"The bottom line is it can't happen again, and we're going to make sure
that it doesn't," Layton said. Layton pulled all pregnant inmates into
the Marion County Jail; increased county supervision and control over Liberty
Hall and the privately run Marion County Jail II; and ordered external
evaluations of the facilities to be conducted by former sheriffs Frank
Anderson and Jack Cottey. These steps are a
reaction to the Feb. 20 death of Amber Redden, 27, who collapsed at Liberty
Hall after suffering internal bleeding from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.
Meanwhile, officials at Liberty Hall fired an officer who was on duty that
night and conducted their own investigation into Redden's
death, said Murray Clark, an attorney for the facility. Liberty Hall's
investigation determined that no policies or procedures were violated, and
officials said they think Redden received the "legally acceptable
standard of care," said Clark, who expressed sympathy to Redden's family. Clark did not give the name of the staff
member who was fired or a specific reason for the firing. Sheriff's officials
did not release details of an internal investigation into the death, but they
confirmed that Redden began complaining of symptoms sometime before lunch was
served. Chief Deputy Eva Talley-Sanders, who supervised the investigation,
confirmed that staff took Redden to lunch in a wheelchair after she had
complained of what the staff described as severe flu-like symptoms. "The
employees who were there were not trained in the medical field," Layton
said. "They thought she was having a terrible episode of the flu."
It was a Sunday, and medical staff was not at the facility, but a nurse and
doctor are always on call. Sheriff's officials said Liberty Hall officers
phoned the nurse and gave Redden an over-the-counter painkiller. Redden
sought the help of another inmate to get word of her pain to her mother. Lisa
Nipper told The Indianapolis Star that she received a phone call about 5 p.m.
Feb. 20 from a relative of an inmate who had been helping her daughter.
Redden was overheated and having seizures, the caller told Nipper. Facility
staff moved Redden to a cooler area. About 9 p.m., the same person called
back and said Redden was not getting better and that staff had given her Tylenol.
By about 10 p.m., the person called again to say Redden had collapsed in the
bathroom and was foaming from the mouth. Officials could not say Friday
exactly when the ambulance had been called, but Deputy Chief Michael Turner
said Redden had been loaded into one and medics were working on her when he
arrived at Liberty Hall about 11 p.m.
March 2, 2011 Fox59
The death of a pregnant inmate is spurring changes at the Marion County Jail
before the results of the death investigation are complete. "I am concerned
of course," said Marion County Sheriff John Layton. "We will act
accordingly that's for sure." Sheriff John Layton's concern with the
death of 27-year-old Amber Redden and her unborn child is magnified by the
fact that she died in a contracted facility which is privately owned and
operated. That's also why Layton didn't wait to transfer all 18 pregnant
inmates to the main Marion County Jail. "I don't look at it as 18 women
in a jail cell, I look at it as 36 human beings," Layton said. The death
of Redden last week at Liberty Hall is what prompted Layton to move the
pregnant inmates to the third floor of the main jail, which is staffed by the
sheriff's department. The unit is just down the hall from the medical ward.
Layton also said he's increasing the frequency of medical rounds
for those inmates from once an hour to once every half hour. "Ultimately
with the inmates in Marion County it comes back to my desk," Layton
said. "The buck stops there. We'll take care of business as it comes up.
If we see something that needs to be addressed we're going to address
it." "I want to know why my daughter died," said Amber Redden's mother Lisa Nipper, the day following her
daughter's death. "Why her and my baby is dead." The coroner
determined that Amber suffered a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Doctors told
Fox59 a rupture like that can be considered a surgical emergency, but Lisa
said her daughter was never taken to a hospital despite several seizures.
"Something is not right," Nipper said. "Something has got to
be done." Though the family is now considering a lawsuit, lawyer Adam Dulik said, for now, they are encouraged by the changes
at the jail. "In this time of grieving, the family takes comfort knowing
that other expecting mothers will not face a similar fate," Dulik said in a written statement. "At this time,
they would like to express their heart-felt thanks for the outpouring of
prayers and well wishes they have received from the community since the loss
of Amber and her child, but make no further comment." Fox59 contacted
Community Education Centers, which operates Liberty Hall, in order to ask
about their reaction to the sheriff's decision to remove pregnant inmates.
Company spokesperson Christopher Greeder released
the following statement: "CEC and Liberty Hall are incredibly saddened
by the tragic death of Ms. Redden and we extend our condolences to her
family. The facility was at all times in compliance with all the provisions
of its professional services contract with Marion County as well as all
mandatory and non-mandatory standards of the American Correctional
Association. The company continues to conduct its own internal review of the
events."
February 22, 2011 Indianapolis
Star
A pregnant Marion County jail inmate died from internal bleeding caused by an
abnormal pregnancy, police said today. Amber Redden, 27, collapsed in a
bathroom at Liberty Hall, at 675 E. Washington St., at 10 p.m. Sunday.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officials said Redden’s death was “natural” and caused by a ruptured ectopic
pregnancy that led to hemorrhaging. According to the National Institutes of
Health website, medlineplus, an ectopic pregnancy
is one that occurs outside the womb and is always fatal to the fetus. The
website said ectopic pregnancies occur in at least one in 100 pregnancies.
Liberty Hall is a 250-bed private facility operated by Roseland, N.J.-based
Community Education Centers across from Marion County Jail II. It is intended
for incarcerating mothers and pregnant women. Redden was two months pregnant
and was serving a 22-month sentence for theft. Her mother, Lisa Nipper, said
Monday night that the death shocked her. “I don’t understand how they can
take my daughter to jail and let her die,” Nipper had said. “It’s not right.
I’ve got to have answers.” She said no law enforcement authorities had called
her to inform her of her daughter’s death, though a chaplain did. Nipper
could not be reached for comment Tuesday but IMPD spokeswoman Linda Jackson
said police had contacted her. “It’s terrible,” Nipper said. “You're supposed
to die before your children, and I’m still living and she’s dead.”
Marion
County Jail
Marion, Indiana
Correctional Medical Services
February 9, 2010 Indianapolis Star
A U.S. District Court judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by the wife of an
inmate who died inside Marion County Jail. The suit, which named private
medical provider Correctional Medical Services and Sheriff Frank Anderson,
alleged that James T. Bullock, 45, was denied heart medication for several
days after he was jailed in October 2006 on a charge of possession of
paraphernalia. He collapsed on the floor of a day room, and an autopsy
determined the cause of death was a form of cardiovascular disease. Judge
William T. Lawrence ruled in favor of CMS and Anderson on the lawsuit's
federal claims because the plaintiff's attorneys failed to prove they had
exercised deliberate indifference. The ruling allows claims based on state
law, including wrongful death, to be pursued in Marion Superior Court.
October
25, 2008 Indianapolis Star
The wife of an inmate who died inside the Marion County Jail filed a
wrongful death lawsuit Friday against the facility's private medical provider
and the Marion County sheriff. The suit, which names Correctional Medical
Services and Sheriff Frank Anderson, says James T. Bullock, 45, was denied
heart medication for several days after he was jailed in October 2006 on a
possession of paraphernalia charge. He collapsed on the floor of a day room,
and an autopsy determined the cause of death was a form of cardiovascular
disease. His wife, Diana L. Bullock, had earlier attempted to deliver his
prescribed heart medications to the jail, the lawsuit says. Her offer was
refused, it says, despite state law that requires jails to provide such
medication to inmates. The lawsuit, filed in Marion Superior Court by
Indianapolis attorney Paul Ogden, says the jail's medical care and policies
amounted to negligence and deliberate indifference.
Marion County Jail II
Marion, Indiana
CCA
June
27, 2012 WISH
An inmate in the Marion County Jail says she's facing constant discrimination
while behind bars. She's transgender, and jail administrators say they're
keeping her in isolation for her own protection. The inmate, who calls
herself Kyliah, entered the interview room wearing
shackles at her wrist and ankles. While inmates in the general population can
walk freely to their work duties and recreation facilities, those held in
isolation are shackled when they're escorted from their cells. But Kyliah claims she is shackled by far more than the cuffs
that hold her ankles and wrists. She says she's shackled by a system of
bigotry and intolerance. "I feel less than human," said Kyliah. She claims that she's being treated like an
animal, having spent three months alone in a cell, separated from the jail's
general population. Asked if she felt as though she were being punished, she
answered: "Yes, for having breasts and for being a transsexual."
22-year old Kyliah was once Christopher Boswell. At
8, she told her mother that she was a girl, and doctors began prescribing
estrogen for her at 13 following months of psychological testing. She's now
undergoing gender reassignment surgery. While Kyliah
says that she's being held in segregation, the leaders at Marion County Jail
have another name for it. They call it protective custody, and they point out
that there are other inmates that are being isolated from the general
population for their own protection. "In an attempt to protect someone,
the person is isolated to the point where they become depressed and often
don't receive medications they're supposed to,” said Vivian Benge, president of the Indiana Transgender Rights
Advocacy Alliance or INTRAA. “There are a lot of problems with that
particular approach." Benge has seen many
cases like Kyliah's, and helped take some to court.
November 29, 2011 WISH
TV
A Marion County inmate died from an apparent suicide Monday night at IU
Health Methodist Hospital. Officials with Corrections Corporation of America,
the contracting firm who operates Marion County Jail II, say Darrell Robinson
died at the hospital. A cellmate first alerted staff to a medical emergency.
Jail staff provided medical care until medics arrived. CCA officials told
24-Hour News 8 Robinson was being held for charges of possession of cocaine
or narcotics.
July 28, 2010 WIBC
An Indianapolis woman who processes inmates at Marion County Jail 2 has
been arrested for criminal gang activity. 34-year old Michelle Hurns was arrested Tuesday evening along with her son.
Police were watching her home on Carpenter Court and stopped a car they had
been looking for. A 16-year old male was driving the car and police knew he
was a member of the west side gang Grimmie Boyz, who were involved in the July 9 shootings during
Indiana Black Expo. Police say Hurns and her son
both fought with police during the traffic stop and both were arrested for
resisting and criminal gang activity. CCA runs Marion County Jail 2, and they
tell us Hurns is on administrative leave, but could
not tell WIBC News if that was with or without pay.
September 14, 2008 Indianapolis
Star
Attorney Paul Ogden has been kicking some dirt lately about potential
conflicts of interest involving the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg.
Ogden's firm, Roberts & Bishop, has four lawsuits pending against
Corrections Corporation of America, the company that manages the city's
minimum-security jail. The suits evolve from allegations of inadequate
medical care at the facility. Barnes & Thornburg represents CCA. Last
week, Ogden wrote a letter to Democratic council members noting that the
chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee is Ryan Vaughn, a Barnes
& Thornburg attorney. Vaughn said he's open to scrutiny of the
relationship. He said he's not a partner, so his salary does not change depending
on the firm's revenues. He acknowledged there could be a situation where he
would face a conflict in the future, such as if there were a proposal to
privatize the maximum-security jail. "That's the nature of a
representative legislature where the members have a full-time job,"
Vaughn sad. "Unless you're retired, most people will have a conflict at
some level if you look hard enough." Vaughn said the solution is full
disclosure and abstaining from any matters where the benefit for his firm would
be obvious. Jackie Nytes, a Democratic council
member, agreed. She said Vaughn will have to be careful because conflicts can
arise. "The trouble with ethics legislation," Nytes
said, "is that people have to work for a living."
May 24, 2008 Indiana
Star
A Marion County Jail II inmate was denied blood-pressure medication
before he collapsed and later died of hypertension, according to a lawsuit
filed Friday in Marion Superior Court. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys who
have filed other complaints challenging medical care at the privately run
jail. It says the jail's medical staff failed to give Brian Keith Allen, 33,
regular doses of his medication, despite at least one high blood pressure
reading. He collapsed Nov. 25, 2006, and died five days later in a hospital.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of his estate and his mother, Ella Mae Allen,
names Corrections Corporation of America, two medical staff members and
Sheriff Frank Anderson. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages on claims
including wrongful death and negligence.
April 2, 2008 Indianapolis
Star
Five inmates at the privately run Marion County Jail II filed a
class-action lawsuit today based on claims of improper medical treatment and
access to medication, unsafe and inhumane conditions, and a broken grievance
process. The suit names Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of
America and Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson, who oversees CCA's contract
to run Jail II, 730 E. Washington St. The medium-security jail, which was
housing 1,043 inmates today, serves as an auxillary
to the county-run Marion County Jail down the street. "What is alarming
is that even though you bring these problems to light, nothing ever is done
about them," attorney Paul Ogden said. He also filed a suit against CCA
in January on claims of dangerous work conditions and racial discrimination
against several black nurses. That suit also raised concerns about the
handling of medications for inmates, with some given incorrect medication and
some denied prescription drugs. Kevin Murray, an attorney for Anderson, said
that all complaints would be taken seriously, but he expressed confidence in
CCA's operation. The company's contract to run Jail II was renewed last year
through 2017. CCA has denied the allegations made in the nurses' lawsuit.
January 29, 2008 WISH-TV
Some former nurses at one of the Marion County jails said their bosses were
racist and their work environment was dangerous. Six nurses filed into a
meeting room at a hotel by the airport Tuesday afternoon to speak of their
experiences inside Marion County jail #2. It sits on east Washington Street.
The county contracts with a private company called Corrections Corporation of
America, or CCA to run it. "We were known as the defiant nurses because
of what we stood for," said Delores McNeil a nurse. The nurses said a
number of racist things happened to them at the jail. They said one of their
supervisors wore a t-shirt with a confederate flag. "Now it wasn't a
small flag. The whole back of her shirt was the confederate flag," said
Harriett Ellis a nurse. Ellis and the other nurses talked about another time
when a flooded cell filled the medical unit with raw sewage, the nurses
complained they were the only ones who had stay. "Their response was
they sent the doctor home for the day. They sent the inmates that were
waiting in the medical for treatment, they sent them back upstairs and they
told us that we had to put on garbage liners on our feet,
that they were not closing medical down. So for the rest of the day we
were walking in and out of fecal material," said Ellis. The nurses'
lawsuit calls for a number of things. It asks CCA to admit the company
violated the nurses' rights. It also asks for damages. A spokesperson for
Nashville-based CCA said on Tuesday quote "It's our general company
policy not to comment on pending litigation other than through our legal
representatives in appropriate court filings." Sheriff Frank Anderson
who's in charge of the jail said through a spokesperson he won't comment on
the lawsuit until the department's lawyers have read it.
January 29, 2008 Journal
Gazette
Six black nurses sued a private company operating a Marion County jail
Monday, alleging they were fired or forced to leave their jobs because of
racism or exposing medical practices that put inmates at risk. The 10-count
complaint alleges Corrections Corp. of America retaliated against the six
because they had complained to their supervisors that inmates did not receive
prescribed medications, were given wrong medications or were given other
patients’ drugs to save money. The complaint filed in Marion Superior Court
in Indianapolis also alleges CCA created a racially hostile work environment
in which one white supervisor wore clothing with a Confederate flag emblem
and another white supervisor had a drawing in which black nurses were
identified as “monkeys.” The nurses also said they were forced to work in an
unhealthy and dangerous work environment including being ordered to escort
dangerous inmates and having to walk through sewage with garbage bags on
their feet when the plumbing in a restroom overflowed. The lawsuit said the
alleged actions occurred over the last two years. Steve Owen, a spokesman for
Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA, said the company has a policy of not commenting
on pending litigation except through court filings. He said CCA had not yet
been served with the complaint.
September 13, 2006 Indianapolis
Star
It may be several weeks before autopsy tests are completed that would
show the cause of death of Charles Repass, an inmate
who died in the privately operated Marion County Jail II. "I lost my
son. I lost my baby," said Catherine Repass,
the inmate's mother. "I was planning on his birthday. I wasn't planning
on a funeral." Repass, 30, was declared dead
Monday morning at the jail, 730 E. Washington St. He had been held at the
jail, operated by Corrections Corporation of America, since he was arrested
Sept. 1. Repass was injured in a Sept. 1 traffic
accident at East Street and Troy Avenue. An Indianapolis police report said
crack cocaine was found on Repass. He had been
treated for ribs broken in the accident but complained of pain and difficulty
breathing Sunday. After being sent to the jail's medical unit, Repass was later found unresponsive and in cardiac
arrest.
September 11, 2006 Indianapolis
Star
An autopsy is expected to determine why an inmate died this morning at Marion
County Jail II, officials said. Charles Repass, 30,
was found unresponsive in his cell about 8 a.m. in the medical unit at the
privately run facility, 730 E. Washington Street, spokeswoman Heidi Marshall
said. Repass was treated Sept. 3 for broken ribs he
suffered in a vehicle crash preceding his Sept. 1 arrest, Marshall said. He
was taken to Jail II’s medical unit about 11 p.m. Sunday complaining of pain
and trouble breathing, Marshall said. At 7:30 a.m., Repass
ate breakfast and spoke with a nurse; 30 minutes later, Marshal said staff
found him unconscious and in cardiac arrest.
November 23,
2004 Indianapolis Star
A
correctional officer at Marion County Jail II was arrested early today and
accused of trying to bring marijuana and tobacco in to the Downtown facility,
officials said. Durand Huggins, 27, of Indianapolis, was booked on a
preliminary charge of trafficking with an inmate, a class C felony.
September 16,
2004 Indianapolis
Star
An inmate's 15 hours of freedom after escaping from Marion County Jail II
earned him an additional six-year prison sentence. Marion Superior Court
Magistrate Amy Barnes on Wednesday ordered Leo Deberry,
24, Indianapolis, to serve the six years after he completes the 14-year term
he was serving for burglary and dealing cocaine. Deberry had been sentenced June 4 on the
burglary charge and was being held in the Jail II pending transfer to an
Indiana Department of Correction facility. Deberry
was captured June 7, about 15 hours after he escaped from the privately run
jail at 730 E. Washington St. He is the first inmate to escape from the
facility. Deberry's escape went unnoticed by guards
for about 4 1/2 hours.
June 21, 2004 Indianapolis Star
The first inmate to escape from Marion County's privately operated jail annex
was caught Monday after about 15 hours. Leo Deberry,
24, had been sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for burglary and theft.
He was found about 9:30 a.m. Monday hiding between two cars in a parking lot
in the 700 block of North Sherman Drive. The Marion County Jail II, 730
E. Washington St., opened in 1997 to help ease crowding at the main jail
nearby. It houses 960 adult male inmates. Owned by the county, the Jail
II is run under contract by Corrections Corporation of America, a Nashville,
Tenn., company that operates prisons. The facility is privately
staffed. Authorities believe that sometime around 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Deberry left a chapel service and broke into a manager's
office on the jail's second floor. He then pried open a second-floor metal
gate that protected the exterior window and lowered himself to the
ground. "We've not ever had anything like this happen," said
Heidi Marshall, a jail spokeswoman. "He's the first ever." Deberry had been an inmate there since November, when
Indianapolis police arrested him during a burglary at a residence in the 4100
block of Meadows Drive. On April 22, a Marion Superior Court jury
convicted Deberry of burglary and theft. On Friday,
he was sentenced to a combined 14 years in state prison, court records
show. He will be charged separately in connection with the
escape. After the escape Sunday evening, Deberry
was not missed during an 8:30 p.m. inspection. His absence was noted during
another inspection at 11 p.m., Marshall said. Officials will review why
the lapse occurred, Marshall said. Barbed wire secures most of the
facility but not the area from which Deberry
escaped.
July 8, 2003 Indianapolis Star
A federal judge is demanding that county officials take significant steps to
ease crowding at the Marion County Jail. U.S. District Court Judge
Sarah Evans Barker told county leaders to find a way to increase the number
of jail guards and turn unused space in the Marion County Lockup into usable
beds for the jail. The jail continues to hold too many prisoners even
though the sheriff bought more than 200 beds in Marion County Jail II last
month. Now all 992 beds in the privately run facility are occupied by Marion
County inmates.
New Castle
Correctional Facility
New Castle, Indiana
Correctional Medical Services, GEO Group
August
24, 2012 Fox 59
A Plainfield man is accused of beating an inmate at a short term offender
program. Kevin Davis was an employee at the GEO Group when he allegedly hurt
inmate Gabriel Hatfield. Hatfield suffered minor injuries and abrasions.
Davis turned himself in at the Hendricks County Jail Friday. He was released
on $5,000 bond shortly after his arrest.
May 31, 2012 WHIO
The prospect of being bitten by a K-9 helped Indiana law enforcement officers
capture two escapees from a privately run outdoor recreation facility and
return them to the New Castle Correctional Facility in northeast Indiana.
Johnny Y. Hines, 26, of Muncie, and Christopher Hoover, 33, of Greensburg,
were returned to the minimum security unit after they surrendered by lying
down in a wooded area about 10 miles north of the prison in Delaware County,
the Indiana State Patrol post at Pendleton said Thursday. The two were
discovered missing at about 2:45 p.m. when Sgt. Rob Cross and Trooper Tyler
Painter from the Pendleton post took a headcount. That began a search joined
by an officer with the GEO Group, which operates the recreation facility.
Painter and the GEO Group officer, who had a K-9 bloodhound, tracked the
inmates north along a railroad bed, according to the ISP. Two state patrol
units from Muncie, who also had a K-9 unit, joined in the search.
March 15, 2011 WXIN-TV
Wesley Hammond, an inmate at the New Castle correctional facility has
been convicted of running a major drug ring from inside the jail using an
illegally smuggled cell phone. Hammond's attorney says his client made over
five thousands calls and was never caught by guards. New Castle you may
remember was overtaken by inmates four years ago in a riot that included
destruction to furniture small bonfires and a prison that remained out of
control for several hours with inmates running free around the prison
compound. The prison is privately contracted out and run by the Geo
Corporation based in Florida. "To think that an inmate could make all
these calls in a facility that's supposed to have 24-hour surveillance,"
said Jack Crawford, Hammond's attorney. He said Hammond told him one of the
guards gave him the cell phone. GEO would not comment sending Fox59 a generic
statement saying they cooperated with the investigation. An Indiana
department of corrections spokesman said illegally smuggled in cell phones is
a huge problem in prisons nationwide. "Despite our best efforts we have
seen cell phones trafficked into our facilities at an alarming rate,"
said Doug Garrison with Indiana's DOC. "Obviously there's some mistake
somewhere when a person can use a cell phone that many times and run
something like this and not be accounted for by the guards or the security
personnel at the facility," said Crawford. "When you see somebody
running a big drug ring from inside a prison that's a serious matter,"
said Brad Blackington assistant US Attorney.
July 29, 2009 The Star Press
A medical worker at the New Castle Correctional Facility was arrested
this week after she allegedly tried to smuggle marijuana and tobacco into the
institution. Ann J. Oakes, 31, Milton, was preliminarily charged with
trafficking with an inmate, possession of marijuana and trafficking tobacco.
She remained in the Henry County jail on Wednesday under a $44,400 bond.
State police said Oaks was found to have the bundles of marijuana and
tobacco, along with rolling papers, hidden in her pants during a search when
she arrived for work Tuesday morning. Oakes, a qualified medical assistant
working for Correctional Medical Services, which provides health care to
prisoners, has been suspended without pay pending an investigation.
Authorities said Oakes acknowledged that she was bringing the substances to
an inmate, and anticipated being paid for her efforts by a co-conspirator
outside the prison. Oakes' arrest came three weeks after Cynthia Ann Angel,
44, Centerville, was arrested for allegedly trying to throw a package,
containing cell phones and tobacco, over the prison's walls. Angel had
pleaded guilty in December to a trafficking charge stemming from a similar
incident.
January 30, 2009 The
Star Press
A New Castle correctional officer was arrested today for helping a
prisoner escape overnight. Maurice Melton, 38, a correctional officer
employed by The GEO Group, the private company that operates the New Castle
Correctional Facility, was arrested today for aiding in the escape of an
offender, a Class C felony carrying a standard four-year prison term. Melton
is accused of helping inmate Jeffery Kinartail, 27,
McCordsville, leave a minimum security housing unit at the prison.
Staff discovered Kinartail missing around 11:15
p.m. He was arrested in Indianapolis around 4 a.m. at a Motel Six on North Shadeland Avenue. Melton allowed Kinartail
to walk away from the facility by silencing a door alarm which Kinartail used to exit the facility, authorities said.
Melton then allegedly drove Kinartail from the
prison to Indianapolis, with the belief he was to be paid for his efforts.
May 10, 2008 AP
A prison guard beat his live-in girlfriend's daughter in the head while she
slept because of her loud snoring, police said. Charles A. Williamson struck
the 14-year-old four or five times with the wooden handle of a claw hammer,
according to a probable cause affidavit. He told police he had asked the girl
and her mother to move out because both of them snore. Williamson, 46, is an
officer at the New Castle Correctional Facility, about 45 miles east of
Indianapolis. He was charged with two counts of battery and faces one count
of criminal confinement after the girl complained she had been handcuffed to
her bed. An officer at the Henry County Jail said Williamson had bonded out,
and a message at a number listed under his name said the phone was
disconnected. The girl's mother, Bobbie Jo Davis, 42, was being held at the
jail Saturday on a neglect charge. The jail had no attorneys listed for
Williamson or Davis. A probable cause affidavit said Davis watched from the
hallway Wednesday night while Williamson went into her daughter's bedroom and
beat her with the hammer handle. Davis told Williamson he shouldn't have
beaten the girl but did not seek medical attention for her, police said. When
the girl complained of a headache the next morning, Davis gave her an aspirin
and sent her to school, the affidavit said. Police were later called to the
school when the girl told teachers she had been beaten. Williamson denied
striking the girl with the hammer but acknowledged that he had handcuffed
her, authorities said. Trials for Williamson and Davis are scheduled for
Sept. 2. The Associated Press left a phone message seeking comment with a
spokeswoman for the prison, which is run for the state by the Florida-based
Geo Group Inc.
April 24, 2008 The Star
Press
A riot one year ago at the New Castle Correctional Facility cost a
private prison contractor more than $1.1 million in police protection,
repairs and improvements. And though that's a bullet dodged by taxpayers,
they're not out of the woods yet. What remains to be calculated is the cost
of ongoing legal proceedings in Henry County, where 28 inmates are charged
with dozens of felony and misdemeanor crimes. Seven of the men have pleaded
guilty and their cases now are complete, but 21 others are pursuing jury
trials, and they could rack up significant costs for taxpayers. Already,
taxpayers are paying for the defendants' attorneys, depositions, and in at
least two cases, private investigators, according to court files. The April
24, 2007, riot at New Castle quickly became national news as television
helicopters flew above the prison recreation yard and showed images of the
melee live. Inmates burned mattresses and threw beds and other furnishings out
of the windows of the dormitory-style housing units. Police stormed the
perimeter and used tear gas to secure the facility. Two prison employees were
injured and treated at Henry County Memorial Hospital. "I think you saw
us [in] April at our worst," said Ernie Dixon, director of operations
for The GEO Group, the Florida company hired in 2005 to manage the prison.
New Castle remains the state's only privatized prison. The riot occurred 15
months after GEO took over. The riot was led by Arizona inmates, the first of
whom were moved across the country a month earlier as the Arizona Department
of Corrections tried to ease its overcrowded prisons by filling unused beds
in Indiana. Gov. Mitch Daniels looked to the deal with Arizona as a cash cow,
but it never fully developed, since Arizona called off all transfers days
before the riot. Arizona's exodus from New Castle now has begun. The first
120 inmates were flown back to their home state last week, and those
transfers will continue during the next couple of months. What's left is for
Arizona, Indiana, GEO and Henry County Prosecutor Kit Crane to work out an
agreement on how, and where, to house Arizona offenders who still face
riot-related charges. Dixon said one of those Arizona inmates since has
completed his time behind bars. But rather than being sent back to Arizona
and released, he remains held here, at GEO's expense, pending his Indiana
criminal case.
April 10, 2008 The Star
Press
Arizona inmates held in the New Castle Correctional Facility will be
moved out of Indiana beginning this month. George Zoley,
chairman and chief executive officer for The GEO Group, the private company
that manages the New Castle prison, said inmates will be moved out of New
Castle, 100 at a time, until all are moved elsewhere. Zoley
made the comment during the company’s quarterly earnings report last month,
not earlier this week as reported earlier today on The Star Press Web site,
www.thestarpress.com. A transcript of the report was published this week.
According to the transcript, Zoley said, “We expect
to transfer approximately 100 Arizona inmates out of the New Castle facility
every two weeks beginning in the first week of April, while simultaneously
filling these vacant beds with additional Indiana inmates reaching an initial
total of over 2,000 Indiana inmates.” As of Wednesday, the Arizona Department
of Corrections listed its Indiana inmate population at 629 offenders. None of
the inmates have been moved as of yet, said Trina Randall, spokeswoman for
the New Castle prison. The Indiana Department of Correction and ADOC reached
a deal in March 2007 to house Arizona offenders at the underused prison in
New Castle. A month later Arizona inmates led a riot inside the facility, and
ultimately 28 inmates, all but one of them from Arizona, were charged as a
result of the riot. The two states ultimately called off their deal, and
Indiana said it would use the space inside the 2,416 bed prison for its own
inmates.
January 25, 2008 AP
A state prison that was the site of a riot last year was locked down
after three guards were treated for minor injuries after a fight with
inmates. Four to six inmates at the New Castle Correctional Facility fought
with the guards during an outdoor exercise period Wednesday after an inmate
left the recreation area, said Trina Randall, a spokeswoman for the GEO Group
Inc., the private company that is contracted to run the facility. An argument
turned into a pushing and shoving match that lasted about a minute and a
half, said Randy Koester, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of
Correction. "The incident that occurred the other night was quite
minor," Randall said. Koester said today that the prison about 45 miles
east of Indianapolis was being taken off lockdown in stages and he expected
it to return to normal operations over the weekend. Eight inmates and two
staff members at the prison were injured during an April 24 riot in which
hundreds of prisoners burned mattresses and broke windows. The disturbance
occurred six weeks after inmates from Arizona arrived as part of a deal
between the states. Twenty-seven Arizona inmates and one from Indiana were
charged after the riot. Some of the Arizona inmates who were involved in the
riot were sent back to that state. After the riot, the Indiana DOC revised
eating and recreation schedules at New Castle and added bars, cameras and
fencing, Koester said. Arizona inmates also were told of the different rules
in policies in Indiana, he said. The Indiana DOC was reviewing the program,
which was up for renewal in March. "We're going to start needing that
facility to house Indiana inmates," Koester said. "As 2008 goes on,
we're going to work with the Arizona Department of Corrections to see how
best to remove those Arizona inmates." He said that would likely occur
in stages by housing units, as Arizona and Indiana inmates are housed
separately. About 630 inmates from Arizona were currently at the New Castle
prison as part of the program designed to ease prison overcrowding in
Arizona. The Indiana DOC receives $64 per prisoner per day under the
agreement, and can rotate up to 60 prisoners from Arizona into the facility
each month.
October 26, 2007 AP
Indiana prison officials have returned to Arizona four inmates who were
charged in the April riot at the New Castle Correctional Facility. The
inmates, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor rioting and battery charges, were
sent back because they are "no longer suitable for dormitory-style"
medium-security prisons like New Castle, said Karen Cantou
Grubbs, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Correction. A contract
between the states calls for Indiana to house inmates from Arizona, where
prisons are overcrowded. The agreement also allows the rotation of some
inmates every month. Cantou Grubbs declined to say
how the prisoners are moved between states. Indiana returned 60 inmates to
Arizona earlier this week and received 79 medium-security prisoners in
return. The four inmates involved in the April 24 riot have been replaced
with new inmates, said Al Parke, southern regional director for the
Department of Correction. The prisoner rotations, which have happened three
times, keep Indiana's inmate population from Arizona at about 630. The
contract, which the states announced in March, originally called for Indiana
to house 1,260 inmates, with Arizona paying $64 a day per inmate. But prison
space has since been filling up in Indiana, too. "Indiana is telling us
they've got a shortage of beds, so we're capped," said Nolberto Machiche, a spokesman
for Arizona's corrections department. Eight inmates and two New Castle staff
members were injured during the April 24 riot. A total of 27 Arizona inmates
were charged with a mix of felonies and misdemeanors afterward. "I'm
very confident that those inmates that have been transferred back to Arizona
will not adversely affect our ability to prosecute the remaining
inmates," Henry County Prosecutor Kit Crane said. The states rotate
inmates for several reasons. Some prisoners return to Arizona because bad
behavior makes them unsuitable for a medium-security prison. Others are sent
back because they have an upcoming court or release date, Parke said. Some
also return as a reward for good behavior. Having a rotation gives inmates
"a light at the end of the tunnel," telling them that if they behave
well they will return, Machiche said. Indiana was
housing some Arizona inmates at New Castle and Wabash Valley, a maximum
security prison in Western Indiana. The Wabash inmates were moved several
weeks ago. All Arizona prisoners are now at New Castle, which is managed by a
private company, GEO Group Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla. "No one will go to
any other (Indiana) institution unless there were emergency conditions,"
Parke said.
September 10, 2007 The
Star Press
A former New Castle Correctional Facility inmate who said he was beaten
by two other prisoners has sued the state of Indiana and the Department of
Correction, among other parties, for not protecting him after he reported
illegal activity to prison security last year. Gabriel Leach, who according
to computerized DOC records was incarcerated on theft charges from Jefferson
County until May, filed suit last month. He listed the state, DOC, The GEO
Group (the private company that manages the prison), two prison guards and
inmates Harrison Baker and "Cowboy" Harrison as defendants.
According to Leach's claim, at 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 28, 2006, the 30-year-old
man was called to the security office from his bunk in Unit C over the public
address system. During that conversation with officers, Leach reported
illegal activity that was happening inside the prison and said he was in
"danger of death or serious bodily harm." He was returned to Unit C
and on Dec. 29 two of his fellow inmates, Baker and Harrison, allegedly beat
Leach for about 15 minutes. According to court documents, he suffered
fractured ribs, a fractured jaw, broken nose and chipped teeth. Leach also
claims he was taken to solitary confinement before he was provided medical
treatment. In the state's response, filed Tuesday, Indianapolis attorney Paul
O. Mullin wrote that Leach "was careless and negligent with regard to
his own safety and well being," which contributed to the inmate's
injuries.
August 25, 2007 AP
The New Castle Correctional Facility likely has seen the last transfer of
inmates from Arizona, according to Gov. Mitch Daniels and a state prison
spokesman. A rising inmate population, the closing of one prison and
unexpected renovations at another leave Indiana officials focused on using
available beds for their inmates, state Department of Correction spokesman
Randy Koester said. "We don't plan on opening up any additional housing
units for Arizona," he said. The April 24 riot at New Castle that
involved Arizona inmates did not have a "direct" impact on the
decision, Koester said. Daniels was asked about the prison transfers during a
news conference yesterday. He said he did not expect to see "any more
prisoners accepted anytime soon" at the medium-security prison.
August 21, 2007 Indianapolis
Star
One-third of the Arizona inmates transferred to serve their sentences in an
Indiana prison are violent criminals, including 25 who were convicted of
murder, according to new data from state prison officials. Prison officials
said inmates were chosen based on their behavior in prison, not their
criminal records. But an advocate for prisoners' rights was surprised by the
news, saying officials had left the impression with the public that violent
offenders would not be included among those moved to the New Castle
Correctional Facility, which is managed by Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group.
"That's not what they said they were going to send," said Celia
Sweet, former president of the Indiana chapter of Citizens United for
Rehabilitation of Errants. "You know, live up
to your word. Don't go trying to hoodwink the public just to make some money
off the backs of these prisoners. That's not right. It's immoral." The
state never misled anyone, said Department of Correction Commissioner J.
David Donahue. Indiana's deal with Arizona allows medium-security prisoners
and bans only sex offenders, prisoners with discipline problems and
recognized gang members, he said. Medium security, Donahue said, does not
preclude those convicted of violent crimes. The majority of inmates in
Indiana prisons are housed in medium-security areas, he said. In all, 203 of
the 611 Arizona inmates are serving terms for violent crimes, including men
convicted of assault, kidnapping and attempted homicide.
August 14, 2007 AP
More than two dozen inmates face charges stemming from an April riot that
broke out after hundreds of out-of-state prisoners were transferred to a
privately run prison. A total of 28 inmates _ all but one of them from
Arizona _ appeared Tuesday in a temporary court set up at the New Castle
Correctional Facility. The charges included rioting, criminal confinement,
intimidation and battery by bodily waste. About 500 prisoners from Arizona
and Indiana burned mattresses and broke windows during the disturbance at the
medium-security prison April 24. Eight prisoners, a guard and a counselor were
injured, none seriously. The riot happened six weeks after the first of some
600 Arizona inmates began joining 1,050 Indiana prisoners. The New Castle
prison, about 45 miles east of Indianapolis, is managed by Boca Raton, Fla.- based GEO Group. A state report issued in May
acknowledged the Department of Correction transferred the out-of-state
inmates too quickly, had used inexperienced guards and failed to have equal
meal and recreation schedules for the two groups of inmates.
May 25, 2007 Indianapolis
Star
No additional Arizona inmates will be transferred to Indiana until conditions
that contributed to an April 24 riot at the New Castle Correctional Facility
are resolved, officials in both states said Thursday. Those problems include:
an inexperienced staff at the privately run prison; inadequate orientation of
inmates who lost privileges, such as smoking and use of personal TVs, that
they enjoyed in Arizona; and a schedule that forced Arizona inmates to eat
and have recreation at odd hours, such as midnight basketball games. The
findings were in a report released Thursday by the Indiana Department of
Correction. J. David Donahue, commissioner of the department, said he accepts
responsibility for the hurried speed of the transfer of inmates from Arizona,
which doesn't have room to house all its prisoners, to New Castle, a facility
that had sat more than half-empty. The agreement between Arizona and Indiana
was concluded March 9. Three days later, inmates began arriving. By April 17,
630 Arizona inmates had been transferred to New Castle. Some staff had less
than two months' experience, the report notes, with a large number having
less than a year of experience. "The speed by which I allowed inmates to
come in, I take responsibility for that," Donahue said. "Looking
back on that, that was a decision I should have reflected on," he said.
"We could have done better, and I could have done better." The
state's contract calls for 1,260 inmates from Arizona to be sent to New
Castle. Donahue said Indiana "wants to make sure that we meet (Arizona's
need for prison space) if we can, and we're prepared to do that. "But I am not advocating that we're going to be
bringing additional offenders in tomorrow or any time in the immediate future
until all of the (report) recommendations" have been addressed, he said.
Katie Decker, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Corrections, said
Arizona would not send any more inmates to Indiana until the "issues
that are addressed in the report are resolved." After those conditions
are met, Arizona "will evaluate how to proceed," she said. Decker
said Arizona took part in the investigation, but corrections officials there
generated their own report and version of events. Decker said that report
would not be made public. "This is Indiana's version of the
report," she said. "But we believe the underlying factors have been
addressed." Costs for repairing the facility -- including better doors
and getting nonflammable mattresses -- will be paid by The GEO Group, the Florida-based
firm the state hired in September 2005 to manage the prison, Donahue said.
Whether anyone will be fired or demoted for the problems that led to the
two-hour riot remains to be seen. "I just got this report yesterday
(Wednesday)," Donahue said. "I'll be assessing this and, where we
see that there's accountability, we obviously hold not only staff
accountable, we'll hold offenders accountable." He said the Indiana
State Police delivered information to the Henry County prosecutor Wednesday
that could lead to charges against 26 inmates, 25 of whom are from Arizona.
Craig Hanks, the warden of the prison and an employee of The GEO Group, said
he expects to remain in charge. "That's my plan," he said. Problems
with the transfer were apparent almost immediately. On the day before the
riot, April 23, Arizona officials had halted additional transfer of inmates,
citing inadequate and inexperienced staff. At 12:40 p.m. the next day, the
riot began after 30 to 40 Arizona inmates wearing white T-shirts ignored
staff orders to return to their cells and don their green smocks. That
clothing issue had been simmering for days, the report says. But on that day,
the dispute erupted into a riot, with doors and windows smashed, mattresses
set on fire and at least two correction officers beaten. Twenty-seven
prisoners also required medical treatment, with none of the injuries or
ailments serious. Donahue and Hanks said they were aware of transition
problems, including schedules that had Arizona and Indiana inmates having
recreation and eating at different times and frustration over rules that
hadn't existed in Arizona, such as a ban on pornography, personal TVs and
smoking. But neither official anticipated the blow-up. "I was briefed
literally the day before the event," Donahue said. "Did I think it
was going to rise to the level of this type of event? Absolutely not."
Family members of inmates, though, said the riot was exactly what they had
feared, even before the transfer of the Arizona inmates. Christian J. Losch, an Elkhart anesthesiologist whose mentally ill son
has served part of a murder sentence at New Castle, said he wasn't surprised
by the findings in the report, or that a riot broke out. Losch
said his son was most recently held at New Castle from August 2006 to
February. During about a half-dozen visits to New Castle, Losch
said, he noticed that the "staff, in general, seemed to be inexperienced
and very young." He said a security door near the visitors' area was
sometimes inoperable, forcing visitors to take a circuitous route to see the
inmates. The lockers used by visitors to stow personal belongings often were
broken. "It just felt like the place wasn't being maintained, just with
what you could see as a casual observer," Losch
said. "I can only presume that the problems had to do with the running
of the institution." Prison reform advocates have criticized Indiana,
Arizona and The GEO Group for entering into the transfer deal. "There
needs to be someone who throws this back at the administration and the
decision-makers, because that's where the problem lies," said Donna
Leone Hamm, founder and executive director of Middle Ground Prison Reform, a
nonprofit inmate advocacy group based in Arizona. "In the narrowest
terms, of course, the inmates are to blame," she said. "But you have
to treat the symptoms and not just the disease. And that means taking a look
at the administration and the people who negotiated this contract." Ken
Kopczynski, executive director of the watchdog Private Corrections Institute
based in Tallahassee, Fla., said all of the forces at work -- an
inexperienced staff, unhappy inmates and a facility with substandard security
doors and windows -- should have sent up red flags. "You've got
inexperienced staff manipulated by the inmates," Kopczynski said.
"You've got a private company trying to turn a profit. And you've got
inmates from different places who are comparing
themselves (and their treatment and benefits) to each other. It all sounds
like a recipe for disaster." Jody Kent, public policy expert with the
National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, commended
Indiana for "taking this issue seriously, doing an investigation and
acknowledging that their policies are flawed." That said, she criticized both Indiana and Arizona for carrying out
a deal that should not be considered a long-term fix for prison overcrowding.
"Upon reflection, these transfers were done too hastily. They were done
irresponsibly," she said. "And, as a result, the safety of
prisoners and guards were put at risk."
May 23, 2007 AP
Investigators on Wednesday turned over to a prosecutor their report on a
prison riot a month ago, saying inmates could be charged with rioting,
battery and other crimes. Henry County Prosecutor Kit Crane will determine
whether to file charges. Crane also could ask the investigators to look
further into the disturbance at the New Castle Correctional Facility. About
500 rioting prisoners burned mattresses and broke windows at the privately
run state prison on April 24. Those in the melee included prisoners from
Arizona under a contract with that state. Potential charges also include
theft, criminal mischief and possession of a dangerous device, state police
said in a news release. "The breadth of the investigation was wide and
lengthy due to the number of interviews conducted with the alleged suspects
and witnesses," the news release said. The Associated Press left
messages seeking comment Wednesday with Crane. The Department of Correction
had no comment on the report, spokesman Evan Hawkins said. He said he did not
know when a DOC report on the riot would be made public. DOC officials have
said the riot apparently began when about 40 inmates from Arizona refused to
return to their housing units after lunch. The conflict spread to Indiana
inmates and led prisoners to set mattresses and paper on fire in a courtyard,
break windows and damage sinks and toilets. By the time the prison was
secured hours later, nine people including two staff members had minor
injuries.
May 15, 2007 Journal-Gazette
For-profit prisons not good for state: I want to thank The Journal
Gazette for raising important questions regarding the recent riot by Arizona
inmates at GEO’s New Castle correctional facility in the editorial, “Prisons
and Privatization,” (April 28). What Hoosiers are coming to realize is that
prisons-for-profit are just that: They’re profits makers for shareholders and
corporate execs. While all the editorial’s questions
are on point, I predict nothing will be done because this issue is pure
politics (let’s see, your Department of Correction chief is a former
executive for U.S. Corrections Corp.). GEO and the other for-profit private
prison companies depend on low wages, no benefits, high
turnover and political contributions so that corporate executives can bring
in the big bucks (GEO’s George Zoley lives in an $8
million mansion with a 150-foot dock for his yacht). All of this corporate
profit should have been reinvested into the criminal justice system to maybe
have a positive influence on the system. But hey, they’re just smart
businessmen – they know that nothing will be done to cancel the contract. The
fix is in, folks; you bought the con (no pun intended). KEN KOPCZYNSKI,
Executive Director, Private Corrections Institute, Tallahassee, Fla.
May 9, 2007 AP
Two weeks after about 500 rioting prisoners burned mattresses and broke
windows at a privately run state prison, state officials are expected to
complete their investigation by Friday into what sparked the melee. The
findings will be reviewed by state prisons chief J. David Donahue, who could
make them public by next week, said Evan Hawkins, a spokesman for the Indiana
Department of Correction. “It’s a very large net that’s been cast, where
pretty much everything that could have happened is going to be investigated,”
Hawkins said Wednesday. “We’re trying to move as fast as possible. And we’re
hoping the report will be out next week.” Whether or not Donahue will suggest
any changes to prison policy depends on what the “post-event analysis report”
of the riot at the New Castle Correctional Facility shows, Hawkins said.
After the April 24 riot, prison officials said it apparently began when about
40 inmates who recently transferred from Arizona refused to return to their
living area after having lunch. The conflict spread to Indiana inmates and
led prisoners to set mattresses and paper on fire in the courtyard, break out
windows and damage sinks and toilets. By the time the prison was secured,
nine people — including two staff members — suffered minor injuries.
May 5, 2007 WISH TV
New e-mails show how concerned prison officials in Arizona were before
and after last week's prison riot in New Castle. While the Indiana Department
of Correction continues to investigate what went wrong, I-Team 8 is conducting
its own investigation. On April 24th, Chopper 8 showed you inmates setting
fires and breaking windows within the New Castle Correctional Facility,
Indiana's only privatized prison, run by the Geo Group. The apparent clash
between Indiana and Arizona prisoners left 2 guards and a handful of inmates
hurt. Late Friday afternoon, I-Team 8 obtained the following emails from
high-ranking prison officials in Arizona. One came from the director of
Arizona's Department of Correction to Indiana DOC Commissioner David Donahue.
It was dated the day before the riot. It stated, "Basic security
practices are lacking, like counts and inmate discipline. Simple
modifications that were proposed last week haven't been implemented. " There was another email, this time from the man
sent here from Arizona to investigate after the riot. Ivan Bartos wrote, "I'm sick of being okey
doked about some things and have had to breathe and
bite my tongue to avoid being very confrontational about things. They still
don't have accountability for their radios, we believe that at least one cell
phone is in control of our inmates and they are not counting inmates
correctly. My visit with Geo heavy hitters yesterday made me realize that
regardless of what is being said, efforts to assign blame are underway."
And in an update by Mr. Bartos, he expresses
concern about fires, because the alarm system and virtually all fire
extinguishers were destroyed in the riot. He reports keys still missing, and
no clear picture of what tools might be gone. Late Friday night, I-Team 8
received a response from the Indiana Department of Correction. It said that
even before Arizona inmates arrived in New Castle, there was concern that the
prison there would not be ready to accommodate so many prisoners so quickly.
The State Department of Correction says to expect a complete report on the
riot next week.
April 29, 2007 The
Tribune-Star
Like license plates, shivs and pruno, there’s money to be made in prison. Just ask
investors in GEO Group (GEO), who’ve seen their stakes in the private jailer
more than triple in value in the past year. — SmartMoney.com, Feb. 26. Among
the seven specific “risks and uncertainties that could materially affect”
future earnings estimates, The GEO Group Inc. does not mention “prison riots”
in its online 2007 Financial Guidance Update. Apparently, incidents such as
Tuesday’s uprising by hundreds of inmates in the GEO-operated New Castle
Correctional Facility fall under risk-and-uncertainty No. 8 — “other
factors.” Those are outlined in the Florida company’s annual Securities and
Exchange Commission filings. This relegation to the small print of GEO’s big
international world sums up what is — and is not — of importance to GEO and
Wall Street. Indeed, within two days of what New Castle’s mayor proclaimed “a
full-scale riot,” GEO Group’s stock had regained most of the 2.2-percent loss
caused by the destructive protests. By week’s end, GEO had more than
rebounded, closing at $51.20 — a healthy $1.30 over its pre-riot price. The
United States may account for less than 5 percent of the world’s population,
but we have more than 25 percent of the globe’s prisoners. You’d think that
fact would give pause to those who boast incessantly of this nation’s
Christian values, but that seems not to be the case. Incarceration in America
is a major growth industry. About 2.2 million men and women are locked up in
U.S. correctional institutions — compared to 500,000 in 1980 — with another
4.8 million on parole or probation. Industry projections call for a 13-percent
increase in our prison population within the next four years. Only 6 to 7
percent of U.S. prisons are operated by private-sector companies like the GEO
Group, but it isn’t because public officials are hesitant to hand over the
reins. Demand simply outstrips supply. Competition among states for contracts
is fierce, which spells a rosy future for corporations. In other words, it
will take more than a few burned mattresses and seven minor injuries in one
short-lived rebellion to derail the privatized prison express. Especially in
Indiana. In 2005, Gov. Mitch Daniels awarded a four-year, $53-million
contract for New Castle prison to the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest
prison management company. Listed on the NYSE since 1996, GEO operates 58
prisons in the United States, Australia and South Africa and is building some
of its own. The company also runs a few mental-health facilities, including
the Florida Civil Commitment Center, where sex offenders who have served out
their prison sentences are kept locked up, ostensibly to receive
rehabilitative treatment mandated by Florida law. Last year, Daniels began to
try to snag some of the millions of bucks floating around the prison industry
and get them back into Indiana’s coffers. A deal to house California inmates,
where correctional institutions are bursting at the seams, went south in
December, but the governor then struck a one-year agreement with Arizona:
$6.1 million to house about 1,200 of its inmates at New Castle. As we now
know, thanks to the uprising, about a week before the free-for-all, Dora Schriro, Arizona’s prisons chief, came to Indiana to see
how things were progressing for the first 630 transferees. The number of New
Castle guards and the inexperience of some inspired her to delay moving any
more Arizona inmates here. Katie Decker, a spokeswoman for Schriro, explained to the Associated Press: “They were
pulling staff from other areas around the state to put them into these
[security] positions, and we needed to be sure there was a permanent professional
crew on site. It wasn’t just a quantity issue, it
also was quality and the level of experience.” Tuesday’s violent protest,
primarily by the medium-security Arizona inmates who’d had no say-so in their
hasty 1,500-mile move to Indiana, confirmed Schriro’s
worries. In the aftermath, when some folks criticized Gov. Daniels for busing
in hundreds of seething Arizona prisoners before New Castle had an adequately
trained staff to handle them, he said his intentions were for the welfare of
Indiana workers. “We were looking for a way to get some Hoosiers hired at New
Castle,” he told the Indianapolis Star. Also, it was a chance to “have them
well-trained on somebody else’s nickel.” Of the uprising, Daniels assumed his
characteristic corporate executive stance and reminded everyone that “corrections is a high-risk business managing high-risk
offenders.” True, and the return is also very high. SmartMoney.com’s bullish story on the GEO Group noted
that expected increases in the prison population mean “construction of new
prison beds will cost as much as $12.5 billion. That kind of burden will
likely force states and the federal government to outsource even more.”
Patrick Swindle, a Tennessee investment analyst, told SmartMoney
that states build prison beds for $75,000 to $80,000 per bed and the federal
government “at north of $100,000 per bed.” Meanwhile, the private sector does
it for about $60,000 per bed. That sort of economizing comes at a cost — to
someone. Indy Star staff writer Erika D. Smith interviewed Ken Kopczynski,
executive director of the Private Corrections Institute, a non-profit
organization that researches and reports on the problems of privatized
prisons. According to Kopczynski, the employee turnover rate in privately run
prisons is about 50 percent. In public correctional institutions it’s in the
15-percent range. “They answer to the shareholders so they make cuts whenever
possible,” he said. The off-set, of course, is the dependability of the
consumer base for prison services; the “customers” just keep on coming. Plus,
they’re recession-proof. As Jamie Cuellar, a manager of the Brazos Micro Cap
fund, explained to SmartMoney.com: “When times are bad, more people tend to
go to jail. It’s awful but true.” And if those people don’t like the accommodations,
what are they going to do? They can take their business elsewhere, but the
only way to do that is to bust up the joint, shove some security guards
around, set some mattresses on fire and get thrown into a place that’s even
worse.
April 29, 2007 The
Star-Press
WIDE DISPARITY EXISTS between the assessment of Indiana's top corrections
official and that of eyewitness accounts regarding staffing and security
conditions at New Castle Correctional Facility. Because of this
contradiction, state officials should not lock themselves into a position
that Indiana must push ahead on accepting more Arizona inmates. That position
of optimism was articulated on Wednesday, only hours after the prison riot at
New Castle, by J. David Donahue, commissioner of the Indiana Department of
Correction. Donahue told The Indianapolis Star that he had not changed his
mind about housing prisoners from outside Indiana and saw no reason to pull
back from accepting more Arizona inmates once 132 new correctional workers
completed their training at the prison. "We have a facility that we need
to use and a community that needs jobs, and Arizona has a critical shortage
of prison space," he said in an interview with The Star. ALL OF THOSE
POINTS ARE TRUE, BUT the statement ignores many aspects of what happened on
Tuesday at New Castle, what led up to the disturbance and the possible risk
of continuing the "Arizona experiment" without significant changes
and upgrades in the security plan. While adding more workers at New Castle is
logical, that might not cure certain disturbing elements of the situation.
Witnesses and others who commented to Star Press reporters about Tuesday's
disturbance seem to paint a different picture than the one Donahue is seeing
or assumes is there. For instance, Aamir Shabazz of Muncie, who works as a volunteer chaplain for
Muslim inmates and has been at the prison three times a week, suggests that
New Castle was unprepared for the Arizona inmates, who brought a more
"hard-core" prison culture with them. "They don't have enough
guards to make them (Arizona prisoners) change," Shabazz
said. This prompts the question: Will there be enough "muscle" and
experience in the added workforce, as seen by Donahue, to make the Arizona
plan work? Jamin Vaughn, who worked at New Castle
through last June, described the workforce at the privately operated prison
as under-trained, underpaid and under-manned. He said the GEO Group, which
operates the facility, cut costs by supervisory staff when it took over. The
strongest denunciation of New Castle security came from Muncie's Kara Scott,
who last month began training to work there. Although she declined to return
after only one day of training, it is apparent that Scott's powers of
observation were keen. In a Star Press interview, Scott noted she badly
needed a job but quickly saw that New Castle was not a safe place to work.
She said she spotted several danger signs: inmates unsupervised, some in
prison areas marked for staff only; guards lacking proper security apparatus
(including sprays and other devices to help maintain order); guards advised
that, in case they were attacked, not to go to a co-worker's rescue but
instead stay put and ask for additional security; guards being advised there
would be times, perhaps during a shift change, that they might be working
alone; and trainees advised to take self-defense and Spanish classes on their
own, in anticipation of the influx of Arizona inmates. ASSUMING THAT SCOTT'S
OBSERVATIONS and recall are accurate, it indicates that GEO supervisors and
Indiana officials must be willing to make huge changes before even thinking
about allowing more Arizona inmates to come to New Castle. What happened at
the prison on Tuesday is eerily reminiscent of this country's incursion into
Iraq four years ago. There was the same stubbornness of purpose (despite the
warning flags of dealing with a different kind of population), the same
over-reliance on faulty information, the same lack of effective and
long-range plan for handling the aftermath of a situation, and the same
imprecision on how to permanently resolve an unstable and risk-filled
situation that erupted after troops/prisoners were on the ground. Officials
in charge at New Castle must make a complete, fact-filled and unbiased
investigation and assessment. Until then, they should avoid such overly
optimistic advice that merely adding more bodies to the staff will resolve
all problems in an alien and volatile prison population.
April 27, 2007 WISH TV
Three days after the riot at New Castle Correctional Facility, questions
still remain. Insiders claim the Department of Correction and Geo Group are
not telling the truth about what really happened. A New Castle correctional
officer, who did not want to be identified because he didn't want to lose his
job, emailed: "These (Arizona) offenders are apparently violent and have
been since day one. GEO Group and the Arizona Department of Corrections are
telling the media that these individuals are not murderers or sex offenders.
This is not a true statement." An inmate's mother, who says her son told
her on Sunday the Arizona inmates were going to riot, said: "What upsets
me is they knew this was going to happen. They could have avoided this."
A spokesman for the Department of Correction told I-Team 8 they had no advance
information or knowledge of the riot. When asked if Geo Group knew about the
riot beforehand, a spokeswoman based at the facility told I-Team 8,
"Absolutely not." And this from a former inmate: "The control
room should have locked everything down completely! It sounds to me that they
lost control before the riot even started." DOC confirms the facility
was locked when the riot started, but told I-Team 8 offenders were able to
override the system and manually unlock housing unit doors. How did that happen?
This from a member of one of the prison emergency response teams: "It is
apparent that the facility is understaffed and is not as safe of an
environment as it potentially could be. Is this safe for staff and the
surrounding community? I think not." The DOC continues to say that
staffing is adequate and that public safety is number one. And, finally, a
mother whose son was one of the first responders, emailed I-Team 8:
"They had taken a few officers for hostage purposes. If the facility had
been at full capacity, we would have been a community in mourning instead of
giving a sigh of relief." The DOC spokesman maintains that there were no
hostages at any time. Since Tuesday, I-Team 8 has been asking Indiana,
Arizona and Geo Group that manages New Castle for a list of the Arizona
inmates to find their crimes and sentences. Already I-Team has found a man
serving time for murder. Repeated requests for information and interviews
have been denied. While Indiana still has not released the list, late Friday
afternoon Arizona did. I-Team 8 team is looking at every name to see what 630
inmates were shipped here and if the list abides by the agreement that there
would be no violent criminals such as killers or sex offenders.
April 26, 2007 KTAR
Tuesday's riot by Arizona inmates at an Indiana private prison prompts a
caution from Democrat Ed Ableser. "We need to
be very careful about a private industry that actually makes money off of the
amount of criminals we produce in this society," he said. But,
Republican Russell Pearce said the riot wasn't caused by private prisons, but
by a non-cooperative department of corrections which won't spend available
money. "They refuse to build or provide access to 3,000 beds in this
state," said Pearce. The philosophical dispute has left the state
thousands of prison beds short.
April 25, 2007 AP
Indiana's contract with a Florida-based company that runs prisons across the
nation requires it to reimburse the state for the costs police incurred
subduing Tuesday's riot at an eastern Indiana prison it manages. State
prisons chief J. David Donahue said Wednesday that staff at
the New Castle Correctional Facility are assessing the emergency
response costs and damage to the prison following the riot, which slightly
injured two staff members and seven prisoners. Donahue, the commissioner of
the Indiana Department of Correction, said "it would be total
speculation" to estimate the riot's costs at this time. Trina Randall, a
spokeswoman for GEO Group Inc., said it could take a few days to assess the
expense of sending emergency squads, county police and Indiana State Police
to the prison to end the fracas, which involved about 500 inmates from
Arizona and Indiana. "They're going from housing unit to housing unit
today doing that estimate. We're responsible for the costs of the riot, and
I'm assuming that includes overtime," she said. During Tuesday's riot,
prisoners from Arizona and some from Indiana set mattresses and paper afire
in a prison courtyard, destroyed furniture and broke windows, officials said.
Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group assumed management of the medium- security
prison about 45 miles east of Indianapolis in January 2006 under the terms of
an earlier contract. Last month, the Indiana DOC and GEO Group signed a
contract specifying how the company would handle inmates Indiana had agreed
to accept from Arizona. As of Wednesday, about 630 Arizona inmates had been
moved to the prison. The remaining transfers to the prison, which already
houses 1,050 Indiana prisoners, have been temporarily halted. Under that
deal, Indiana agreed to pay GEO Group at least $314,212 per week for housing
up to 1,200 inmates from the Western state. Last month, Indiana signed a
contract with the Arizona Department of Corrections under which Arizona
agreed to send up to 1,260 inmates to Indiana. Arizona officials agreed to
pay their Indiana counterparts at least $536,256 per week for housing up to
about 1,200 Arizona inmates. Indiana House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South
Bend, said Wednesday that the state should cancel that contract. He said
Arizona officials knew the arrangement was problematic before the riot and
were aware that Indiana bans smoking in prisons, while Arizona permits it.
Randall has said many prisoners were upset by the policy, which might have contributed
to the disturbance. "They're not our prisoners; they're Arizona's
prisoners. They ought to be sent back," Bauer said. Earl Goode, the
chief of staff for Gov. Mitch Daniels, released a statement urging Bauer to
stay focused on working to complete a new state budget before the current
legislative session ends Sunday. "It would be best for all Hoosiers if
the Speaker stayed on task and let Commissioner Donahue continue to run the
Department of Correction," Goode said in his statement. Indiana's contract
with GEO Group states that it has the right to terminate that agreement
"whenever, for any reason, the agency determines that such termination
is in the best interest of the State of Indiana." The contract between
Indiana and Arizona's corrections agencies covers one year but can be renewed
for up to three one-year terms if the parties agree. Arizona can end the
contract any time after that one-year period ends, while Indiana can end it
at any point if Arizona "fails to make timely payments" specified under
the agreement.
April 25, 2007 The Star
Press
Capt. Ron Deaton, a 22-year corrections veteran, was one of two guards
injured Tuesday in a riot inside the New Castle Correctional Facility. A
second prison employee was treated and released from Henry County Hospital on
Tuesday. His name wasn't released. Deaton's wife, Twilla,
said her 53-year-old husband was beaten by inmates and "has a lot of abrasions and bruises" on his face, arms
and legs. Twilla gathered with other members of her
family in a waiting room at Henry County Hospital while doctors took her
husband for X-rays. For years, Twilla said she
didn't question or worry uncontrollably about her husband's safety at work.
But she also knows that guards inside the prison have become increasingly
nervous about conditions recently. "I'll be honest. They all have
concerns. (Ron's) always worried about his officers," she said.
"They have been understaffed." In the past six weeks, the prison
has added 630 inmates to its population, thanks to an agreement with the
Arizona Department of Corrections. As soon as that agreement was signed, the
prison began an aggressive campaign to increase its staff. Twilla said she knows things aren't always rosy behind
bars, but she said for the most part, her husband doesn't talk about work at
home. And even despite Tuesday's riot and his minor injuries, she doesn't
expect that to change. She didn't expect to get a full riot report once the
two were reunited. Ron Deaton has worked at the prison in New Castle since it
opened in 2002. Before that, he worked at the Pendleton Correctional
Facility, his wife said.
April 25, 2007 The
Indianapolis Star
Visibly shaken after barricading himself from rioting prisoners at the New
Castle Correctional Facility, officer Larry Savage said he felt outnumbered
Tuesday and feared for his life. We're just understaffed right now. . .
.We're lucky to get out of there," he said as he left the prison. Savage
isn't the only one concerned about staffing. Arizona officials -- who last
month began sending the first of more than 1,200 prisoners slated for the
facility -- raised concerns about that issue after officials visited New
Castle last week. Dora Schriro, director of the
Arizona Department of Corrections, told the operators of the New Castle
prison that she was going to halt the transfer of inmates until staffing
issues were resolved, said Katie Decker, a spokeswoman for the department.
"There were serious security concerns," Decker said. Decker said
only 37 correctional officers were assigned to the 630 Arizona inmates at New
Castle on Thursday. Decker could not say what that number should have been
but said 131 officers would have been required if all 1,260 Arizona inmates
had been transferred. She declined to comment on whether those staffing levels
could have contributed to the riot but said officials are re-evaluating their
agreement with Indiana. "Is the facility going to be capable of housing
the inmates we have there? Are the things that caused this going to be
addressed? There's a variety of things we're going to be looking into and
saying, 'Where do we go from here?' " J. David
Donahue, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction, said Tuesday
the state facility, which is operated by a private contractor, GEO Group of
Florida, is not understaffed. He declined to elaborate. About 270 corrections
officers oversee about 1,668 inmates, including those from Arizona. Donahue
acknowledged hearing of Arizona's concerns about staffing. But he said it was
a mutual decision not to take additional prisoners from Arizona while both
sides evaluate the arrangement. Nevertheless, Donahue said he saw no reason
to end the relationship. Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday the troublemakers
should be sent back to Arizona. While pledging to review the out-of-state
arrangement, he also warned against a rush to judgment. Savage, meanwhile,
described a chaotic scene inside the prison, where for a time guards and
other prison workers had to barricade themselves in a staff room to keep
inmates from entering. "They beat up one of our captains and took his
keys," said Savage, who has worked at the prison about eight weeks.
Savage said the riot began because some Arizona inmates took off their shirts
and were not dressed properly in the food line. He said the Arizona inmates
had been threatening some sort of action for several weeks, but he's not sure
what set them off Tuesday. "They did not really have any demands,"
he said. "They were just trying to get a point across that they could
take the facility over, and that's what they did."
April 25, 2007 The Star
Press
More than $37 billion is spent on incarcerating inmates in the country's
jails and prisons each year, and critics of the private prison industry said
Tuesday that riots like the one at the New Castle Correctional Facility are
often sparked by cost-cutting measures. "You get what you pay for,"
said Kent Kopczynski, director of the Private Corrections Institute, a group
critical of the private prison industry and the privatization of prisons.
Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative agreed. "As a general
matter, private prisons cut corners," Wagner said. "Private prisons
cost as much as public prisons, so the only way they can make a profit is to
cut corners." Inmates at the New Castle facility rioted Tuesday, causing
injuries to two guards and damage to the facility. The prison is run by the
GEO Group. Under the name Wackenhut, the company considered locating a
facility in Delaware County in the late 1990s. When guards call in sick,
services or recreation programs can be cut, Wagner noted, causing unrest
among inmates. Officials on Tuesday cited the role of inmates from Arizona in
the riot. More than 600 Arizona inmates -- housed at New Castle after an
arrangement among the two states and GEO Group, which operates the privatized
state facility -- were housed at the facility this week. As many as 1,260
Arizona inmates were to have been housed in the prison, which has a capacity
of 2,400 beds. The prison also housed 1,050 Indiana inmates as of Tuesday.
Kopczynski said importing inmates from another state -- such as the Arizona
inmates at the New Castle prison -- can also increase the possibility of
disturbances. "It's run like a hotel," he said. "They've got
to fill the beds. If they can't fill the beds with Indiana natives, they've
got to bring them in from elsewhere. You bring in inmates from out of state,
and you have a blow-up between inmates." The prison industry in the
United States is a big one. CNNMoney reported in
March that $37 billion is spent on corrections each year in an effort to keep
more than 2 million inmates incarcerated. Kopczynski said the problem of
"understaffed and underpaid employees" was common in private
prisons. "In a public facility, the staff is reasonably paid, you have
health insurance, retirement," he said. "The privateers don't have
that. At one GEO facility when the company was still Wackenhut, less than 10
percent of employees participated in the retirement plan because the company
paid so much less than they did."
April 24, 2007 Indianapolis
Star
State officials will temporarily halt the transfer of Arizona prisoners
to the New Castle Correctional Facility after a riot Tuesday that prompted
calls for an end to housing another state's inmates in Indiana. Department of
Correction officials said nine people -- two prison employees and seven
inmates -- suffered minor injuries in separate disturbances involving Arizona
and Indiana prisoners during a two-hour period Tuesday afternoon at the
facility 50 miles east of Indianapolis. Commissioner J. David Donahue said
the Arizona prisoners may have been upset because Indiana prisons have
different rules, including a ban on smoking and limits on personal items
inmates can have in their cells. The Arizona prisoners are kept separate from
Indiana inmates. Tuesday's disturbance is the latest example of riots led by
prisoners shipped to other states for incarceration. At least two other
uprisings since 2003 involved Arizona inmates held in out-of-state prisons.
The riot also prompted a key legislative leader to call for the state to
cancel the Arizona deal. "The idea of bringing in people from another
state who bring along their gangs, allegiances and different alliances
immediately was a mixture that was bound to bring trouble," said House
Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend. Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday night
the inmates specifically involved in the incident "need to go home"
and that he will review the entire out-of-state arrangement today with
Donahue. But even before Tuesday's riot, Arizona officials had decided to
stop sending inmates to the New Castle prison because a recent visit raised
"serious security concerns." Dora Schriro,
director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, visited the New Castle
Correctional Facility on Thursday and found insufficient staffing for her
state's 630 inmates, said Katie Decker, a spokeswoman with the department. Schriro also was concerned about where officers were
stationed. "She advised the operators of that prison that she was going
to halt the transfer of inmates until these issues were resolved,"
Decker said. "There were serious security concerns." Decker said
only 37 correctional officers were assigned to the Arizona inmates Thursday.
She could not say what that number should have been but said 131 officers
would have been required if all 1,260 Arizona inmates had already been
transferred. She declined to comment on whether those staffing levels could
have contributed to the riot. Arizona is paying Indiana $6.1 million to house
its inmates. Daniels and others supported the deal in part because the prison
was only about half full. The New Castle prison is state-owned, but Indiana
contracts with GEO Group of Florida to operate it. The first 104 prisoners
arrived March 12. Decker, the Arizona corrections spokeswoman, said Arizona
would prefer to keep its prisoners in-state but can't accommodate the growing
inmate population. Arizona also sends some inmates to a prison in Oklahoma.
It had sent about 1,500 to private prisons in Texas, but those contracts were
canceled late last year. Decker said the future of the contract with Indiana
is in question. "Is the facility going to be capable of housing the
inmates we have there? Are the things that caused this going to be addressed?
" While the riot raised concerns about the deal
with Arizona, it also prompted questions about the state's contract with a
private firm to manage the facility. The state signed a contract with GEO
Group in September 2005 to run the prison for four years with an option for
three two-year extensions. Officials with the company declined comment
Tuesday. Daniels said the fact that the prison is privately managed did not
have anything to do with the riot, and his office released a history of
disturbances at Indiana correctional facilities to help support his point.
"In fact, the management there responded beautifully, as did the public
authorities," said Daniels, who has sought to privatize parts of state
government. But Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker disagreed and said
privatization of the prison likely contributed. "What happened today is
a tragedy. I think it all ties back to the fact that (the governor) has
privatized essential government services," Parker said. House Minority
Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, cautioned people
not to rush to judgment. "It's too early to make any rash judgments
about what happened in New Castle," he said. "I think we need to
find out exactly what happened, who is responsible and how prison officials
reacted. This is not the first prison riot in national history, nor is it the
last." Tuesday's trouble began about 2 p.m. as a group of Arizona
inmates became defiant as they were being moved from a dining hall to their
cellblocks, said Donahue, the DOC commissioner. Donahue said many of the
inmates began removing their shirts, apparently in a show of solidarity for
the "noncompliance," and one guard was either knocked or pushed to
the ground. A group of Indiana inmates -- who do not mingle with the Arizona
prisoners and are kept separate by fences -- became aware of the disturbance,
and about 500 of the prison's 1,668 inmates became involved, he said. Rioters
broke scores of windows and set several fires in outdoor recreation areas
before guards used a chemical agent to quell the disturbance after about two
hours. Guards first isolated the areas of disruption, giving inmates time to decide who was going to participate and
who was going to be bystanders rather than rushing in, Donahue said. "We
don't rush to judgment," he said. "We don't want to put additional
folks at risk. We didn't have anyone in harm's way." It's not unusual
for tensions to flare up at a prison that's privately run and has prisoners
from different states, said Ken Kopczynski, executive director of the
watchdog Private Corrections Institute. For one, prisoners often end up far
away from their relatives and friends, making visits difficult. "How do
you expect the family to stay in touch," he said, "when they're in
Arizona and they have to fly all the way to Indiana?" In addition, companies
such as GEO Group subject prisoners to different rules, based on the
contracts they have with different states. For example, prisoners from one
state can have food more times per day or access to reading materials or
better medical care than prisoners from another state. Guards did keep the
prison populations apart, as all management companies are required to do, but
that rarely stops the flow of information, Kopczynski said. Once one group
finds out the guards are treating another group better, prisoners can become
resentful, angry and violent. That kind of unequal treatment doesn't usually
happen in public prisons, because the prisoners are from the same state. But
transferring prisoners from state to state is becoming more and more common
as states run out of beds and decide it's cheaper to ship prisoners to other
states, rather than build a prison of their own. Prisoners' rights' advocates
said that the arrangement is a recipe for disaster from the start. Donna
Leone Hamm, director of Middle Ground Prison Reform, an Arizona-based
nonprofit inmate advocacy group, said she is not surprised that violence
broke out at the prison. She said her organization has been contacted by
inmates and their family members who said prisoners were shipped off to Indiana
against their will and with little notice, including some who said they were
roused from their beds in the middle of the night and told to pack. Because
Arizona transports prisoners deemed least likely to cause trouble,
well-behaved inmates felt they were being punished for playing by the rules,
Hamm said. In addition, some couldn't bring along personal property,
including televisions, she said.
April 24, 2007 WISH TV
Indiana State Police have confirmed a disturbance at the New Castle
Correctional Facility. Troopers have been dispatched to the scene. New Castle
Mayor Tom Nipp calls the disturbance a "full
scale riot." According to Indiana State Police there was some sort of
argument between the inmates from Indiana and the prisoners from Arizona that
the facility has been housing since early March. The facility has confirmed
two staff members have been injured and one of those staff members is in the
emergency room at Henry County Memorial Hospital. So far reports are cell
houses D, I, or J were involved in the incident. The
riot erupted around 2:00 Tuesday afternoon. Local law enforcement arrived by
2:15 p.m. Chopper 8 flew over the scene and witnessed at least three burning
fires set around the facility. "Prisoners were trying to tear down some
fence," said Nipp. "The exterior fence is
electrical wire. The police department has been fully mobilized." A
perimeter has been established around the facility to ensure that if anyone
did manage to get over the fence, measures are being
taken to ensure the public's safety. Facility staff and personnel say they
are managing the situation professionally and applying procedures including
tear gas to return the facility to stable conditions. "New Castle is
quite secure. All due precautions are in place to maintain that
security," said Nipp. GEO Group manages and
operates New Castle Correctional Facility. In a phone interview with GEO
Group Spokesman Pablo Paez, he said they are
working to bring the situation under control. Paez
said there are over 1,000 inmates from Indiana currently at the facility and
they are in the process of taking in inmates from Arizona. There are
currently 630 inmates from Arizona at the facility. That process stared at
the beginning of March. Katie Decker of the Arizona Department of Correction confirmed
that 630 inmates from Arizona have been transferred to the facility so far.
Transfer of additional prisoners is on hold for right now.
March 15, 2007 The Star
Press
Two convicted felons, including one from Muncie, have been accused of
operating a marijuana-dealing operation within the walls of the New Castle
Correctional Facility. Matthew D. Wilson, 24, Bedford -- serving a one-year
sentence for a Lawrence County theft conviction -- has been charged with
dealing in marijuana, a class D felony, and possession of marijuana, a
misdemeanor, in Henry Superior Court 2. King Parrish, 20, Muncie -- serving a
six-year sentence imposed in 2005 for a Delaware County robbery conviction --
is charged with misdemeanor counts of dealing in marijuana, possession of
marijuana and possession of paraphernalia. According to state police, Wilson
was found to be carrying a bag of marijuana. Nine other bags were later
recovered from Parrish's cell. Charges against the men were filed March 6.
King has since received a May 22 trial date, while Wilson's trial is set for
June 13. Wilson, who has prior drug-related convictions, was scheduled to be
released from prison Dec. 2. Parrish, convicted of robbing an employee of a southside business, was set to be released in July 2008.
March 1, 2007 AP
An inmate accused of using forged documents to walk out of the New Castle
State Prison apparently duped a woman into helping him, police said. State
police said Jared Bailey, 23, tricked a female friend into believing that his
time in prison was up. The woman, whose name police did not release, came to
the prison Feb. 17 with what was purported to be a court order for his
release. ''Right now we don't have any indication that anyone else assisted
with his escape,'' said Scott Jarvis, an Indiana State Police detective. Two
days later, Bailey's family tipped off authorities to his early release and
he was arrested early in Needham, a small Johnson County community about 20
miles south of Indianapolis. Bailey was scheduled for release on Nov. 23,
2008, according to information posted on the Indiana Department of Correction
Web site. He is serving sentences for forgery, theft and receiving stolen
property, the IDOC site said. Prison spokeswoman Trina Randall said an
officer on duty the night Bailey escaped told her that the woman showed an
identification badge. Jarvis said the woman told police she doesn't have such
a badge. ''Right now there's no indication she did show any type of badge or
has possession of a badge,'' Jarvis said, adding that authorities do not
intend to file any charges against her. It was not clear if any prison
employees might be disciplined for Bailey's escape. ''That's still under
investigation,'' Randall said. The GEO Group, which manages the prison for
the state, conducted its own investigation but that report was confidential,
she said. The Indiana Department of Correction also was expected to
investigate. In October 2004, Bailey was charged with forgery after he
allegedly created his own court order while imprisoned at the Monroe County
Jail in Bloomington. Authorities say he created a fake court document
lowering his bond to $500 from $100,000. The forgery was discovered when a
friend faxed the document to the county jail, and authorities became
suspicious.
February 28, 2007 The
Star Press
Jared Bailey can do more than just create fake court papers from inside
his jail or prison cell. He's 2-0 against two friends who in separate
incidents were apparently tricked into helping him attempt to escape from
confinement. The 23-year-old walked away from the New Castle Correctional
Facility Feb. 17 with the help of a female friend who Indiana State Police
say was duped into believing Bailey's time behind bars was up. "Right
now, we don't have any indication that anyone else assisted with his
escape," said Scott Jarvis, an Indiana State Police detective. But
that's not the story the prison presented Feb. 20 in its news release about
the incident. "Bailey was released from the New Castle Correctional
Facility to a female who was carrying what appeared to be a community
corrections ID from Marion County, Indiana, along with a court order calling
for the release of offender Bailey to Marion County Community
Corrections," according to the press release, which was written by the
prison's public information officer Trina Randall. Bailey's family members
notified police Feb. 19 that he had been released by mistake. Early the next
morning, he was arrested in Needham, a small Johnson County community about
20 miles south of Indianapolis. Randall told The Star Press on Tuesday that
she talked to the sergeant on duty the night Bailey escaped. The officer
maintains the woman, whose name hasn't been released, showed an ID. But
detective Jarvis said the woman has told police she doesn't have such a badge.
And this wouldn't be the first time Bailey has implicated a friend while
trying to get himself out of jail. "Right now, there's no indication she
did show any type of badge or has possession of a badge," Jarvis said,
though he acknowledged it's a detail prison employees can't agree upon. The
detective met with Henry County Prosecutor Kit Crane on Tuesday afternoon,
and Jarvis said charges won't be filed against the woman. In October 2004,
Bailey pulled a similar trick while inside the Monroe County Jail in
Bloomington. Held on felony forgery and theft charges, Bailey created court
papers in an effort to lower his bond from $100,000 to $500. He then sent the
papers to a friend and asked the friend to fax them. When the papers were
faxed to the jail -- at 11 p.m. on a Sunday night from a nearby Kinkos -- officials took notice. They also noticed the
fact that Monroe County was mis-spelled as "Monroeroe." That stunt earned him more felony
charges and a higher, $250,000 bond, plus some Internet notoriety. His story
is featured on The Smoking Gun, www.thesmokinggun.com, a popular Web site
that posts all kinds of public documents and the sometimes-bizarre stories
that go with them. Police are on to both tricks, and Jarvis said "it
does show a pattern." For now, it's uncertain what will happen at the
prison and to any employees who might not have followed protocol the night
Bailey escaped. Asked if any staff members had been reprimanded for the
incident, Randall said "that's still under investigation." Randall
said The GEO Group, the private company that manages the New Castle prison
for the Indiana Department of Correction, conducted an investigation of the
incident. When The Star Press asked for a copy of the investigation report,
Randall said, "I think that's confidential." The DOC's internal
affairs division was to conduct its own investigation, but a DOC spokeswoman
didn't return a call from the newspaper Tuesday.
December 31, 2006 AP
California no longer plans to transfer more than 1,200 of its inmates to
an Indiana state prison, an official said. Trina Randall, New Castle
Correctional Facility's public information officer, on Thursday confirmed to
The Courier-Times that the deal had fallen through. The plan was thwarted
because of a lawsuit against California over the possible transfer, and a
lack of inmates willing to volunteer to make the cross-country move. Gov.
Mitch Daniels announced in October a contract between California and
Florida-based GEO Group Inc., the company Indiana hired to operate the New Castle
prison. He said 1,260 inmates would be transferred to Indiana in a deal that
was to have created 200 Indiana jobs. The deal was part of plans to alleviate
prison overcrowding in California, and the Indiana prison was to be paid $63
per day to house each of that state's inmates, with $15 of that going to
state government. Daniels had said the state would make about $6.2 million in
each of the next two years. The medium-security prison in New Castle, 40 miles east of Indianapolis, has a capacity of
2,416 but has only 1,068 inmates. But a news release earlier this week from
the Indiana Department of Correction termed the transfer as "not
likely." It said that the DOC was working with another state on an
agreement similar to the California deal. "We are in the process of
reviewing a proposal from that jurisdiction," said DOC Commissioner
David Donahue.
October 28, 2006 The
Star Press
Talking about how inmates re-enter society after serving time in prison is a
touchy subject here, as residents worry about the 1,260 California inmates
who are headed to the New Castle Correctional Facility. So, when Indiana
Department of Correction Commissioner J. David Donahue came to New Castle on
Friday for a town hall meeting to talk about the road to re-entry, he knew
he'd have to address public concerns about the issue. Donahue, appointed by
Gov. Mitch Daniels in 2005 as the leader of the DOC, said questions about
where and how those California inmates will be released are among the
most-frequently asked. And though the deal should bring with it no expense to
local taxpayers, Donahue did acknowledge there are some instances when the
county has "certain inherent responsibilities" because the prison
is located there. That likely means that in the event an inmate is charged
with a crime while behind bars, Henry County Prosecutor Kit Crane's expenses
would remain the county's responsibility. That's not the answer Henry County
officials wanted, as Henry County Councilman Richard Bouslog
hoped the county could recoup its court expenses. Bouslog
was among the many elected officials in the crowd of the old circuit
courtroom inside the courthouse Friday afternoon. Members of the county
council and board of commissioners, as well as candidates for political
office, made up the majority of the 50-person crowd.
October 6, 2006 Courier
Journal
Up to 1,200 medium-security prisoners from California will be housed in
the state's underused New Castle Correctional Facility, Gov. Mitch Daniels
announced yesterday. Daniels said the deal he struck with California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger will result in a $6.2 million profit for Indiana.
Indiana officials initiated the negotiations, which took four or five months,
after reading about California's prison-crowding crisis, Daniels said. GEO
Group, the private company that runs the prison in east-central Indiana, will
hire 200 additional workers to oversee the new prisoners. "We saw an
opportunity and contacted California officials several months ago,"
Daniels said. "We look at every way we can to be creative and
businesslike, and this is a win for everyone."
June 21, 2006 The Star
Press
Two inmates at the New Castle Correctional Facility were charged Tuesday
with killing a fellow prisoner who was found dead in his cell June 1. Henry
County Prosecutor Kit Crane charged Mareese Boyd,
31, East Chicago, and Romie Jackson, 27, of Gary,
with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit
robbery. A preliminary autopsy report indicated Roger Hewitt, 43, had been
strangled. The charges followed an investigation by detectives from the
Indiana State Police post in Connersville. Trial dates for Boyd and Jackson
have not yet been set in Henry Circuit Court. Hewitt, from the Terre Haute
area, had served a little more than two months on a 3-year sentence imposed
for a Dearborn County forgery conviction. With credit for good behavior, he
would have been eligible for release next spring. Boyd is serving a 20-year
sentence imposed in 2001, when he was convicted of three counts of armed
robbery, robbery, battery and battery by bodily waste, all in Lake County. He
was also convicted of criminal deviate conduct there in 1994. Department of
Correction records listed his tentative release date as August 2012. Jackson
is serving an eight-year sentence for a 2002 auto theft conviction, also in
Lake County. His release date was listed as January 2010. Operations at the
New Castle prison were contracted out to GEO Group Inc., a Boca Raton,
Fla.-based private corrections company, on Jan. 2, becoming the first prison
in the state to be privatized. The New Castle facility opened in 2002 at the
site of a former state hospital. Department of Correction statistics
reflected an average daily population of 332 inmates as of March.
April 12, 2006 The Star
Press
Everybody likes popcorn and, at Tuesday's Star Press Job Fair, everybody
liked Weaver Popcorn. Representatives of the Van Buren company came to the
job fair seeking applicants for machine operator and fork-lift driver
positions with pay starting at $14 an hour -- and very quickly saw a run on
their booth by would-be applicants. Marjorie Gaither, human resource manager
for the New Castle Correctional Facility, agreed. The prison, operated by the
GEO Group, came to the job fair seeking 10 correctional officers. The positions
will pay $8 an hour while the officers are in training, but will eventually
pay $11.
November 6, 2005 Fort
Wayne Journal-Gazette
The Indiana Democratic Party - reduced to a watchdog role in a world of
Republican-controlled politics - took Gov. Mitch Daniels to task last week
over more than half a billion dollars in state contracts awarded to
non-Indiana companies. The party used a database kept by the Indiana
Department of Administration and business information filed with the Indiana
secretary of state's office to determine that roughly $539 million in
contracts went to companies with principal places of business or headquarters
located outside of Indiana. All the contracts were signed after Jan. 10, when
Daniels took office. "As a candidate, Mitch Daniels spent millions of
dollars telling voters he would make it a priority to reinvest tax dollars in
Hoosier businesses," Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker said.
"It seems like that was just another empty promise he made to get into
office." The written statement said the three largest contracts were
$264 million to Missouri-based Correctional Medical Services for
prison health services; $135 million to Texas-based Electronic Data Systems
Corp. for fiscal services for the Medicaid program; and $53 million to
Florida-based GEO Group Inc. for the operation and management of an adult
correctional facility.
September 26, 2005 Florida
Business Journal
The Geo Group said it has signed a four-year contract with the Indiana
Department of Correction to operate and manage a prison in New Castle, Ind.
The Boca Raton-based correctional and detention management firm said its deal
has three, two-year extensions. That gives the contract for the 2,416-bed New
Castle Correctional Facility a total term of 10 years. George C. Zoley, Geo (NYSE: GGI) chairman and chief executive
officer, said his company is the first contract manager of a state prison in
Indiana. J. David Donahue, Indiana Department of Correction commissioner, said partnering with Geo will allow his
department to fully use the New Castle Correctional facility, meet ongoing
departmental capacity needs and improve the department's business.
September 8, 2005 Fort
Wayne Journal Gazette
Privatizing the New Castle Correctional Facility is off to an ignominious
start. Indiana selected a company that overcharged Florida several million
dollars in running two prisons. The fact the contractor made contributions to
Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Indiana GOP, and not to Democrats, only makes this
deal look worse than it should. The Indiana Department of Correction is
expected to sign a 10-year renewable agreement by Friday with the GEO Group
Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla.-based prison management firm. The Aug. 30
announcement that GEO had been selected came a little more than month after a
Florida Department of Management Services audit charged that GEO and
Corrections Corp. of America overcharged Florida nearly $13 million. The
audit found that GEO billed Florida for salaried positions that were vacant
and charged an excessive rate for cost-of-living adjustments for worker
salaries from January 1999 to December 2004, according to the Tallahassee
Democrat. The inspector general also found the state’s prison contractors
were allowed to avoid minimal staffing requirements for nurses, trainers and
teachers. The audit blistered Florida’s defunct Correctional Privatization
Commission for putting “profits for the politically well-connected companies
ahead of the public interest,” the Tallahassee paper reported. Since this is
Indiana’s first foray into private prisons, GEO’s troubles in Florida should
be a primer into what happens when no one is watching – or cares to look.
Although GEO’s past errors aren’t necessarily an indication of what the
future will bring, Correction Commissioner J. David Donahue and Daniels
should make sure strict measures are in place to ensure the state won’t be
overcharged and that services are kept up to standard. Saving money shouldn’t
trump accountability. The contract also raises another issue. The state
rejected a proposal from New Castle employees to run the prison. This
contrasts to candidate Daniels’ stance that Indiana should buy from Indiana.
Daniels told voters in 2004 that “nobody’s minding the store” when it comes
to procurement and the state was doling out too much taxpayer money with
out-of-state companies. Unfortunately, outside scrutinizing of the New
Castle-employee proposal or any other bid submitted isn’t possible yet
because the Correction Department won’t release details about any of the bids
until the contract is signed. How convenient.
September 4, 2005 Ft
Wayne Journal Gazette
Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration is set to give another big state contract
to an out-of-state company. This time GEO Group Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla., began
negotiations to run the state prison in New Castle – a first-ever endeavor
for Indiana. The exact terms of the contract are still being finalized. It is
the first time the company has ever done any business in Indiana, according
to Pablo Paez, director of corporate relations for
GEO. So what happened to Daniels’ promise to “Buy Indiana?” “Our principal
motive always in pushing Buy Indiana policies is to see that the money spent
by the state wherever … winds up in Hoosier pocketbooks and paychecks, not in
paychecks elsewhere.” And speaking of pocketbooks, did we mention that GEO
Group – previously called Wackenhut Corrections – gave $10,000 to Daniels
during his campaign in 2003 and 2004? The company also gave $5,000 to the
Indiana Republican State Central Committee in March, just a few months before
the bid was due and in a non-election year. Daniels’ press secretary Jane
Jankowski said earlier in the week that she had no ethical concerns about the
contract and questioned why “everybody wants to go down that path.” As for
Daniels? “I didn’t know it. David Donahue (Department of Correction
commissioner) didn’t know it. I didn’t talk to David Donahue about who he was
going to choose.”
August 31, 2005 Indy
Star
A Florida-based firm has been picked by the Indiana Department of Correction
to be the first private company to run a state prison in Indiana. A 10-year
renewable contract for GEO Group to run the New Castle Correctional Facility
should be completed no later than Sept. 9, correction Commissioner J. David
Donahue said Tuesday. Until then, he said, the state will not release any
information about the company's bid or the five other bids submitted. Four
were by other private firms, and one was from Department of Correction
employees at New Castle. Gov. Mitch Daniels told those employees last week
that their bid was rejected. George C. Zoley,
chairman and chief executive officer of GEO Group, issued a statement saying
the company "will work hard to establish a public-private partnership
with the state of Indiana." He said the company also will work with the
community of New Castle, where most of the current staff resides, "to
maximize the local and state economic development impact of the
project." The company has made campaign contributions to both Daniels
and the Indiana Republican Party, but not to Democrats. On Dec. 2, 2003, the
company, then called Wackenhut Corrections, gave $5,000 to Daniels' campaign.
GEO Group gave an additional $5,000 to Daniels on March 31, 2004; it gave
$5,000 this year to the Indiana GOP, on March 1. Donahue said he had not
known of the company's political activities until asked by a reporter and
that the contributions had no bearing on GEO Group's selection.
June 30, 2005 Evansville Courier & Press
Indiana
prison officials are drawing up the details on plans to contract out
operation of a state prison in New Castle, Ind. They've chosen a firm to run
food service for the other state prisons and are also looking into having a
contractor take over nursing services. These are just a few changes state
officials are looking into that could potentially cut state jobs. That has
some state employees and their representatives wondering just how many jobs
-- and at what pay scale -- may be left after the dust settles. "There's
been a profound disregard of state employees by this administration,"
said Joe Lawrence, a spokesman for AFSCME, one of several affiliated unions
that represent state workers. One of Gov. Mitch Daniels' first moves in
office was to end state employees' right to collectively bargain. Lawrence
said that and the push to privatization have made the work environment for
state employees "treacherous." And some big backers of
privatization, such as Geoffrey Segal, director of government reform with the
Reason Foundation, are lending their support to the push. "The basic
principle is that competitive arrangements are always superior to monopoly
arrangements," Segal said. "Competition fosters innovation and a
focus on the bottom line and cost savings." State Rep. Tom
Saunders, R-Lewisville, said he understands the administration's push and
he's excited that running the prison at full capacity would mean more jobs in
the region. Be he said he's concerned about how a private prison company
would treat employees. "There will be more jobs here," Saunders
said. "The concern is what will those jobs pay and what kind of benefits
will they get?" Most likely not comparable to state wages and benefits,
according to Ken Kopczynski of the Private Corrections Institute, a watchdog and
critic of Florida's private prison system. "What the industry does is
they come in and say: 'We can do it better and we can do it cheaper,'"
Kopczynski said. "One way they do that is on the back of
employees." He said private prisons nationwide have about a 50 percent employee
turnover rate while government-run prisons have a 15 percent rate. Donahue
has already inked a deal to turn over the food service of state prisons to a
private company. And he's also reviewing whether to contract out for nurses.
He said a private firm already oversees the medical systems but the nurses
are state employees. He said chronic shortages of nurses force the state to
hire temporary workers to fill the jobs. And with a private firm managing and
a mixture of state and temp workers providing the service, it sometimes
becomes a matter of "too many cooks in the kitchen." But some
prison nurses are worried about the possibility. "I'm terrified,"
said Rebecca Fowler, a nurse at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility for
nearly 13 years. "We've put up with a lot of physical, mental and verbal
abuse for this job security and we're losing it." Fowler said many
nurses came to work in Indiana to escape privatization in Illinois' state
prison nurse system. She said in Illinois, the wages and benefits were competitive
when the private companies first took over but fell year by year. "The
health care is going to drastically drop," Fowler said. "Why work
for a private company when you can go back to a hospital?"
April 27, 2005 Ft Wayne
Journal Gazette
Prison privatization is a bad idea that has finally made it to Indiana.
On Monday, the Indiana Department of Correction announced that it was indeed
sending out requests for proposals for a private company to run the New
Castle Correctional Facility. If a company is selected, the department said
it should fill the prison to capacity of 2,000 inmates within the next 15 to
18 months. (The prison now has about 380 inmates.) The announcement isn’t
really a surprise. The state’s correction commissioner, J. David Donahue, is
a former vice president of U.S. Corrections Corp., one of the industry’s
leading contractors. There are those serving in Indiana’s government who
believe private industry is always better equipped than government to supply
the people’s needs. While that principle may be true for, say, information
processing, it certainly isn’t the case for prisons. The state has a
responsibility to inmates, the citizens and the Constitution when it comes to
incarceration. Private corporations have the added burdens of corporate
governance and maximizing shareholder profits. It doesn’t make sense to
privatize such a sensitive area, where public interest is far more critical
than turning a buck. For example, when the financial knife inevitably falls,
what’s going to get cut? Salaries, benefits, health care. What falls as a
result? Morale and quality. Even academics who favor a mix of private and
public services see a danger in turning over entire prisons to for-profit
organizations. “The downside is large and the upside is minimal,” said John
Donahue, an Indiana native and professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy
School of Government who specializes in studying governmental privatization.
(He is not related to the corrections commissioner.) Although John Donahue
isn’t fundamentally opposed to for-profit prisons, he has not seen much data
that convince him that private prisons are inherently better for inmates or
the state. If privatization is about introducing competition, how is this
going to happen in a system in which, realistically, growth should be frowned
upon and the outputs are complex and hard to quantify? With prison systems,
entrenchment by bad performers is more likely to occur than a wholesale
replacement by a competitor. There is a lot to be said about continuity and
prisons. Furthermore, there’s the overall creepiness of this prospect:
private industry lobbying for tougher sentencing laws. Prison
privatization in Indiana is a bad idea that should be shelved.
April 26, 2005 The Star
Press
The Indiana Department of Correction will ask private prison contractors
to submit bids for operating the New Castle Correctional Facility. The agency
will review any bids it receives in August, and if it awards a contract, the
prison could reach full capacity with more than 2,000 prisoners by early
2007, Commissioner J. David Donahue said. Gov. Mitch Daniels suggested the
possibility of contracting the prison's operation to a private company during
his campaign last year, and DOC spokeswoman Java Ahmed said last month an
internal review of such a step could take six months to complete.
Otter Creek Correctional
Center
Floyd, Kentucky
CCA
October
20, 2006 Herald-Tribune
The state's top auditor is calling for an overhaul of the state's contracting
laws that exempt more than $1 billion of government contracts from strict
oversight. The money spent at the Communities at Oakwood, the state's troubled home for the mentally handicapped, shows
the need for reform, the report released yesterday concluded. State Auditor Crit Luallen, in the third and
final report on the state's contracting laws, says the 1998 law regarding
privatization of government services is ineffective. Under the law, agencies
have to provide a cost-benefit analysis to show that a private vendor could
deliver services cheaper than the state, before the deal is signed. Larger
contracts must be annually reviewed, the law says. However, almost all
contracts to private vendors are exempt from the law because of various
loopholes, the audit said. The Department of Corrections pays Corrections
Corp. of America about $18.2 million to operate three private prisons.
Auditors found that the Department of Corrections used an average cost of
three public prisons to determine whether the company could run the Marion
Adjustment Center at 10 percent less than the state. But the cost for only
one state-run prison was used to do the same calculations for the contract
with Lee Adjustment Center in Beattyville. Auditors recommended a
standardized methodology to determine the 10 percent threshold. They are also
recommending that a third party analyze those numbers. "Some of the
things that they have recommend make sense,"
said John Rees, corrections commissioner. He said he is not opposed to
creating a standardized methodology, as long as someone familiar with
corrections is developing those standards. Rees said corrections
is realizing a more than 10 percent savings on the three private
prison contracts. In the case of Otter Creek, the privately run women's
prison, the savings is almost 15 percent, he said.
May 20, 2005 Fort Wayne
Journal Gazette
A private prison in eastern Kentucky is facing closure after losing its
contract to hold 650 inmates from Indiana, but a possible deal with the
Kentucky Department of Corrections could keep it open. Inmates at Otter Creek
Correctional Center are being returned to Indiana prisons, said Steve Owen,
spokesman for the Corrections Corporation of America, which operates the
medium-security prison at Wheelwright in Floyd County. “Most are already
gone,” Owen said. “Within a matter of days that institution will be
completely empty of inmates.” Unless CCA quickly lands a contract to hold
inmates, about 150 employees could join the already long unemployment rolls
in eastern Kentucky. They already have been notified that layoffs are coming.
The Indiana Department of Correction notified CCA in February of its intent
to house the inmates in Indiana prisons. Since then, Owen said, CCA has been
attempting to land a contract with another state to house prisoners. Indiana
no longer needed to make out-of-state placement of prisoners because two new
prisons had opened in the state, creating about 1,800 new beds. Some Indiana
legislators questioned the contract with Otter Creek, saying those inmates
should be kept in Indiana. When the contract expired in January, Indiana
corrections officials didn’t renew it.
May 19, 2005 WYMT
More than 100 jobs may be in jeopardy at one correctional facility in our
region. Otter Creek in Floyd County employs around 175 people. The facility
lost nearly 600 of their inmates after they were transferred back to Indiana.
Some employees are worried about their futures if the center can't fill
vacant space. For the last five years inmates from Indiana have occupied the
Otter Creek Correctional Facility in Floyd County, but on Friday the
remaining 24 will be moving back to Indiana. When officials at Otter Creek
found out Indiana had room for the inmates that had been housed in their
facility, they started notifying employees about what could happen.
February 28, 2005 Yahoo
Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE: CXW - News) announced today that it
has received notification from the Indiana Department of Corrections of its
intent to return to Indiana approximately 620 male Indiana inmates currently
housed at the Company's Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright,
Kentucky. The Company is working with Indiana corrections officials on plans
to return the inmates to the Indiana corrections system by the end of May
2005. CCA is pursuing opportunities with a number of potential customers,
including the Kentucky Department of Corrections, to fill the vacant space.
However, if the Company is unable to obtain a new agreement it intends to
implement a phased closure of the Otter Creek facility that will coincide
with the return of Indiana inmates. The Company estimates the impact,
resulting from the loss of the Indiana inmates, will be approximately $0.05
per diluted share for 2005.
October 29, 2004 Indy Star
Tucked deep within the
hills of Appalachia in southeastern Kentucky, the Otter Creek Correctional
Center is home to 654 Hoosier inmates, even as the state of Indiana has more
than 2,000 prison beds sitting empty. But with two prisons --
the Miami Correctional Facility and New Castle Correctional Facility --
capable of holding more inmates, spending millions of dollars on an
out-of-state private company has become a hot issue in the governor's race.
When the Indiana General Assembly passed its budget bill in the spring of
2003, lawmakers said the two prison facilities -- the state's
newest -- would fill the same number of beds in 2004 that they did in 2003.
That meant the state couldn't fill new space available at both Indiana
prisons, which have undergone nearly $200 million worth of work over the past
four years. The
legislative action forced the state to renew its contract with Corrections
Corporation of America, a Tennessee-based company that owns the Otter Creek
Correctional Center. Phase II of the Miami Correctional
facility, which has room for about 1,600 prison beds, was finished in the
fall of 2002 at a cost of more than $67 million, and it sits half empty. The
prison currently holds 2,125 inmates. The New Castle Correctional Facility,
at a cost of more than $118 million, was finished in the fall of 2001, and
has room for 1,296 prisoners. It now holds 375 prisoners.
June 26, 2003 Courier-Journal
State corrections officials are preparing to sign a contract to
house hundreds of inmates in a private Kentucky prison — even as more than
1,800 new beds sit unused in Indiana prisons. Some members of the
General Assembly are questioning those out-of-state placements and the
contract, saying the prisoners should be kept in Indiana since beds are
available. But the budget that lawmakers passed in April discourages
it, and Indiana correction s officials say their hands are tied.
"It's incomprehensible," said Rep. Dennis Avery, D-Evansville.
"To open up those prisons so the prisoners can stay in the state of
Indiana — to me it makes sense. Otherwise, it was a waste of tax dollars for
construction." Indiana currently houses 650 medium-security
prisoners at the Otter Creek Correctional Facility in Wheelwright, Ky., under
the terms of a contract that expired in January. The state pays the
prison — owned by the Tennessee-based Corrections Corp. of America — $45 a
day per inmate, compared to the nearly $50 average cost for Indiana's own
prisons. Indiana Department of Correction officials told the State
Budget Committee last week that they intend to sign a new four-year deal soon
for the same per-day rate. That contract calls for as many as 1,000
placements at Otter Creek and other Corrections Corp. facilities. The
Otter Creek facility is one of three private prisons in Kentucky that the compa ny bought in 1998 from
U.S. Corrections Corp. of Louisville. The prison opened in 1993 as a
minimum-security facility for Kentucky inmates but began taking
medium-security prisoners from Indiana in January 2000. CURRENTLY, Kentucky
houses 553 prisoners at the medium-security Marion Adjustment Center in St.
Mary and 501 inmates at the minimum-security Lee Adjustment Center in
Beattyville, the other two Corrections Corp. facilities in the state.
Lisa Lamb, director of communications for the Kentucky Department of
Corrections, said the state is not looking to contract for any additional
private-prison beds and is currently building a prison in Elliott
County. Otter Creek Warden Randy Stovall said most of the Indiana
prisoners — who make up the entire inmate population there — have sentences
that range from 12 months to 10 years. He said about 20 prisoners come and go
each month and all have access to programs that include vocational training,
drug counseling, parenting skills, anger-management classes and education
intended to help inmates get a GED. Avery said he's convinced it could
be cheaper to house the inmates in Indiana. That's because the Otter Creek
prisoners are the so-called cream of the inmate crop, the cheapest to serve,
he said. Senate Budget Subcommittee Chairman Bob Meeks, R-LaGrange,
said he hopes the correction s department will evaluate whether those inmates
could be housed in Indiana prisons at a comparable cost. "It seems
ridiculous to me to send 600-and-some prisoners out of state when we have
1,800-and-some slots open here, especially if we can house them at the same
dollar value," he said. But Gov. Frank O'Bannon
's administration said the state budget — as written by the
legislature — provides no authority or money for the correction s department
to use the empty beds at the Miami and New Castle prisons. IN FACT, the
two-year budget put $20.6 million — the same amount that was in the last
budget — in a fund used to pay for out-of-state placements of male inmates.
At the same time, the budget did not increase total funding for the Miami and
New Castle prisons to accommodate additional inmates or to open new
units. The State Budget Agency's deputy director, Mike Landwer, said transfers among prison funds are common and
could likely be done in this case if the agency wanted to move prisoners back
to Indiana. But he said the General Assembly's intentions were clear.
"They do not want us to increase the number of beds being used," Landwer said. "If that means double-bunking, so be
it. If that means continuing to use contract beds, that's
the preferred approach." In fact, the budget says explicitly that
the prisons' appropriations "do not include money to increase bed
capacity beyond what was in use on June 30, 2003." Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville,
said that was intentional. "WE WANTED to make the
Department of Correction very much aware of the fact that we want a focus on
community corrections and alternative sentences" that keep convicted
criminals out of prisons, she said. But other lawmakers say the budget
was meant only to keep the department from further expanding the state's
prison population, not to force the agency to continue sending current
inmates out of state. The conflict is a symptom of a larger debate
among lawmakers and the O'Bannon administration about how to keep criminals
off the streets without breaking the bank. For years — when the state's
fiscal picture was far rosier — Indiana lawmakers approved the construction
of thousands of new prison beds. But as the state's finances have tightened,
the attitude among lawmakers has changed, Simpson said. "We
learned a lesson from other states: You can't build yourself out of a
corrections problem," she said. "For a while, we took the advice of
the DOC and built many more beds. But at this point in time, we're saying:
`We want to put pressure on you — the department — to do as much as you can
to build community resources and alternative sentences and rehabilitate
people so we don't have this continuous growth in prison population and
continuous recidivism.' " THE
RESULT is that newly built units at the two prisons remain unoccupied,
although Simpson acknowledged they eventually will be needed. The
O'Bannon administration believes the beds are needed now. The governor asked
the legislature for $26 million to use about 1,600 beds in the new units
during the next two years. That would have relieved the state's existing
crowded conditions and housed the additional 1,200 inmates the courts are
expected to send the correction s department through June 30, 2005. But
lawmakers — dealing with the state's worst budget crisis in decades — said
they didn't have enough money to open the units and essentially provided no
increase in funding for prisons. Pam Pattison ,
a corrections department spokeswoman, said the agency is working on a plan to
live within that budget. To do that, she said, the "department must use
private beds." Even if the legislature had provided money to open
the units, she said, the correction department still would need to place
prisoners at Otter Creek. But Avery said Indiana should move its
prisoners into its own facilities. "It's almost scandalous to
build a prison like that and not open it up, yet we ship people outside the
state of Indiana and house them in older facilities," he said.
"There needs to be more discussion about these issues."
August 19, 2002
As many as 700 former corrections
workers could receive a share of $14 million or more in damages,
following a federal judge's ruling last week that two
executives of U.S. Corrections Corp. violated their duty to safeguard the
company's pension plan. Until 1998, U.S. Corrections operated
private prisons in Kentucky. U.S. District Judge Jennifer B. Coffman
ruled July 29 in Louisville that Robert McQueen and Milton
Thompson created an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP,
to maintain control of the company and purchased securities with plan funds
without determining their fair market value.
Coffman declined to assess damages,
leaving it to an independent expert to review the
value of U.S. Corrections stock that McQueen and Thompson authorized
the plan to buy in 1993. Plaintiffs alleged the two men - who also
served as plan trustees - paid too much for the stock, costing
the plan $14.8 million plus interest.
The "special master'' has six
months to determine the amount of any damages.
McQueen and Thompson were officers of
U.S. Corrections in 1993 when they established the plan to buy
out J. Clifford Todd, the company's cofounder.
The ESOP borrowed $34.4
million to repurchase two-thirds of the company's outstanding
shares. Todd later went to prison after admitting he paid nearly
$200,000 in bribes to the former head of the
Jefferson County Jail. In a 49-page opinion, Coffman wrote that McQueen and Thompson
"were unable to transcend their
corporate mindset and act solely and exclusively for those participants.''
Corrections Corp. of America, a
Nashville private prison operator, acquired U.S.
Corrections in 1998. It reached a separate settlement with the plaintiffs
for $575,000 before the trial. (The Courier-Journal)
August
18, 2001
A nine-hour riot by Indiana inmates being held at an eastern Kentucky prison
last month caused $14,000 in damage, prison officials say. The new
warden at Otter Creek Correctional Center at Wheelwright said the facility's
former supervisors failed to adjust to a tougher classification of inmates in
January 2000 when the prison, which had been a minimum-security facility for
Kentucky inmates, began taking medium-security prisoners from Indiana.
"As far as I can tell, and I'm at the mercy of my staff, things just
never changed," Warden Randy Stovall
said. "There were no new rules or procedures put into
place." (AP)
August 16, 2001
The Indiana Department of Correction has an obligation to keep the public
informed about big news that breaks behind prison walls, especially when it
involves inmates assigned to unfamiliar facilities in other states.
That did not happen when a riot broke out last month at a private prison in
Wheelwright, Ky., run by Corrections Corp. of
America, where more than 550 Indiana inmates are housed. During a
nine-hour rampage beginning the evening of July 5, more than 400 Indiana
prisoners took over several buildings, threw rocks at officials, smashed
glass, tossed commodes, sinks and television sets out windows and burned
clothes. The melee at the Otter Creek Correctional Facility in
southeastern Kentucky wasn't brought under control until 3:30 a.m. the next day
when officers fired shots and threatened to put down the insurrection with
deadly force. Nearly 100 state police and deputy sheriffs were called in as
backup. There were no major injuries, but there was extensive property damage
which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix. (The
Indianapolis Star)
July 18, 2001
The warden and his top assistant were fired at a privately operated prison
where inmates rioted two weeks ago. William Wolford was fired last week
as warden at Otter Creek Correctional Complex in Floyd County because of
policy violations, said Steve Owen, a spokesperson for Corrections Corp. of
America. Wolford's top assistant, David Carroll, was fired a couple of
days later for the same reasons, Owen said. (AP)
July 9, 2001
Special response teams were preparing to move in when inmates surrendered
control of four dormitories at the medium-security Otter Creek Correctional
Center in Floyd County early Friday morning, officials said. Some
inmates hurled rocks and other objects at guards during the nine-hour
uprising that started in the recreation yard, said Don Burke, spokesperson
for the private prison owned by Corrections Corp. of America in Nashville,
Tenn. "They destroyed everything they could get their hands on,
but no one was seriously injured," Burke said. (Evansville Courier
& Press)
July 7, 2001
Rioting inmates surrendered Friday morning after taking control of four
dormitories Thursday evening at the medium-security Otter Creek Correctional
Center in Floyd County. "They destroyed everything they could get
their hands on, but no one was seriously injured," said Don Burke,
spokesperson for the private prison owned by Corrections Corp. of America in
Nashville, Tenn. Burke said negotiators were able to convince the inmates
to give up peaceably after about nine hours. The prison, originally
designated for minimum security inmates, switched to medium security last
year. Kentucky State Police said troopers were sent from Pikeville,
Morehead and Hazard to surround the outside of the prison to help guard
against escapes. (AP)
Putnamville Correctional
Facility
Putnamville, Indiana
Aramark
February 15,
2013 tribstar.com
Indiana
Dept. of Correction — PUTNAMVILLE – Aaron Flora, 44, of Brazil was arrested
on Feb. 14 for attempting to traffick with an
offender at the Putnamville Correctional
Facility. When Flora arrived to work Thursday morning, Correctional
Officer Sharon Wernick was monitoring the
facility’s x-ray machine and observed what appeared to be a package concealed
in a can of coffee that he was attempting to bring into the facility. A
search of the container and of Flora revealed four cell phones, a large
quantity of tobacco, and rolling papers. During an interview with
Correctional Police Officer Troy Keith, Flora admitted to trafficking stating
that the items were intended for offender Jason Wyttenbach,
40, from Indianapolis. Flora was arrested and transported to the Putnam
County Jail on a preliminary charge of trafficking with an inmate, Class C
felony. Wyttenbach is being held in administrative
segregation and could face criminal charges pending the outcome of an
investigation. He is currently serving multiple felony sentence. His
projected release date is September 8, 2016, for a felony conviction of theft
and fraud. Flora has been employed at Putnamville
since November 2011 as an Aramark contractual
worker. “Volunteers, State and Contractual staff receive extensive training
in offender manipulation tactics and how to avoid them. Unfortunately, some
still succumb to offender coercion to traffick and
betray their obligations,” Superintendent Stanley Knight said in the release.
“In a prison environment, it’s not a question of ‘if,’ but ‘when’ your
illegal activity will be detected … and, not a question of ‘if’ criminal
charges will be pursued, but ‘how long’ of a sentence you may receive.”
February 9, 2011 Banner
Graphic
A Brazil man has pled guilty to drug dealing. Seth M. Curtis, 23, will be
sentenced March 7 on one count of Class B felony dealing in a narcotic drug.
Curtis worked for Aramark Food Services, the
company that provides meals for offenders at the Putnamville
Correctional Facility. Curtis was originally charged with Class A felony
dealing in a narcotic drug and Class C felony trafficking with an inmate.
Putnam County Circuit Court Judge Matthew Headley has taken under advisement
a plea agreement that reduces the A felony to a B felony and dismissed the
trafficking charge. A Class B felony is punishable by up to 20 years in
prison. Curtis was a supervisor with Aramark. An
investigation into his possible trafficking activity at Putnamville
was launched after prison officials received a tip that Curtis was involved
in trafficking with Aryan Brotherhood members at the prison.
September 3, 2010 Banner
Graphic
A Brazil man who worked for Aramark Food Services,
the company who provides meals for offenders at the Putnamville
Correctional Facility, has been charged with two felonies connected to
trafficking with an inmate. Seth M. Curtis, 22, was formally charged in
Putnam County Circuit Court with Class A felony dealing in a narcotic drug
and Class C felony trafficking with an inmate. At his initial hearing, Curtis
pled not guilty to both charges. His bond was set at $40,000 cash, and as of
Thursday he remained lodged in the Putnam County Jail. Curtis requested a
public defender, and Joel Wieneke was assigned to
the case. A pretrial conference was set for Oct. 14. Court records said
Curtis, who was a supervisor for Aramark, was
interviewed by officers on Aug. 25 in the Internal Affairs Office at the
prison after prison officials received a tip that Curtis was trafficking with
Aryan Brotherhood members there. "During the interview Mr. Curtis did
admit to trafficking with offender (James) Campbell," a narrative prepared
by Putnamville Correctional Facility Correctional
Officer Quentin Storm said. Campbell, 37, was convicted in Fulton County in
October 2005 on two counts of Class B felony dealing in cocaine or a narcotic
drug. His earliest possible release date is listed on the Indiana Department
of Correction Web site as June 25, 2015. Curtis told Storm he had received a
cell phone call from Campbell earlier that day instructing Curtis to
"being in the package when he comes into work around 2 p.m." Curtis
had smuggled that package into the prison. It was concealed under his
testicles, and he voluntarily surrendered it. Storm's report described the
package as "a horseshoe-shaped, clear plastic parcel containing what was
identified by Mr. Curtis as tobacco." Also in the parcel, the report
said, were two smaller parcels wrapped in black electrical tape. Curtis told
Storm he had received the parcel from "an unknown black man in
Indianapolis behind a 7-11 store on Michigan Street at the
direction of offender Campbell. Curtis was not sure what was inside
these parcels, but indicated he believed the substances were narcotics."
When the parcels were unwrapped, officers found three more parcels wrapped
inside balloons. The substance contained in the balloons was field tested and
determined to be heroin -- a total of 13.9 grams. Curtis told Storm he had
been trafficking with Campbell for about seven months. He said he was paid
$300 via Western Union each time he brought a package into the facility.
"He could not give me an estimated amount of money he has been paid for
trafficking because there were too many incidents to recall," Storm said
in his report.
January 31, 2006 Banner
Graphic
A new crackdown on contraband inside the prison and a partnership with the
Putnam County Sheriff's Department led to the arrest of a Putnamville
Correctional Facility staff member Monday. Putnamville
Public Information Officer Jim Ebey told the Banner
Graphic Monday the arrest of Michelle Lynn Targett,
35, Terre Haute, a contract employee with Aramark
food services, came after several corrections officers at the facility were
recently deputized by the Putnam County Sheriff's Department. Targett is charged with bringing tobacco into the
facility with the intent to distribute it to offenders. She faces a fine of
$5,000, Ebey explained. The internal affairs
officers, who had been made special Putnam County deputies on Friday, had
been targeting Targett after receiving a tip from
another staff member. "A lot of information comes from offenders, and the (internal affairs officers) take those
tips and try to put together what is truth and what isn't, and then act on
it," Ebey said of how the prison handles
trafficking issues.
Union County Jail
Advanced Correctional Services
Liberty, Indiana
Union County Sheriff Steve Leverton said the new
health care service contracted by the county visited the jail Thursday to tie
up final loose ends before their services begin Jan. 1. Leverton said Advanced
Correctional Services has been contracted for $26,000 each year to provide
doctor care and other medical services for Union County Jail inmates.
"In correctional health care you treat the symptoms," he said.
"For example if an inmate has an abscessed tooth. We do not have to fix
it, but we do have to treat the symptoms."
Wabash Valley Correctional
Facility
Carlisle, Indiana
Aramark
April 14, 2010 Green County Daily World
A Wabash Valley Correctional Facility contracted food service employee
discovered today the recipe for trafficking with offenders includes arrest
and a trip to the Sullivan County jail. ARAMARK employee Chandra Beeman, 28 of Sullivan, Indiana allegedly trafficked a
cell phone and 243 grams of tobacco to offenders she supervised in a facility
segregation unit this afternoon. Alert correctional staff made the discovery
after monitoring her activities and searching the workers. Beeman faces a Class C Felony for Trafficking a Cell
Phone and a Class A Misdemeanor for Trafficking Tobacco. Internal Affairs
Correctional Police Officer Frank Littlejohn's investigation revealed Beeman made arrangements with offender food service
worker Jerole Adams to traffick
the items into the facility. Adams, 35, and four other offender workers have
been segregated as the probe continues. Adams was sentenced to 40 years on a
Dearborn County Dealing Cocaine conviction. Adams earliest release date is
April 2026. Indiana State Police transported Beeman
to Sullivan County for processing after Littlejohn placed her under arrest.
Bond was set at $18,000 with Beeman making bail
late Wednesday afternoon. Beeman's employment with
ARAMARK has been terminated. ARAMARK is under contract to provide food
services for the Indiana Department of Correction.
Westville Correctional
Facility
Westville, Indiana
Aramark
March
18, 2009 South Bend Tribune
A food service employee was arrested at Westville Correctional Facility
today (Wednesday), accused of smuggling drugs and cell phones into the
prison, according to a news release. Erika Garner, 52, of Michigan City, an Aramark Food Service employee, was arrested by Indiana
State Police on suspicion of trafficking with an offender and bribery of a
public official, the release stated. During a routine search at the prison’s
main gate, Garner was reportedly found to be in possession of a package of
marijuana and three cell phones and chargers.
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