Louisiana Hall of Shame

Allen Correctional Center
Kinder, Louisiana
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
March 15, 2007 KPLC TV
It was between two and three in the afternoon Wednesday when Brian Scott escaped from the Allen Correctional Center by scaling the fence. Scott is convicted of felony theft and as a fugitive was considered dangerous. The prison is a medium security state facility but is operated by a private company, the Geo Group. Warden Terry Terrell says, with the help of numerous law enforcement agencies, procedures were put in effect to identify the missing inmate and get a manhunt underway to capture him. "I don't know that you could get out of a situation any better than what we did. The inmate was apprehended. Neither he nor anyone in law enforcement was injured so we are very thankful for that. " In such cases they notify those who live near the prison, that is if they've signed up to be notified when there's an escape. "About once a year and sometimes more frequently we put out flyers to all the local residents that we're aware of and ask them if they do wish to be contacted in a similar circumstance to simply fill out the form and name a number so we can put them on the calling list," says Terrell. But people who live near the prison such as in this area called Hickory Flat say they need to do a better job of alerting the public when an inmate escapes. Explains Virgil Richard, "We're taxpayers. Why can't they burn a little gas and let us know something. They were supposed to have had a horn, an alarm system and we don't have that." Neighbor Lloyd Miles agrees. "We've got some elderly people here and some handicapped people here by themselves and I'm mostly concerned about them. And we got kids."

October 23, 2002
Few concerned citizens ventured out to Alexandria City Hall Tuesday evening to speak out on the escape and fatal shooting of an HIV-positive state inmate. But those who attended were vocal in their questions and suggestions for the Department of Corrections and the Allen Correctional Center in Kinder. The committee did not make any recommendations concerning the escape or policies of the Department of Corrections or Wackenhut Corp., which owns Allen Correctional Center in Kinder. Cotton, 43, of Houma, escaped Aug. 21 from his room at the hospital. Thirty-eight hours later, he was shot while hiding underneath a home. Cotton snatched a .357-caliber handgun from the lone female guard assigned to him when she bent down to unshackle him so he could use the restroom, police said. (Alexandria Daily Town Talk)

August 31, 2002
Wackenhut Corp. is not in a position to release information on the probe of the escape and eventual death of Kenneth cotton, a spokeswoman said Friday. Cotton, an inmate at Allen Correctional Center in Kinder, escaped Aug.21 from Rapides Regional Medical Center where he was to have surgery. After a nearby 38-hour search, Cotton 43, of Houma was found hiding under a house in Alexandria. Police Special Response Team officers shot Cotton after he pointed a handgun at them. Cotton stole the gun from a female correctional guard after overcoming her at the hospital. Alexandria police and Wackenhut are probing the escape and standoff. (Alexandria Daily Town Talk)

Claiborne Parish Detention Center
Homer, Louisiana
LaSalle
July 22, 2003
For $3, inmates and visitors to the Claiborne Parish Detention Center in Homer can buy pirated copies of recordings by a wide array of performers, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the music industry. The jail's computers were used to illegally copy recordings by performers ranging from rapper Eminen to country music's George Strait to New Age instrumentalist John Tesh, Baton Rouge-based Utopia Entertainment Inc. charged in the copyright-infringement case filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Shreveport. Defendants in the case are Claiborne Parish through Sheriff Kenneth Volentine; LaSalle Management Co., which is under contract to manage the men's portion of Volentine's jail; and Department of Corrections inmate Bo Fain, identified as a "guiding force" in making the recordings. LaSalle's role at the detention center is to oversee the day-to-day operations of the jail, where all employees work for the sheriff. (Times-Picayune)

East Baton Rouge Parish Schools
East Baton Rouge, Louisiana
ARAMARK
February 23, 2004
The East Baton Rouge Parish school system is holding a series of informational meetings this week to explain to more than 400 custodians, maintenance, groundskeeping and warehouse workers what will happen now that their jobs are in the hands of ARAMARK Inc. The School Board voted Thursday to approve a $22.5 million contract with ARAMARK, which employs about 216,000 people throughout the world, and it is already taking effect. The school system has set up an automated 24-hour information line -- 225-226-3794 -- outlining meeting times, and has posted similar information on a link on its Web site, http://www.ebrschools.org. The Web site also has a four-page application for employment with ARAMARK. This information was also provided in a letter issued Friday to school system employees. "It is with regret that I must information you are scheduled for separation," said the letter signed by Elizabeth Duran Swinford, associate superintendent for human resources, and Annette Mire, director of personnel services. ARAMARK and the school system's Human Resource Department are holding separate meetings. ARAMARK's meetings, to be held in the physical plant training room, 2875 Michelli Drive, will be from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. today and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday. Employees will meet with ARAMARK representatives in groups in order of where their last names fall in the alphabet. An optional meeting will also be held from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday. ARAMARK will follow up with interviews from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday with potential employees. Those meetings will be held at the Instructional Resource Center, 1022 S. Foster Drive. Representatives from ARAMARK, the Louisiana Department of Labor, LSU and Baton Rouge Community College will also be on hand. The Human Resources Department is holding meetings of its own for employees A-L from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday and for employees M-Z from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Friday. These meetings will focus on questions about payroll, benefits, retirement issues and job-transition options. These meetings will also take place in the Instructional Resource Center. ARAMARK has yet to lay out what it will pay privatized workers, except to say it will pay "prevailing market wages." Employee organizations that have opposed the deal say already low-paid support workers will inevitably have to take a pay cut. The contract signed by the school system also does not guarantee their employment with ARAMARK. (Advocate)

Jena Juvenile Correctional Center
(AKA La Salle Detention Facility)
Jena, Louisiana
GEO Group (formerly know as Wackenhut Corrections)
May 11, 2008 Washington Post
Neil Sampson, who ran the DIHS as interim director most of last year, left that job with serious questions about the government's commitment. Sampson said in an interview that ICE treated detainee health care "as an afterthought," reflecting what he called a failure of leadership and management at the Homeland Security Department. "They do not have a clear idea or philosophy of their approach to health care [for detainees]," he said. "It's a system failure, not a failure of individuals." A new director for health services arrived six months ago, following a stretch when the agency was run first by Sampson and then by a second interim director. The new boss is LaMont W. Flanagan, who brought with him the credential of having been fired in 2003 by the state of Maryland for bad management and spending practices supervising detention and pretrial services. An audit found that Flanagan had signed off on payments of $145,000 for employee entertainment and other ill-advised expenditures. His reputation was such that the District of Columbia would not hire him for a juvenile-justice position. "Another death that needs to be added to the roster," Diane Aker, the DIHS chief health administrator, tapped out in an e-mail to a records clerk at headquarters on Aug. 14, 2007. Juan Guevara-Lorano, 21, was dead. Guevara, an unemployed legal U.S. resident with a young son, was arrested in El Paso for driving illegal border-crossers farther into the city. He was paid $50. An entry-level emergency medical technician, with barely any training, had done Guevara's intake screening and physical assessment at the Otero County immigration compound in New Mexico. Under DIHS rules, those tasks are supposed to be done by a nurse. After two difficult months in detention, Guevara had decided not to appeal his case. He would go back to Mexico with his family. But on Aug. 4, he came down with a splitting headache, what he called a nine on a pain scale of 10, his medical records show. The rookie medical technician prescribed Tylenol and referred Guevara to the compound's physician "due to severity of headache ... and dizziness," according to medical records. But Guevara never saw a doctor. Eight days after the first incident, he vomited in his cell. The same junior technician came to help but was unable to insert a nasal airway tube. Guevara was taken to a hospital, where doctors determined an aneurism in his brain had burst. His wife, pregnant at the time with their second child, recalled that she rushed to the hospital but ICE guards would not let her inside, until the Mexican Consulate interceded. Guevara's mother waited five hours before they let her in. By then he was brain-dead. "My son is not coming back," sobbed Ana Celia Lozano months later, sitting in Guevara's small mobile home as her grandson played on the floor. "I want to know how he lived and died, nothing more." What appears to be the most incriminating document in Guevara's case has been partially blacked out. Still, what is left shows that he did not receive adequate care. "The detainee was not seen or evaluated by an RN, midlevel or physician. . . . At the time of the incident on 8/12/2007, the detainee was seen and examined by EMTs." Each immigration facility is allotted a different number of positions, and a shortage of doctors and nurses is not unusual at centers across the country. Records from February show that about 30 percent of all DIHS positions in the field were unfilled. ICE officials said last week that the current vacancy rate is 21 percent. Concern about the vacancies is voiced repeatedly at clinical directors' meetings. "How do we state our concerns so that we can be heard? . . . this is a CRITICAL condition. . . . We have bitten off more than we can chew," a physician wrote in the minutes of one meeting last summer. In some prisons, the staffing shortages are acute. The Willacy County detention center in South Texas -- the largest compound, with 2,018 detainees -- has no clinical director, no pharmacist and only a part-time psychiatrist. Nearly 50 percent of the nursing positions were unfilled at the 1,500-detainee Eloy, Ariz., prison in February. At the newly opened 744-bed Jena., La., compound, nurses run the place. It has no clinical director, no staff physician, no psychiatrist and no professional dental staff. Last August, Sampson, who was then DIHS interim director, warned his superiors at ICE that critical personnel shortages were making it impossible to staff the Jena facility adequately. In a vociferous e-mail to Gary Mead, the ICE deputy director in charge of detention centers, he wrote: "With the Jena request we have been re-examining our capabilities to meet health care needs at a new site when we are facing critical staffing shortages at most every other DIHS site. While we developed, executed and achieved major successes in our recruitment efforts we have been unable to meet the demand." The slow ICE security-clearance process forced many job applicants to go elsewhere, Sampson wrote. Of the 312 people who applied for new positions over the past year, 200 withdrew, he wrote, because they found other jobs during the 250 days it took ICE, on average, to conduct the required background investigations. Last week, ICE officials said the average wait had decreased recently to 37 days. These shortages have burdened the remaining staff. In July 2007, a year after Osman's death in Otay Mesa, medical director Hui strongly complained to headquarters about workload stress. "The level of burnout . . . is high and rising," she wrote in an e-mail. "I know that I have been averaging approximately 2-6 hrs of overtime daily for the past 2 months. I will no longer be able to sustain this pace and will be decreasing the number of hours that I work overtime. This being said, more will be left undone because we simply do NOT have the staff." The overcrowding has created a petri dish for the spread of diseases. One mission of the Public Health Service is to detect infectious diseases and contain them before they spread, but last summer, the gigantic Willacy center was hit by a chicken pox outbreak. The illness spread because the facility did not have enough available isolation rooms and its large pods share recycled air, but also because security officers "lack education about the disease and keep moving around detainees from different units without taking into consideration if the unit has been isolated due to heavy exposure," noted the DIHS's top specialist on infectious diseases, Carlos Duchesne. The staff was forced to vaccinate the entire population in mid-July. In one 2007 death, memos and confidential notes show how medical staff missed an infectious disease, meningitis, in their midst. Victor Alfonso Arellano, 23, a transgender Mexican detainee with AIDS, died in custody at the San Pedro center. The first three pages of Duchesne's internal review of the death leave the impression that Arellano's care was proper. But the last page, under the heading "Off the record observations and recommendations," takes a decidedly critical tone: "The clinical staff at all levels fails to recognize early signs and symptoms of meningitis. . . . Pt was evaluated multiple times and an effort to rule out those infections was not even mentioned." Arellano was given a "completely useless" antibiotic, Duchesne wrote. Lab work that should have been performed immediately took 22 days because San Pedro's clinical director had ordered staff members to withhold lab work for new detainees until they had been in detention there "for more than 30 days," a violation of agency rules. "I am sure that there must be a reason why this was mandated but that practice is particularly dangerous with chronic care cases and specially is particularly dangerous with . . . HIV/AIDS patients," Duchesne wrote. "Labs for AIDS patients . . . must be performed ASAP to know their immune status and where you are standing in reference to disease control and meds." Given the frequency with which ICE moves people within the detention network, keeping track of detainees is critical to stopping the spread of infectious illnesses. The purchase of an electronic records system named CaseTrakker in 2004 was supposed to help. But according to internal documents and interviews, CaseTrakker is so riddled with problems that facilities often revert to handwritten records. A study at one site found that it took one-third more time to use CaseTrakker than to use paper. Thousands of patient files are missing. Recorded data often cannot be retrieved. Day-long outages are common. When detainees are transferred from one facility to another, their records, if they follow them, are often misleading. Some show medications with no medical diagnoses, or "lots of diagnoses but no meds," according to Elizabeth Fleming, a former clinical director at one compound in Arizona. After Yusif Osman's death and the discovery of the problem with his computerized records, the DIHS ordered a review of all charts at the Otay Mesa center. During the review, auditors also found that 260 physical exams were never completed as required. The nurse responsible for the error in Osman's case was reprimanded, but the computer problem was not fixed. The CaseTrakker system "has failed and must be replaced," Sampson, the DIHS interim director, wrote to his ICE supervisors in August. In January 2008, medical director Shack told colleagues that CaseTrakker "is more of a liability than the use of paper medical record system," according to the minutes of a meeting. It "puts patients at risk." ICE officials said last week that they are not satisfied with CaseTrakker and are working to replace it. Along with being at the mercy of computer glitches, detainees suffer from human errors that deny or delay their care. And with few advocates on the outside, they are left alone to plead their cases in the most desperate ways, in hand-scribbled notes to doctors they rarely see. "I need medicine for pain. All my bones hurt. Thank you," wrote Mexico native Roberto Ledesma Guerrero, 72, three weeks before he died inside the Otay Mesa compound. Delays persist throughout the system. In January, the detention center in Pearsall, Tex., an hour from San Antonio, had a backlog of 2,097 appointments. Luis Dubegel-Paez, a 60-year-old Cuban, had filled out many sick call requests before he died on March 14. Detained at the Rolling Plains Detention Facility in the West Texas town of Haskell, he wrote on New Year's Day: "need to see doctor for Heart medication; and having chest pains for the past three days. Can't stand pain." Ten days later he went to the clinic and became upset when he wasn't seen. He slugged the window, yelled, pointed at his wristwatch. He was escorted back to his cell. Another of his sick call requests said: "Need to see a doctor. I have a lot of symptoms of sickness ... as soon as possible!" The next was more urgent: "I have a emergency to see the doctor about my heart problems ... for the last couple days and I been getting dizzy a lot." The next day, Dubegel-Paez collapsed and died. His medical records do not show that he ever saw a doctor for his chest pains.

July 25, 2007 Business Wire
The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE:GEO - News; "GEO") announced today that the LaSalle Economic Development District (the "LEDD") has signed a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") for the housing of up to 1,160 immigration detainees at the GEO-owned LaSalle Detention Facility (the "Facility") located in Jena, Louisiana. GEO will house and manage the immigration detainee population at the Facility pursuant to an agreement with LEDD. GEO expects to commence the intake of 416 detainees during the fourth quarter of 2007, and the Facility is expected to ramp-up to 416 detainees by year-end 2007. As announced previously, GEO is currently expanding the Facility by 744 beds. The 744-bed expansion, which will cost approximately $30.0 million, is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2008. Following the completion of construction, GEO will begin intake of the additional 744 detainees. The Facility is expected to ramp up to full occupancy of 1,160 beds by the end of the third quarter of 2008. The contract is expected to generate approximately $23.5 million in annualized operating revenues for GEO at full occupancy.

October 5, 2005 AP
The New Orleans sheriff on Wednesday disputed allegations from a human rights group that inmate corpses were floating in the city jail after Hurricane Katrina and that prisoners were left for days without food or drinking water in cells where the floodwaters were chest-high. In separate allegations, Human Rights Watch and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund also have asked the Justice Department to investigate prisoners' allegations of beatings by guards after being evacuated from several New Orleans-area lockups to a former juvenile prison in central Louisiana. One inmate told the groups he was forced to consume his own blood. Lawyers for the groups said the prisoners, many of whom were awaiting trial in Jefferson Parish and have not been convicted, recounted beatings and racial slurs from guards. Louisiana shut the Jena prison in May 2000 after a series of Justice Department reports about violence among inmates and guards. The lockup, owned by the private corrections company Wackenhut, had been empty since then.

August 1, 2002
The Bayou State incarcerates more people per capita than any other state, a Louisiana lawmaker told an international human rights convention Wednesday. "We as a society believe we can lock away our undesirables and solve all our problems," Vincent Wilkins Jr., a staff attorney in the District of Columbia's Public Defender Service, said during a panel discussion on criminal justice moderated by Cravins. "I'm of the opinion you can't," added Wilkins, a Crowley native and former staff lawyer, deputy director and acting director of the East Baton Rouge Parish Public Defender's Office. "Beware of private prisons. You cannot run a for-profit prison," he said. "The mission of a privately-run prison is to make money. You can't do that unless you cut corners." Wilkins said corners are cut on meals, psychological and psychiatric care, and dental care, to name a few. "Medical care -- pretty much nonexistent," he said. "They give you Tylenol for just about everything." (Advocate)

July 16, 2002
Eunice cattleman Cecil Brown, found guilty last year of acting as a frontman for Gov. Edwin Edwards in shaking down Texas businessmen who sought state approval for Louisiana projects, failed Monday to persuade a federal appeals court to give him a new trial. Prosecutors in Brown's trial in March 2001 claimed he demanded and shared with Edwards payoffs from Houston businessmen who wanted to build a $35 million juvenile prison in Jena, get waste disposal contracts in New Orleans and bring the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team to the city. Edwards was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, which grew out of the same wiretap and secretly recorded evidence that resulted in the former governor's May 2000 conviction involving state gambling licenses. Former Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz testified against Brown in the extortion case under a plea agreement with the government. Graham, who worked for Hofheinz, told the jury that in September 1993 he delivered $245,000 from Hofheinz to Edwards at the Louisiana governor's mansion. (The Times)

June 3, 2002
Two years after he was convicted of extorting payoffs from businessmen seeking state gambling licenses, former Gov. Edwin Edwards today makes another bid to avoid a decade in prison. Edwards and his co-defendants were found guilty May 9, 2000, of shaking down casino executives in exchange for the promise of riverboat gambling licenses. The former governor was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but he has been allowed to remain free on bond pending the outcome of his appeal.

May 16, 2002
The state conditionally agreed to buy the empty juvenile prison at Jena in a move that may give the state wiggle room to disengage from the expensive Tallulah prison contract. Reports of the potential Jena purchase, however, have dismayed advocates who are pushing the state to spend more money on community-based programs for juvenile offenders and less money on juvenile prisons. Wackenhut Corrections Corp. opened the Jena prison in December 1998, four years after another firm opened a 700-bed prison in Tallulah. Both for-profit prisons had problems with violence and mismanagement that led the state to seize permanent control of the Tallulah prison on Sept. 21, 1999, and temporary control of the Jena prison on April 5, 2000. Three weeks after the Jena seizure, Wackenhut said it would no longer house juveniles at that facility. The state later declined to lease the prison from Wackenhut. Boudreaux said the Division of Administration entered into the Jena conditional purchase agreement at the urging of legislators who wanted a place to house some of the juvenile offenders currently at Tallulah if the Legislature decides not to fund the Tallulah lease. "We keep telling (the legislators), 'It's not a light switch,'" Boudreaux said of the potential decision to end the Tallulah lease. "There needs to be a transitional period," Boudreaux said. The state currently spends $3.4 million a year to lease 400 beds at Tallulah and $13 million a year to operate the prison, he said. The Tallulah lease came under fire when a state legislative audit report last year revealed that the prison's politically connected owners received more than $8.7 million in dividends and salaries since 1995. The report also revealed that the investors will retain ownership of the Tallulah prison when the lease expires in 20 years. "I think the Tallulah contract is a bad deal for the state," state Sen. Jay Dardenne, R-Baton Rouge, said Wednesday. The Jena prison may provide an alternative, Dardenne said, if corrections officials can operate the Jena prison better than they're doing at Tallulah. "I don't want to simply relocate problems." Attorney June Denlinger of the Baton Rouge law firm Nordyke and Denlinger -- which represents some of the plaintiffs in the juvenile prison litigation -- said both prisons have similar problems. Both are "out in the sticks" Denlinger said. "It's hard to get professional personnel and (the rural locations) isolate people who need the most intense treatment." (Advocate)

May 14, 2002
Correctional Properties Trust, a real estate investment trust (REIT), announced today that it has entered into an Agreement to Purchase and Sell, under which the State of Louisiana will acquire the Jena Juvenile Justice Center from the Company. Correctional Properties Trust will receive net proceeds of $15,500,000 from the sale. Correctional Properties Trust has also entered into a Lease Termination Agreement with Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, the lessee of the Jena Juvenile Justice Center (the "Facility"), under which WCC will, conditioned upon the sale of the Facility to the State, make a cash payment of $2,500,000 to Correctional Properties Trust as consideration for terminating the existing lease. The Agreement to Purchase and Sell is subject to certain conditions over which the Company has no control, including approval by the Louisiana Legislature of funding for the purchase and operation of the Facility. Except for the obligation of WCC to pay the Company's expenses in connection with the transaction, the termination of the Jena Facility lease under the WCC Lease Termination Agreement becomes effective only at the time the State acquires the Facility. The Facility, which is not currently housing inmates, was operated by WCC for the State until June 2000, when it was deactivated. WCC has continued to make all lease payments to Correctional Properties Trust, and is expected to continue to do so throughout the term of the lease, or until the Facility is sold, and the lease is terminated. (PRNewswire)

April 4, 2002
So, it's down to this: Should the state reopen the juvenile prison at Jena and close the prison at Tallulah? After years of publicity about riots and abuse, and after settling civil-rights lawsuits over those prisons, the state is now considering taking the juveniles out of Tallulah and moving them to Jena. The appraisal of the Jena prison is pending, but the cost is estimated at $20 million. The rationale is to get the state out of the expensive Tallulah contract. The move is an option that has many reform advocates scratching their heads. They'd like to see the state pull out of Tallulah and stay out of Jena. The two prisons were the state's experiment in juvenile-prison privatization -- an experiment Gov. Mike Foster vowed never to repeat. The for-profit concept didn't work mainly because juvenile prisoners require much more educational, medical and psychological services than adult prisoners. Those services can cut into profits. The decision may rest on which economically distressed community is more in need of the prison. Prison reform advocates say economic impact is not the point. Locating prisons so far from where most of the juveniles live is a hardship for their families. The rural locations also make recruitment and retention of security officers and professionals more difficult. (Advocate)

January 17, 2000
The for-profit Jena Juvenile Justice Center in an "unsafe, violent and inhumane" institution, a consultant to the U.S. Justice Department asserted in a new report filed Thursday in U.S. District Court at baton Rouge. The preliminary, and primarily negative, findings of that consultant and two others are outlined in a report to U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola prepared by John P. Whitley, the court's appointed prison expert. "The high number of juveniles at Jena with bleeding ulcers and hypertension may be related to the stress and fear associated with living in such a violent place," Whitely said medical health expert Dr. Michael Cohen indicated during exit interviews with Jena center and state officials.

March 9, 2000
An Orleans Parish Juvenile Court judge ordered a 17-year-old boy removed from the for-profit Jena Juvenile Justice Center, noting the boy recovering from a gunshot wounds was so severely beaten that portions of his intestines leaked into his colostomy bag. A 17-page opinion filed Wednesday in Juvenile Court, Judge Mark Doherty said the Jena center "treats juveniles as if they walked on all fours." The seventeen year old boy arrived at the Jena center on March 4, 1999, after undergoing colostomy surgery for four gunshot wounds, according to Doherty's opinion. On May 14, after the boy returned from the medical appointment in New Orleans, a nurse was called to the Jena center dorm where she found the youth "laying on the floor, sobbing," Doherty wrote. The nurse noted the "evisceration," or protrusion, of part of the boy's colon through the colostomy opening with about 5 to 6 inches of intestine visible in the colostomy bag. The boy reported to the nurse that a Jena staff member with the rank of sergeant had placed him on his stomach and slammed a knee in his back, Doherty wrote.

March 21, 2000
An New Orleans Parish Juvenile Justice Court judge removed seven boys from Jena Juvenile Justice Center, and an excutive for the company that runs the prison made an unusual visit there last week after highly critical federal reports alleged physical abuse of inmates at the for-profit center. The reports led one Juvenile Court judge, Mark Doherty of Orleans Parish, to pull seven boys from the Jena center as of Friday. Wackenhut in july opened a 489-bed maximum security juvenile center in Baldwin, Mich. (Feb. 15, 01) Louisiana removed its offenders from Jena after a scathing report by the U.S. Department of Justice.

November 21, 2000
Former Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz changed his plea to guilty in a federal extortion case that spun out of the investigation of former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards. Hofheinz, 62, made the new plea of failing to report a felony in a case that originally included charges of extorting payoffs from Texas businessmen interested in seeking state contracts in Louisiana. The ex-mayor did admit that he agreed to pay off a close friend of Edwards in hopes of obtaining a government contract. U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola sentenced Hofheinz to a year probation and a $5,000 fine. He could have faced up to 3 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Polozola said he sentenced Hofheinz to probation because of his cooperation with government officials. He wanted to comment further but it would be inappropriate because of the upcoming trial of Eunice cattleman Cecil Brown, a close friend of Edwards. Prosecutors contend Brown tried to shake down Hofheinz and the others seeking state contracts, including one for a proposed juvenile prison in Jena in 1995. Hofheinz said Brown extorted money from him in the Jena deal. In order to receive state approval for the new prison, Brown was to receive large sums of money from Hofheinz's company, Viewpoint Development Corporation. Prosecutors say that Viewpoint paid Brown $10,000 a month, and Hofheinz agreed to pay him $1.3 million when the Jena prison was successfully financed. Viewpoint never raised enough money to fund the prison project and sold its rights to another company so Brown never received the $1.3 million. (Houston Chronicle)

LCS Caldwell Detention Center
Clarks, Louisiana
Louisiana Corrections Services
April 6, 2006 The Town Talk
An Olla man who escaped from the Caldwell Correctional Center in Clarks committed suicide tonight at a hunting camp near Dodson in Winn Parish, authorities said. Jimmy L. Peppers, 36, barricaded himself inside the camp as authorities tried to talk him into giving himself up. Authorities fired tear gas into the building because they suspected he was inside. Peppers yelled out that he was inside, and authorities tried unsuccessfully for about 10 minutes to talk him into surrendering. At about 6:55 p.m., authorities heard a gunshot, and a Winnfield Police Department K-9 officer went into the house and discovered the body. Assistant Chief Deputy Becky Ledbetter said the department received calls at about 9 a.m. Thursday that someone had escaped from the Caldwell Correctional Center in Clarks and that a Kelly woman had been taken by force from her home. “We are not really sure how he escaped,” Ledbetter said. “He went to the woman’s house and took her by force. He forced her into her own car.” Ledbetter said the two were driving on La. Highway 126 in Winn Parish, five miles east of Dodson, when they got into a scuffle. The two were romantically involved at one time. The unidentified victim dropped him off near Gaars Mill in northeast Winn Parish. She drove to nearby Dodson, where she told authorities that he was armed with a .38-caliber pistol that he took from her. Peppers was serving time at the Caldwell Correctional Center for a felony driving while intoxicated charge and was scheduled to go to court Tuesday for another count of felony driving while intoxicated in LaSalle Parish, Ledbetter said. This is the second prison escape to occur in Caldwell Parish in less than a month. Five inmates escaped March 11 from privately operated LCS Caldwell Detention Center, located directly beside the Caldwell Correctional Center on La. Highway 845 in Clarks. All five were caught and charged with additional counts and placed back at the facility in less than a week. Owners of the facility are conducting an internal investigation into the escape.

March 16, 2006 KATC TV
Authorities in Jefferson Parish have captured an escapee from the Caldwell Detention Center. Twenty-seven-year-old Jeremy Robinson escaped along with four other inmates over the weekend. He's the last one to be taken into custody. Jefferson Parish deputies stopped a car yesterday afternoon -- that was suspected to be stolen by Robinson. Caldwell Sheriff Steve May says Robinson's girlfriend was driving the car. Deputies then received information that Robinson was at his girlfriend's house in Kenner. Robinson was taken into custody without incident and is expected to be returned to Caldwell Parish today. He was serving time on a drug charge -- and now faces additional charges of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated escape, and attempted murder of a police officer.

March 15, 2006 KPLC TV
Caldwell Parish Sheriff Steve May says an escaped prisoner from a private prison in his parish has probably left the area. Twenty-seven-year-old Jeremy Robinson of Jefferson Parish is the sole inmate still at large after five men overpowered personnel at L-C-S Caldwell Detention Center on Saturday night, then fled the facility. May believes Robinson may have stolen a vehicle in the south end of the parish and may be attempting to return to his home in the New Orleans area. May says authorities statewide have been notified of the escape. Bond has been set at 500-thousand dollars each on the other four escapees, who were captured Saturday night and Sunday morning.

March 14, 2006 AP
Bond has been set at $500,000 each for four of the five men accused of getting a prison worker to open a control room door, taking control of the prison and then driving out in a prison employee's truck. The fifth, Jeremy Robinson, 27, of Jefferson Parish, remained at large. He is described as black, 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds, with "Shanda" tattooed on his right arm. The five escaped Saturday night from the private LSC Caldwell Detention Center in Clarks. Caldwell Parish Sheriff Steve May said that after getting the control room open, the five overpowered employees and eventually took control of the prison. When a town marshal tried to stop their truck, they tried to run over him but crashed the truck, May said. He identified those back in custody as Corey Manshack, 25, of Converse; Keith Gallow, 33, of Ville Platte; Melvin Tipton, 23, of West Monroe; and Ray Eugene Tate of Lawrenceville, Ill. All four were booked with new charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated escape; Manshack and Gallow also were booked with theft and trespassing. Tate is wanted on seven counts of failing to appear in court for drug charges in Hopkinsville, Ky., May said. He said Tate was moved to Clarks from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

March 12, 2006 Houma Today
Five inmates escaped a privately run prison in Caldwell Parish, but authorities were able to track down all but one of the escaped convicts by Sunday afternoon, the sheriff's office said. Jeremy Robinson, a 27-yeasr-old inmate from Jefferson Parish, was still at large on Sunday, said Glenn Gilmore, a chief deputy of the sheriff's department. The five inmates overpowered a female guard at about 9 p.m. Saturday at the LCS Caldwell Detention Center, Gilmore said.

Louisiana Correctional Services
March 12, 2008 Express News
A small plane crash Monday night killed a Louisiana businessman whose private prison services company, Premier Management Enterprises, was at the center of a public corruption investigation that last year forced the resignation of Bexar County Sheriff Ralph Lopez. Patrick LeBlanc, 53, died with the pilot while trying to land in rough weather in Lafayette, La., according to a family friend and local press reports. LeBlanc and his brother, Michael LeBlanc, co-owned Premier and LCS Corrections Services, which build or service prisons in several states, including in three South Texas counties. The brothers' company remains the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation into "contracting irregularities," a bureau official confirmed. "He had great integrity and honor, unlike what some of you guys tried to do to him," said Ron Gomez, a close friend and partner in a small weekly newspaper that published its first edition last week. Gomez said LeBlanc went into the news business as a response to negative publicity about his company's role in a Bexar County corruption probe that caused him to lose a race last fall for state legislative office. Premier Management Enterprises, which has operated jail commissaries in Texas, was at the center of a Bexar County district attorney's investigation involving a foreign vacation gift to Lopez and cash payments to the sheriff's top aide, John Reynolds, before, during and after the company was given commissary contracts. The LeBlanc brothers have repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and have not been indicted or formally accused of any crime related to the Bexar County jail commissary contract. But Lopez resigned and pleaded guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges for accepting a Costa Rica golf vacation from the LeBlancs, while Reynolds last month was sentenced to 10 years for demanding thousands of dollars in "consulting fees" and charitable donations from Premier. The FBI took over from state authorities, and over the last several months, agents have interviewed Lopez and Reynolds as part of their respective plea deals. FBI Special Agent Erik Vasys said the bureau was well aware of LeBlanc's death but declined to discuss whether the tragedy might affect the investigation.

March 11, 2008 The Advocate
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office continue to investigate a single-engine plane crash that killed two people Monday night, including Lafayette businessman and civic leader Patrick LeBlanc. LeBlanc, 53, of Youngsville, co-owner of LCS Corrections Services, and a pilot from Opelousas were killed in a plane crash Monday night near Abbeville. Jason Aguilera, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, has identified the plane as a Cessna 210. Aguilera said an initial investigation indicates the pilot, believed to be R. Solomon Reed. 60, of Pavy Road in Opelousas, was attempting to land in Lafayette. The crash happened on La. 82 in Vermilion Parish. The flight originated in Jackson, Miss., the Vermilion Parish Sheriff's Office said. LeBlanc was a leader in the Lafayette Jaycees, was active in the Acadiana Home Builders Association and last fall ran an unsuccessful campaign for state House of Representatives District 43.

Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections
March 12, 2003
Richard Stalder is in the prison business. As secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections for 11 years, Mr. Stalder is primarily responsible for keeping adults behind bars. To understand the department's priorities, just follow the money: A dozen years ago, Louisiana spent $3 million more on probation, residential and day treatment programs than on juvenile jails. Now it spends at least $27 million more on jails than on services. Lawmakers and citizens ought to keep that in mind as the debate over juvenile justice -- and the Tallulah youth prison in particular -- heats up during this spring's legislative session. The notorious prison is on the table because closing it would get rid of unnecessary prison beds and generate savings that can be put to better use. Sadly, getting rid of the Tallulah prison has proved trickier than juvenile-justice reformers and fiscal conservatives had hoped. Three friends of former Gov. Edwin Edwards own it, even though taxpayers are footing the construction bill. Despite contract terms that would let the state stop payment, bond rating agencies on Wall Street have told state officials that they plan to hold Louisiana responsible for the debt anyway. Last month the administration said it had been negotiating with the Edwards cronies to buy the prison outright. (Nola.com)

Louisiana Department of Corrections
August 29, 2004
New agreements need closer look. While a footnote to the most urgent business at the latest meeting of the State Bond Commission, we are nevertheless heartened by the pledge of Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc to watch out for the state's interests when making deals with private groups. State government has become deeply involved with "cooperative endeavor agreements" that are essentially contracts between the state and businesses or nonprofit organizations. From prisons to art museums, arrangements for financing or administering facilities traditionally built or operated by the state have become commonplace. Some of these agreements have become enormous financial drains. The worst, probably, was an agreement with Tallulah authorities that requires the state to continue paying rent to the owners of a private prison there even after the state stopped using it as a juvenile prison. The beneficiary of that deal was the company headed by cronies of Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, even if the cooperative endeavor agreement was negotiated formally between the state and Tallulah. State government should not be allowed to contract away its responsibility to taxpayers and recipients of public services, or users of public buildings, after private negotiations with interested parties. Not, at least, without meaningful debate and disclosure of the circumstances and the options - not only those approved, but those dismissed. (Sunday Advocate)

February 27, 2004
Gov. Kathleen Blanco rejected advice from one of her transition committees and reappointed Richard Stalder as secretary of the Department of Corrections. Opposition to the controversial veteran chief of the state prison system subsided after she created a new and separate justice system for juvenile offenders, Blanco said at a press conference Thursday. Stalder first started working in the prison system in 1971 and has been secretary since 1992, when then-Gov. Edwin Edwards appointed him. Former Gov. Mike Foster reappointed him. Stalder is among several top Foster aides Blanco is keeping. "I did a fair search," Blanco said, and Stalder "can do as good a job as anybody." Stalder "rose head and shoulders" above every other candidate she considered for the job, she said. Asked for specific ways he improved corrections in his 12 years as secretary, Blanco said Stalder brought "serious" reform to a once-troubled prison system. Stalder agreed to help create the new juvenile justice system and let it remain independent of the adult prison system, she said. Much of the criticism of Stalder focused on the deal he signed to lease a privately owned juvenile prison in Tallulah. The deal devolved into a financial and legal disaster. The state was sued over conditions at Tallulah and continues to make lease payments, although the Legislature voted to close the prison. The Associated Press reported last month that the committee advising Blanco on her choice to run the prison system picked three finalists, none of them Stalder. A minority of committee members pushed to have Stalder added as a finalist. The state's sheriffs backed Stalder. The state pays sheriff's offices $22 a day per prisoner to house state inmates in parish jails. Several have financed new jails based on revenues from housing state inmates. "I took into consideration what each of the groups were interested in," Blanco said. As corrections chief, Stalder must work on better preparing inmates for their re-entry into a free society, Blanco said. Teaching them skills and improving literacy rates among inmates is one way to help cut the numbers of released inmates committing crimes and landing back in prison, she said. The state is also plagued with a disproportionately high percentage of black people in prison, Blanco said. (Advocate)

January 28, 2003
Louisiana lawmakers should strip the Department of Corrections of its oversight of young offenders and close down one of the state's four juvenile prisons, a group of legislators was told Monday. Secretary Richard Stalder said shutting down a prison is unfeasible for space and financial reasons and that lawmakers should first consider taking the responsibility for juvenile rehabilitation out of his agency. The Casey Foundation offered the most potentially contentious recommendation, suggesting that Louisiana close one of the state's four youth prisons. That could save the state about $16 million to $20 million a year, money that could be spent on other programs that aim to rehabilitate delinquents in their communities, said Joseph Liu, a senior associate with the nonprofit group. That suggestion was immediately embraced by opponents of the Tallulah prison in northeast Louisiana, a lightening rod of criticism since the state took it over from a private company in 1998 after a federal investigation revealed abuse and neglect of teens at the hands of guards and fellow inmates. Stadler also said the state is still on the hook for paying the bond debt on privately owned prison, the result of a cooperative endeavor agreement inked in the early 1990s. Under the agreement, the government is obliged to continue paying the annual bond debt on the facility. If lawmakers move to close the facility by stopping those payments, the state's bond rating would be in jeopardy, he said. Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen confirmed after the meeting that Wall Street bonding agencies have threatened to penalize the state if the agreement is breached. One option is being considered is for the state to buy the facility, taking on the debt instead of paying it for the private company. That could save some money on interest payments, he said. (Capital Bureau)

Louisiana Juvenile Justice Commission
March 7, 2003
The state's Juvenile Justice Commission gave its approval on Thursday to a proposed overhaul of Louisiana's juvenile justice system. The far-reaching proposals include the possible closing of one of the state's four juvenile prisons and the creation of a new state agency for juvenile justice and family issues. The idea is to redirect the state's focus away from putting juveniles in prisons and toward cheaper and more effective community-based alternatives. Although the recommendation doesn't name the prison, most of the commissioners and speakers agreed it will probably be the high-security prison at Tallulah. The Tallulah complex would not sit idle. The state could use it for older juvenile offenders or juvenile offenders sentenced to adult prison, as a medium-security adult prison, or convert the prison for some other purpose, commissioners noted. (Advocate)

Louisiana Legislature
February 16, 2008 The Advocate
Gov. Bobby Jindal has about $600,000 on hand after paying expenses related to his transition office and inauguration. The governor is uncertain how the remaining money will be spent, his press secretary, Melissa Sellers, said Friday. Jindal set up a nonprofit organization to raise money for his transition and January inauguration. The organization’s latest financial report was released 5 p.m. Friday without a description of the nature of expenses or overall totals. The report covers contributions and expenses after Jan. 14, when Jindal was sworn into office. The report shows $782,821 in expenses and $251,020 in contributions. One of the biggest expenditures was $202,478.11 to the Baton Rouge River Center, where Jindal held a legislative luncheon and a ball for his inauguration. Jindal also used the money he raised to pay for staff, pizza, coffee, cabs and more than 400 FedEx shipments. Other big expenses: $65,841.11, LSU, where Jindal had his transition office. $39,059, The Bautsch Group. $13,927.34, Jet Logistics. Jindal set a $10,000 ceiling on contributions. Contributors giving the maximum amount were Ciber, CH2M Hill, Allergan, Helis Oil & Gas Co., Andersen-Wells, Robert A. Wolf, The GEO Group, Gary & Beth Chumley, Northrop Grumman, Affiliated Computer Services, SSH Management and Conoco Phillips Company.

October 21, 2007 The Advertiser
The involvement of his opponent's company in a Texas jail contract investigation may have helped Page Cortez capture the House District 43 race in Saturday's election. Complete but unofficial returns show Cortez, R-Lafayette, with 7,742 or 55 percent of the vote and Patrick LeBlanc, R-Youngsville, with 6,218 or 45 percent. Cortez replaces state Rep. Ernie Alexander, R-Lafayette, who chose not to seek re-election to the District 43 seat. "I'm tickled to death that it turned out the way it did," Cortez said Saturday night. "I think that ultimately the people of District 43 said their priorities are roads, ethics and teamwork." Cortez is the owner and operator of La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries and Stoma's Furniture in Lafayette. He previous worked as a teacher and coached at Catholic High of New Iberia and Lafayette High. LeBlanc, 53, owns and operates LCS Corrections Services, a private jail company, as well as Premier Management Enterprises, which provides commissary services to jails in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. He also has been associated with the architectural firm The LeBlanc Group and LeBlanc Construction Company. This race heated up in recent weeks when unopposed state Sen. Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, and unopposed state Rep. Joel Robideaux, I-Lafayette, through their political organization Leadership for Louisiana, ran ads opposing LeBlanc's candidacy because of the Texas investigation. The Bexar County, Texas, sheriff resigned and pleaded guilty to accepting a free trip to Costa Rica from LeBlanc and his brother, and not reporting the contribution. The sheriff's campaign manager also pled guilty for accepting donations from LeBlanc's company to a phony charity, then pocketing the money. The FBI continues to investigate interstate aspects of a commissary contract the LeBlancs had with the Bexar County jail.

October 10, 2007 The Advertiser
Ethics reform is the buzzword of the fall 2007 election cycle. Everybody from the gubernatorial candidates to state House and Senate candidates have jumped on the bandwagon calling for sweeping ethics reforms. The two candidates for House District 43 in Lafayette Parish are no different. Both said they support ethics reform. Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, and Patrick LeBlanc, R-Youngsville, both newcomers to politics, signed the Blueprint Louisiana contract, which calls for adoption of the best ethics laws in the nation. But ethics is at the heart of this particular race for another reason. Premier Management Enterprises, a company LeBlanc co-owns with his brother, Mike, is involved in a Texas investigation that took down a sheriff and the sheriff's campaign manager. The FBI continues to investigate. Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff Ralph Lopez was forced to resign and pled guilty to three misdemeanor charges: gift to a public servant, failure to report a gift and tampering with a governmental record. Some time after Premier Management Enterprises was awarded a contract to provide commissary services to Bexar County prisoners, the LeBlancs took Lopez and other sheriffs on a golfing trip to Costa Rica. Patrick LeBlanc has said the trip was a conference of several sheriffs his company conducts business with to discuss escape attempts, gang threats and the lockup of immigrants. The LeBlancs also own LCS Corrections Services, which operates private jails in Louisiana, Texas and Alabama. Some of them have experienced escapes by prisoners. As part of an Aug. 31 plea agreement, Lopez agreed to provide information to the Texas Rangers, FBI, District Attorney's Office and others about all transactions, legal and illegal, involving, among others, Michael LeBlanc, Patrick LeBlanc and Premier Management Enterprises. On Sept. 25, Lopez's campaign manager, John Wayne Reynolds, who chaired a benevolent fund board that awarded the LeBlancs the commissary contract, pled guilty to three counts of pocketing more than $22,000 in checks Premier Management had made payable to the Optimist Club Scholarship Fund. The Bexar County District Attorney did not file charges against the LeBlancs. Documents show Ian Williamson, who was a one-third owner in Premier Management at the time, signed the checks given to Reynolds. Patrick LeBlanc said Williamson is no longer a partner in the company. LeBlanc maintains he and his company are innocent of wrongdoing. He said the sheriff was at fault for not reporting the Costa Rica trip. Trips like that are just a part of doing business, he said. "There is nothing unethical or inappropriate about taking clients on trips, be it public or private," LeBlanc said. His company was duped by Reynolds, LeBlanc said. They believed they were donating to a legitimate organization, he said. In late September, the Bexar District Attorney's Office completed its case and turned it over to the FBI. FBI spokesman Erik Vasys told The Daily Advertiser the investigation is ongoing. There are interstate aspects of the case, such as letters, e-mail and telephone communications, that crossed state lines and are still under investigation. He was unable to say more. "Nowhere in ... the official public record that they used to get the plea deal do they mention my involvement in any way other than as a stockholder in this company," LeBlanc said. "You don't see them investigating me, questioning me, calling me a target." Interviewed Friday, LeBlanc again said elected officials should be able to accept free trips if they are approved by the ethics commission and are for legitimate reasons. While both House District 43 candidates say they're for ethics reform, they seem to disagree to some extent on what it means. Cortez disagrees with LeBlanc's assertion that doing business with government is the same as doing business with oilfield companies. "To try and woo somebody with gifts and money and trips, the taxpayers ultimately pay for that," he said. Cortez said legislators should be required to provide full financial disclosure for themselves and their families, making is clear where they derive their money and whether they have state contracts or do business with the state. Then full disclosure needs to be applied to local governments, he said. "What is ethics reform?" LeBlanc said Friday. "It's an overused word. The bottom line is we need to provide more teeth to ethics laws so they can be enforced."

March 19, 2004
Gov. Kathleen Blanco collected more than $1 million from private corporations and individuals to spend on her inauguration activities and in her transition to the governor's office, according to figures released Wednesday. The Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield for the state Department of Corrections, donated $5,000. Wackenhut Corrections, which runs the Allen Correctional Center in Kinder, donated $10,000. LCS Corrections Services, which owns a private prison in Basile, contributed $4,000. (Nola.com)

June 6, 2003
Lawmakers continue to negotiate about legislation to rework the state's juvenile justice system, as some senators Thursday questioned a decision to direct a substantial chunk of money from a prison closing to beef up community programs to the rural Delta region of the state. When House Bill 2018 passed the House this week, lawmakers included an amendment that earmarked 40 percent of the savings -- no more than $3 million -- from closing the youth prison in Tallulah for residential or day-treatment programs in the surrounding parishes. Rep. Francis Thompson, D-Delhi, whose constituents work at the prison, said the measure is necessary to protect needed jobs in one of the most impoverished areas in the country. But several members of the Senate Judiciary B Committee criticized the decision to specify the use of the money that the state will save when juvenile offenders are transferred out of the troubled Tallulah facility by either Dec. 31, 2004, or May 31, 2005. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jay Dardenne, R-Baton Rouge, said the Legislature should not make a commitment to maintain a certain number of state jobs in a particular community. The Tallulah prison has been the focus of much criticism in recent years, in part because of allegations of inmate abuse by guards and other juveniles at the prison. But critics have also zeroed in on the unusual cooperative endeavor agreement signed by the Corrections Department in the 1990s that keeps the state on the hook to make $3.4 million annual debt payments on a facility it does not own. (Times-Picayune)

May 23, 2003
A group of inmates at Tutwiler Prison for Women is giving state prison officials more time to implement their plan for relieving overcrowding at the prison. Attorneys for the inmates Thursday withdrew their request for a second preliminary injunction requiring the state to take immediate action. The 60-year-old prison was built for 364 inmates but has held as many as 1,000 in recent months. Serwer said the plaintiffs do not support transferring inmates to private, out-of-state prisons -- one of the steps Campbell has taken since his appointment in January. Alabama has sent 140 women prisoners to a Louisiana prison and has plans to send about another 150 eventually. (AP)

May 13, 2003
Legislation to overhaul Louisiana's juvenile justice system was approved by a Senate panel Monday after lawmakers amended the bill to hand off the chore of implementing and paying for the sweeping changes to next year's Legislature and a new governor. The panel approved not only Senate Bill 957, which aims to create a framework for changing the juvenile justice system, but also SB 963, which would transfer all juvenile offenders out of the prison in Tallulah by next summer. Cravins and other proponents say the money spent on that facility could be used to expand the state's residential and day-treatment programs. After the meeting, Trey Boudreaux, undersecretary of the corrections department, said the 12-month timeline to remove juveniles from Tallulah might not give the agency enough time or resources, saying the agency is constrained by expected increases in the costs of contracting with nonprofit groups that run residential programs and future judicial assignments of young offenders to secure facilities. The state currently spends $14.8 million on the Swanson Correctional Center for Youth-Madison Parish unit, the formal name for the Tallulah prison. About $3.4 million must be spent on maintaining the debt service on the prison, which leaves $11.4 million that could be spent on other programs, according to the department's analysis. (Times-Picayune)

November 15, 2002
Louisiana's $89 million juvenile justice system, which locks up youths mostly for minor, nonviolent crimes, and jails black youths more often and for more time than white youths, badly needs and overhaul so that judges can help young offenders address their problems closer to home, a Baltimore philanthropy has concluded. That and other findings from the Annie E. Casey Foundation's study of how Louisianna deals with young offenders were detailed at the New Orleans City Council chamber Thursday night in the last of a series of public hearings held by a commissioner studying ways to reform juvenile justice. Many people in the audience held up signs urging the state to close its juvenile prison at Tallulah, a privatelty owned facility. Judge Mark Doherty of Orleans Parish Juvenile Court told the audience that he has "grave fears" for youths in the state's juvenile prisons, which he said offer them "broken jaws, broken bones and destroyed lives." This week, Doherty ordered the state Corrections Department to get any youngster from his court out of the Tallulah prison and into "an alternate secure care facility for the purpose of treatment and rehabilitation." (Times-Picayune)

October 4, 2002
Former Gov. Edwin Edwards and two other men were ordered Wednesday to report to federal prison on Oct. 21 to begin serving their sentences in the riverboat corruption case. Suspended Insurance Com-missioner Jim Brown also received a reporting date, Oct. 15, for being convicted of lying to an FBI agent about an insurance company liquidation. Edwards, his son Stephen, Baton Rouge businessman Bobby Johnson and Brown must surrender at a yet-to-be designated prison unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in and grants the men bail. (Advocate)

September 24, 2002
An appeals court ruling Monday has put Edwin Edwards on the verge of becoming the second governor in the state's history to go to prison. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously declined to rehear Edwards' appeal of his convictions in the riverboat casino corruption case. The court also rejected the requests of Edwards' son Stephen, Baton Rouge businessman Bobby Johnson, former Edwards aide Andrew Martin and Eunice cattleman Cecil Brown. The 5th Circuit's ruling means that the Edwardses and Johnson could be ordered to a federal penitentiary within a few weeks. (Advocate)

September 9, 2002
Edwin Edwards and his son, Stephen, asked an appeals court Thursday to let them stay out of prison while they appeal their riverboat casino corruption convictions. Edwin Edwards said the issues raise important questions that apply not only to his case but to the future defendants and to the entire legal system. "And hopefully, if the court looks at the the issues, it will conclude that a new trial is in order," the former governor said. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit on Aug.23 upheld the convictions of the Edwardses, Baton Rouge businessman Bobby Johnson and two others. (Advocate)

August 27, 2002
Former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards said Monday he expects to be ordered to federal prison within a month while he keeps fighting his racketeering and fraud convictions. "If I go, I will obey the rules, I will serve my time," said Edwards,75. "I will hope to live long enough to get out." He was found guilty in a scheme to extort millions of dollars from businessmen hoping to get lucrative riverboat casino licenses from the state during and after his fourth and final term in office, which ended in early 1996. Edwards was convicted along with his son Stephen, longtime friends Cecil Brown and Andrew Martin- who are serving prison time for convictions to separate cases- and businessman bobby Johnson. (AP)

August 12, 2001
Louisiana has more prisoners than it knows what to do with. With more than 36,000 inmates behind bars, our state locks up more people per capita than any other. Hundreds of inmates are in parish jails because of crowding in state prisons. To get a grip on the runaway incarceration rate, lawmakers last spring cut many drug sentences in half and did away with mandatory minimum sentences for many nonviolent offenses. But that law just took effect, and it is unlikely to lead to the release of many current prisoners. Given this situation, it makes no sense for Louisiana prisons to be poised to take 500 inmates from Alabama. Granted, the prisons vying for the out-of-state inmates are privately owned and operated, and state officials apparently can't stop them. That doesn't make it sound policy, though. (Times-Picayune)

Pine Prairie Correctional Center
Evangeline Parish, Louisiana
Louisiana Correctional Services
June 29, 2006 The Advocate
A former guard at a private prison in Evangeline Parish was sentenced Wednesday to two years and eight months in prison on federal charges of beating an inmate and then asking other guards to lie about the incident. Gilbert Self, 51, of Florine was convicted at trial in February of one count of a criminal civil rights violation and three counts of witness tampering. Self worked as a captain at Pine Prairie Correctional Center, owned by Lafayette-based private prison company LCS Corrections Services. He was accused of beating a Cuban national being held at the prison on immigration violations after the detainee allegedly made crude remarks to a woman guard in July 2003. The guard reported the incident to Self, her supervisor, who then went into the detainee’s cell and punched and kicked the man while he was restrained and lying face down, according to trial testimony. Three other guards who were present have said they repeatedly asked Self to stop and eventually removed him from the cell and sought medical assistance for the detainee. Self asked the guards to file false reports to cover up the beating, telling them that “if he went down they were also going down,” according to a written statement about the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The three guards initially prepared false reports, prosecutors said, but one of the guards decided the next day to tell a supervisor what had really happened. “This is a serious offense, and no one knows better than you the necessity of promoting respect for the law,” U.S. District Judge Richard Haik told Self before handing down a sentence.

February 16, 2006 Montgomery Advertiser
How willing would you be to do business with a company with a record of legal problems, even if it was the low bidder? Most Alabamians, we'd wager, would have some reservations about that -- and Alabamians certainly should have reservations about their state sending prison inmates to a private prison. For years, the Advertiser has expressed serious concerns about the use of private prisons. Nothing reported from the ones involved in state contracts has eased those concerns. The Birmingham News reported this week that the Department of Corrections has begun transferring male inmates to a private prison in Pine Prairie, La. The prison is operated by Louisiana Corrections Service, which also operates a facility in Basile, La., where Alabama has housed about 300 female inmates since 2003. The reason for using these facilities is the chronic overcrowding of Alabama's prison system, which is the subject of constant litigation. The transfer of male inmates -- eventually about 500 of them -- is an effort to ease the backlog in county jails of state inmates who haven't been sent to state prisons because there is no space for them. The overcrowding problem is at present intractable, given Alabama's sentencing structure and its decades of failing to address the shortcomings of a system now bulging with almost twice as many inmates as its facilities were designed to handle. LCS will house the male inmates for $29.50 per day per inmate, but how much of a bargain is that? There are important issues inherent in any private prison operation. This is not someone's hobby; this is a for-profit enterprise. That's fine in most pursuits; in fact, it is the core of the American economy. But incarceration is a solemn obligation of the state. Depriving individuals of liberty is serious business and the state, even though justified in doing so, has an undeniable responsibility to those individuals. A for-profit prison has financial considerations that a state facility does not. It has profit expectations from its investors, and these could all too easily lead to dangerous corner-cutting that compromises the safety of inmates and potentially the public as well. Unlike the state, a private prison operator has no stake in the rehabilitation of inmates vs. the mere warehousing of them. Add to those concerns -- inherent in any private prison operation -- the legal troubles at LSC facilities and it is easy to see why Alabamians should be uncomfortable with this arrangement. Last week, the News reported, a former supervisor at Pine Prairie was convicted of rights violations and witness tampering in the beating of an inmate. Earlier, four guards at the Basile facility were indicted on sexual abuse charges. Problems can occur at state prisons, of course, but there the state has direct authority to act, to set employment standards and to otherwise control the addressing of problems. That is largely lost when private prisons are used. The private prison issue is not going to fade away. LCS is working with officials in Perry County to open a private prison there. The facility, located outside Uniontown, will be ready in a few months. The Department of Corrections says there is no agreement for it to place prisoners there, but clearly there will be great political pressure to do so. This is a poor approach to prison issues. A far better one is broad reform of Alabama's sentencing structure, which now sends to prison far too many people who could serve their sentences in community-based corrections facilities with drug treatment programs and work opportunities -- without presenting a significant threat to the safety of the populace. Funneling non-violent offenders into prisons is always costly and seldom productive. Absent this kind of reform of the current system, inherently unsound practices such as the use of private prisons will continue -- not because they are better, but because they are cheaper.

February 16, 2006 Ledger-Enquirer
Tough on crime, or on taxpayers. Last week, Alabama's prison commissioner went over the wall. And who could blame Commissioner Donal Campbell for resigning? He had been given the literally impossible task of operating an Alabama prison system with too many inmates and not nearly enough money. Not only is he set up for failure, but he is also set up to go to jail himself for not obeying court orders to relieve crowding. Of course, he can't build prisons out of his own pocket, and the Alabama legislature isn't about to spend precious tax dollars on inmates, so what could the commissioner do but throw up his hands and walk away? "I wouldn't want that job," said Lynda Flynt, executive director of the Alabama Sentencing Commission. She knows what she's talking about, having worked closely with Campbell to alleviate crowding. Knowing they're going to have a problem filling a position that includes perks such as being party to a lawsuit, state officials are finally scrambling to do something. On Monday, the state announced that it is going to send 500 state inmates to a private prison in Louisiana. The private prison company there already houses more than 300 Alabama inmates. At $29.50 a day per inmate, that's going to cost Alabama taxpayers about $24,000 a day. That's Alabama tax money that's flowing into the Louisiana economy. If Alabama would build the prisons it needs (or consider sentencing reforms that might ease the stress on the system) some of that cash might stay home. Or some of it might be sent to Alabama counties that are picking up a huge tab for housing state prisoners. As of last December, there were about 100 state inmates being housed in Russell, Lee and Chambers County jails. It costs counties about $30 a day to house a state prisoner, but the state pays the counties about $1.75 a day. So housing those prisoners costs East Alabama taxpayers more than a million dollars a year, while the state is sending more than $8 million a year to Louisiana private prisons. If the Alabama legislature is going to insist that this many people be in prison, then the lawmakers have the moral responsibility to see that there is space to house the inmates. If you're going to be tough on crime, then you're going to have to be tough enough to pay the piper. -- Michael Owen, for the editorial board

February 10, 2006 The Advocate
A former guard at a private prison in Evangeline Parish has been convicted on federal charges of beating an inmate and then asking other guards to cover up the incident. The jury deliberated about 45 minutes before returning a guilty verdict late Wednesday against Gilbert Self, 51, after a three-day trial. Self was a captain at the Pine Prairie Correctional Center, owned by LCS Corrections Services. He faces up to 10 years in prison on criminal civil rights violations and charges of witness tampering. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate civil rights violations committed by those sworn to uphold the law,” U.S. Attorney Donald Washington said in a statement. “… It was Mr. Self’s responsibility to control such violent outbreaks in the facility, not to initiate the violence.” Self was accused of beating a Cuban national who was being detained for immigration violations. Prosecutors said the July 2003 incident began when the detainee allegedly made crude remarks to a female guard. She reported the remarks to Self, who went into the detainee’s cell, punched him repeatedly, slammed his head into the floor and kicked the man inthe ribs, according to guards who witnesses the incident. The guards, who said they attempted to stop Self, told investigators that he later asked them to file false reports to cover up the beating. The guards prepared false reports on the incident, but the next day, one of the men told Self’s supervisor what had actually happened. The detainee, who lost consciousness during the attack, suffered bruising and swelling to both eyes, cuts, and rib injuries, prosecutors said. The injuries were not properly documented at the time because Self asked a nurse to alter her medical report, according to prosecutors, and LCS later fired the nurse for not following proper procedures and sending the detainee to the hospital for treatment.

May 6, 2004
A federal grand jury has joined local prosecutors and civil rights attorneys in bringing charges against employees at private, for-profit prisons in Evangeline Parish. In the most recent charges, Gilbert Self, 49, of Florien, a former captain at the Pine Prairie Detention Center, has been indicted on one count of felony criminal civil rights violation and three counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly beating a prisoner. U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington said Self was arraigned Wednesday morning in Lafayette and released on a $75,000 bond. A tentative trial date is set for July 12 on the four charges, which each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Washington said sentencing in federal court is governed by the U.S. sentencing guidelines, which do not allow for parole. He said the federal charges stem from a government contract with LCS Corrections Services Inc., a Lafayette-based company, which owns the private prison near Pine Prairie and another near Basile. The current indictment alleges that in July 2003, Self assaulted and caused bodily harm to a Cuban national, who was being detained at the facility under the authority of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. The indictment also alleges that Self obstructed the investigation by trying to persuade three fellow guards to lie to federal law enforcement officials. LCS owns two private prisons in Evangeline Parish. Both are currently facing ongoing lawsuits. Last month, Evangeline Parish District Attorney Brent Coreil opened an investigation of the South Louisiana Correctional Center near Basile in regard to repeated charges of sexual assaults on female prisoners. (Louisiana Gannett)

July 7, 2003
A guard at a private prison in Evangeline Parish has been booked on charges of having sex with an inmate.
Todd Daniel Arnold, 22, of Oberlin faces one count of malfeasance in office for allegedly having sex with a female inmate at Pine Prairie Correctional Center, a prison run by Lafayette-based Louisiana Corrections Services. Arnold was booked into the Evangeline Parish Jail on Monday and released on $7,500 bond, according to jail records. LCS General Manager Richard Harbison said prison officials began an internal investigation of Arnold on Thursday, after an inmate made a complaint about the alleged sexual contact. The prison officials met with Evangeline Parish Sheriff's Office investigators Sunday, and Arnold was arrested after giving a statement to investigators when he came to work Monday, Harbison said. Harbison said Arnold was suspended immediately, pending the outcome of the criminal case. Pine Prairie Executive Warden Gary Copes said that Arnold had worked at the prison since February 2002. He did not have prior law enforcement experience but had been through a 90-hour training course for LCS guards, Copes said. Sheriff Wayne Morein did not return calls for comment. LCS runs four correctional facilities in Louisiana -- including one in Pine Prairie, one in Basile and two in north Louisiana -- and two in Texas. The Pine Prairie facility holds about 650 inmates. The woman Arnold is accused of having sex with was a Louisiana Department of Corrections inmate the facility had a contract to hold. The incident comes about two years after the former warden of the Evangeline Parish Jail was convicted on two counts of malfeasance in office for extorting sexual favors from the family members of inmates. Michael J. Savant, 48, was sentenced to six months in jail and three years probation on the charges. Malfeasance in office involving sexual conduct between an inmate and a jail worker carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. (Daily Advertiser)

South Louisiana Correctional Center
Basile, Louisiana
Louisiana Correctional Services
July 27, 2006 AP
About 320 female Alabama prisoners being housed in Louisiana are being moved to another prison in that state but one closer to Alabama. The women inmates had been housed at a private prison at Basile in southwest Louisiana. They are being moved to J.B. Evans Correctional Center in Newellton, La., which is on the Louisiana-Mississippi line about 60 miles west of Jackson. The move brings the inmates about two and a-half hours closer to the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, prisons commissioner Richard Allen said Thursday. It also reduces travel time for corrections officers. The Alabama Department of Corrections has a contract with LCS Correctional Services to house the inmates to help reduce overcrowded conditions at Tutwiler. The J.B. Evans Correctional Center opened in 1994 and is a medium security facility with the capacity of holding 440 inmates. Allen said it will be used exclusively for the Alabama women prisoners. More than 600 male inmates are also housed in private facilities in Louisiana because of overcrowded conditions in Alabama prisons.

January 25, 2006 Birmingham News
When the Alabama Department of Corrections decided to put prisoners in a private out-of-state prison, women went first. The state opened a transition center for people on parole, and it was for women. A close look at these experiments, however, shows that, for the overall prison population to drop by much, the state may need to turn to alternatives such as expanded drug courts and community-based treatment and sentencing reform. A bill endorsed by Gov. Bob Riley takes a step in that direction by stressing changes in Alabama's sentencing structure. In reaction to a federal court settlement that forced the state to cut the population at Tutwiler Prison for Women to 950, the state Parole Board released several hundred low-level offenders and the state began housing pockets of women in other facilities - the Louisiana private prison, the LifeTech parole transition center and county jails. But Alabama now incarcerates 1,920 women, only a 4 percent drop in three years. And instead of steering female drug offenders into community programs - as numerous government task forces have recommended - the state is locking up more women for drug crimes than ever before. "The path that Alabama has taken over the last four years of renting more bed space for women has proven to be the wrong path," said Lisa Kung, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit law firm that has won settlements over conditions at prisons. In Birmingham, only 40 of 100 spaces are filled in "Second Chance" a federally funded program that allows newly released women to live in apartments and work regular jobs while receiving drug treatment, medical and mental health services. Not enough women are being paroled to fill the slots. Kung agreed that LifeTech is a better option than prison. But she wants the state to use the center for incarcerated women, not probationers. Nearly 40 percent of the women at the private prison in Louisiana will be eligible for parole over the next three years, according to DOC records. Many have served terms of 15 years or more for crimes Kung said often involved abusive partners. She's hoping parole officials will consider letting some of these women into LifeTech, and she has been working with lawmakers on gender-specific parole guidelines that might help cut the numbers of low-risk women locked in private prisons. LCS Corrections houses 320 Alabama women at its Louisiana prison, with a price tag climbing toward $10 million since the contract began in 2003. A prison run by the same company is set to open in Perry County and may end up housing Alabama men. Kung's problem with shipping so many women to Louisiana is that they are housed 900 miles from their children and families and have no opportunities to take the classes that the parole board looks to as signs prisoners are trying to improve themselves. "The inmates housed here have too much idle time on their hands and that defeats the purpose of rehabilitation," inmate Sharron Kay Jones, 47, serving 15 years for solicitation to commit murder, wrote in a letter from Louisiana "There is no rehabilitation here at all." Inmate Paula Settle, 34, of Tuscaloosa, serving 15 years for drug trafficking, signed up for anger management, substance abuse, parenting and trade school classes at Tutwiler. But she was immediately transferred to Louisiana. "There are no classes, programs, meetings, jobs or counselors here. No trades, no furthering education, no chaplain or religious assemblies or functions," she said.

August 16, 2005 The Advocate
A private prison company has settled a federal lawsuit filed by the family of an inmate who died in custody after he was allegedly beaten and denied adequate medical care. Gregory Lee, 35, died June 22, 2003, less than a week after he was transferred from LCS South Louisiana Detention Center in Basile to the state-run Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel for medical treatment. LCS Vice-President Dick Harbison confirmed Monday that a settlement had been reached but declined to discuss the terms. Willie Nunnery, the attorney representing Lee' family in the lawsuit, also declined to offer any specifics on the settlement. "It is a strictly, strictly confidential matter," he said. The settlement of the lawsuit against Lafayette-based LCS comes after prosecutors filed charges last year against guards at the company's two south Louisiana facilities. Gilbert Self, 50, a former captain at LCS's Pine Prairie Correctional Center, was indicted by a federal grand jury in May 2004, accused of hitting an inmate and then trying to persuade three fellow corrections officers not to cooperate in an investigation of the incident. Self, who faces one count of violating civil rights and three counts of witness tampering, is set for trial in September. An Evangeline Parish grand jury in June 2004 indicted four guards at the company's Basile facility on charges of malfeasance in office for allegedly having inappropriate sexual contact with inmates. LCS officials have said that all of the guards facing criminal charges at the two facilities were terminated after internal investigations.

April 6, 2005 Montgomery Advertiser
From the day the Department of Corrections began talking about sending some inmates to private, out-of-state prisons, the Advertiser expressed serious reservations about the idea, and for several reasons. Nothing that has happened since has changed our view of the practice. Questions raised by female inmates sent to a privately operated prison in Louisiana have prompted a new concern -- whether incarceration there hurts their chances for parole. The private prison in Basile, La., nearly 500 miles from DOC headquarters in Montgomery, now houses about 270 Alabama inmates. Severe overcrowding at Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka, Alabama's only penitentiary for women, led the department to send some inmates there to bring the Tutwiler population down to a more manageable level. The state's short-term options were limited, so using the private prison as a stopgap measure was understandable. But private prisons have a lot of inherent qualities that should concern Alabamians. They are for-profit enterprises, of course, so there are financial pressures that could lead to potentially dangerous cutting of corners. In many cases, they are little more than warehouses for inmates, with few opportunities for work or training. That could be a detrimental factor in parole considerations. As a group of inmates notes in a call for reform, this prison that sits surrounded by Louisiana rice fields offers no classes, no training programs, no rehabilitation groups or any of the things that inmates can point to when they come up for parole consideration. "Down here, the time is not constructive," said Phyllis Richey, an inmate from Muscle Shoals. "We have nothing to do. We're basically housed. That's it." For inmates who are well behaved and are trying to serve their time responsibly and get out of prison, this is clearly frustrating. Rather than having an incentive to improve themselves in preparation for life outside prison, inmates are stuck in a prison far away from their homes and families in Alabama, simply marking time. That's bad enough. The prospect that their parole consideration is affected only makes matters worse. Private prisons are a bad concept. The sooner Alabama can get its inmates out of them, the better.

April 1, 2005 Birmingham News
Alabama female prisoners locked in a rural Louisiana prison are demanding changes they say could give them a fairer shot at parole and curb the state's reliance on private, forprofit lockups. Women at the South Louisiana Correctional Center, some of whom have been housed 500 miles from their families for two years, wrote a Platform for Fair Reform. The two-page document includes reasons for their concerns and five demands they think would improve their chances for getting parole and leading productive lives. The women have asked for: Objective parole criteria, workrelease opportunities, an end to the parole board's backlog, an end to the ''heinous crime'' designation that prevents some of them from working outside the prison and a chance to face their victims as well as the parole board. The move to the Louisiana prison, 475 miles from Montgomery, makes it difficult or impossible for families to visit, the inmates said. Surrounded by rice fields, the prison has no classes, programs or rehabilitation groups, the opportunities prisoners rely on to show the parole board they have worked to better themselves.

January 21, 2005 The Advocate
The family of an inmate who died in prison held a news conference Thursday to release the details of his death. The family members of Gregory Lee, 35, of Kenner, convicted in 2003 of distribution of cocaine near a church, say he died because he didn't receive proper medical care at the South Louisiana Correctional Center, a private prison in Basile. The family has filed suit in federal court against LCS Corrections Services Inc. and Patrick LeBlanc of Lafayette, Gary Copes, former Lafayette police chief and warden of the facility, and several facility employees. The suit was filed in 2003 and is pending before U.S. District Judge Tucker L. Melançon. Willie Nunnery, the family's attorney, provided the media with a report from an expert his clients have hired. "This case has taken on a new twist," Nunnery said. "It is the intent of his family that the public know what happened to Gregory Lee." According to his death certificate, Lee died June 22, 2003. The medical transfer document from the SLCC indicates he left there June 17, 2003. The autopsy report, prepared by the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office, indicates that Lee died of complications from AIDS. However, a forensic pathologist hired by Lee's family has examined microscope slides -- which the Orleans officials did not do -- and determined that Lee probably died from sepsis, a severe infection. Dr. Robert Huntington III, an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, participated in the news conference via speakerphone. Huntington said sepsis can be the result of infected wounds that aren't treated, and it also can start with pneumonia, bladder infections or heart infections, he said. Nunnery said he also has taken the deposition of two inmates who were being held in Basile at the time Lee was there. Those depositions indicate that the inmates testified Lee was being beaten and sprayed with tear gas. Nunnery said Lee was "hogtied" and beaten, shackled and left in chains for hours. "There can be no justice until the courts deal with the privatization of prisons in this state," Nunnery said. "There should be a massive inquiry into what happened to Gregory Lee. This individual was beaten, and the system sought to hide and cover this up."

October 21, 2004 Montgomery Advertiser
Although it is important to acknowledge that the filing of a lawsuit proves nothing in and of itself, the suit filed by an Alabama inmate housed in an out-of-state private prison raises anew some valid concerns about such facilities. The Advertiser has long had reservations about private prisons and nothing in Alabama's recent experience has alleviated them in the slightest. In April of last year, Alabama began sending female inmates to a private prison in Basile, La., to relieve overcrowding at Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama's only prison for females. Private prisons are, of course, intended to be money-making ventures, and that creates the potential for some serious problems. Even the most fervent believers in free enterprise -- count the Advertiser among them -- surely can see that the profit motive and the function of prisons are ripe for conflict. When a state deprives a citizen of liberty for having violated its laws, it also assumes the custody of that individual. That is a solemn responsibility. When an individual is incarcerated for the protection of society, the state is not absolved of the obligation to carry out that incarceration in a constitutional manner. With a private prison, the pursuit of profit invariably creates the temptation to cut corners, to skimp on safety, personnel, medical attention, nutrition and other facets of the operation. It's simply a bad mix of private-sector motives and public-sector responsibilities. The merits of this particular suit will be determined in court, but the inherent problems with private prisons are something Alabama has to face. They are not an acceptable solution to Alabama's prison problems in the long term, and even their short-term use is questionable.

October 19, 2004 Daily Comet
An Alabama inmate is suing the state Department of Corrections and a private prison company in Louisiana, claiming she was raped after being shipped out of state due to a lack of space. The lawsuit, filed Oct. 1 in Louisiana federal court, claims that guards at the South Louisiana Correctional Center sexually assaulted at least two prisoners, including raping the woman who filed the suit, and that the guards had sex with one another and played cards and drank beer during the night shift. The four guards named in the lawsuit have been fired. Also, an Evangeline Parish grand jury indicted them on charges of malfeasance in office for sexual conduct prohibited for people confined in a correctional institution. All four pleaded not guilty, The Birmingham News reported Tuesday. The lawsuit claims that Alabama prison Commissioner Donal Campbell failed to properly investigate LCS before shipping Alabama women there and failed to implement proper policies and procedures for the oversight of the contract. The inmate who filed the suit claims she got no medical treatment after the assault.

August 15, 2004
Soon after arriving at the South Louisiana Correctional Center near Basile in 2003 inmate Gregory Lee died. Attorney Willie J. Nunnery, who is representing Lee's mother, Mae Thompson Lee, is charging that the private, for-profit prison abused and tortured him. Nunnery is seeking access to prisoners who allegedly witnessed what happened to Lee and a reexamination of the forensic evidence. When the charges where first filed, prison guards said Lee jumped off the top bunk of his cell, hitting his head on the toilet. Nunnery, a civil rights attorney, has a darker theory. He claims that following an altercation after the evening meal, prison guards attempted to punish Lee by beating him. Following the incident, Lee, badly injured from whatever cause, was transferred to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center , a state facility, where he died several days later. Nunnery said he is in possession of photographs taken when Lee arrived at Elayn Hunt. "They were very barbaric pictures," Nunnery said. "If you saw those pictures it would make your stomach turn." The Basile facility and another LCS private prison at Pine Prairie have repeatedly made headlines recently with both female employees and inmates bringing charges of sexual harassment against the company. "I don't understand why there isn't any public outcry to have that place shut down," Nunnery said. (Daily World)

June 11, 2004
Four guards who worked at the Basile Detention Center in Evangeline Parish were indicted Friday for allegedly having sexual contact with female inmates. An Evangeline Parish grand jury indicted the four guards on charges of malfeasance in office for sexual conduct prohibited for persons confined in a correctional institution. Kenneth Stenson Sr., Horace Edwards, Frank Lenoir and Jeffery Collins will be arraigned July 1 and will face up to 10 years in jail and a $10,000 fine. The indictments follow four days of testimony from investigators, prison guards and 22 inmates at the south Louisiana correctional center. (AP)

June 7, 2004
Allegations of sexual contact between security officers and female inmates from Alabama at a private prison in Basile are scheduled to be studied this week by a grand jury. Two prison employees were fired after an internal investigation into the allegations made by female inmates who were being held at the South Louisiana Correctional Center. (AP)

April 7, 2004
A Louisiana district attorney says he will pursue criminal charges against guards at a private prison over sexual contact with inmates from Alabama, The Birmingham News reported. About 200 female prisoners from Alabama are being housed at the South Louisiana Correctional Center, where they were transferred last year to help relieve overcrowding at Tutwiler Prison for Women. The criminal case, involving an incident late last year, is the result of an investigation begun by the Alabama Department of Corrections. "There is definite misconduct that did occur, and we will follow through with it," Evangeline Parish District Attorney Brent Coreil said Tuesday. He said he has not decided whether to file direct charges or present a case to a grand jury. The Basile, La., lockup is owned and operated by LCS Corrections, based in Lafayette, La. Alabama pays the company about $23 per inmate per day to house the women. "ADOC's investigation produced a confession from an employee at South Louisiana Correctional Center, along with subsequent termination of that employee. We then turned our investigative report over to the local district attorney for prosecution," Alabama prisons spokesman Brian Corbett said. (AP)

February 13, 2004
Investigators are looking into allegations of illegal sexual contact between a female prisoner and a guard at the Louisiana private prison housing prisoners from Alabama. This is the second such investigation involving an Alabama inmate and an employee or employees of Southeastern Louisiana Correctional Center, said Richard Harbison, general manager of LCS Corrections Services. The Lafayette, La., company runs the prison housing about 275 Alabama women. "We do have the district attorney involved in it," Harbison said Thursday. "Which means we're taking it very seriously." Harbison said the current investigation stems from an alleged incident that occurred about two months ago, but was reported only recently. He said it was not considered an assault. Under Louisiana and Alabama law, sex between prisoners and guards is illegal. The laws are aimed at keeping guards from using their power to coerce or abuse prisoners. The Alabama Department of Corrections pays LCS about $24 per prisoner to per day. DOC signed the contract with the for-profit company last April because of pressure to relieve crowding at Tutwiler Prison for Women. Tutwiler Warden Gladys Deese and a DOC investigator visited the Basile, La., prison this week to look into the recent claim, Harbison said. Deese's visit was already scheduled and part of her duties as warden, said Steve Hayes, an Alabama prison spokesman. Hayes confirmed that Alabama authorities are investigating reports of an inappropriate incident at the Louisiana prison. LCS has placed three guards on leave during the investigation. Harbison said not all of them are suspects, that some are suspected of observing improper activity and not reporting it. Last year, officials at the Louisiana prison investigated another alleged sexual incident between an Alabama inmate and a prison employee or employees. "The first one we were unable to prove or disprove," Harbison said. LCS had arranged for the inmate who made the first allegation to take a polygraph test. Before the test could be administered, the Alabama DOC transferred to the woman back to Tutwiler, one of a group of 30 inmates who returned last November, Harbison said. (Advocate)

September 25, 2003
The mother of former South Louisiana Correctional Center inmate Gregory Lee has filed a lawsuit alleging that Lee was beaten and tortured before being transferred to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, where he died. The lawsuit was filed Aug. 15 in U.S. District Court in Lafayette against Warden Gary Copes, state Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder and unnamed prison guards. Lee was incarcerated May 6 at the Basile facility to begin serving an eight-year sentence for distribution of drugs, said Willie J. Nunnery, an attorney for Lee's mother, Mae Thompson Lee. Sometime before June 17, "we believe he was severely beaten and brutalized before he left Basile," said Nunnery, of Madison, Wis. Lee was transferred from the Basile prison to Hunt Correctional June 17. He died June 22; his death certificate lists the cause of death as "complications of AIDS." Nunnery disputes that claim and points to an autopsy report by the Iberville Parish Coroner's Office that found some recent hemorrhage adjacent to Lee's three lower right ribs. He also has photographs taken post-autopsy that he said illustrate the torture that Lee endured. The photographs show scrapes on both sides of Lee's back near his shoulder blades, on his face near his eyebrow and on his right elbow and knee. They also show a cut several inches long on his left shoulder and a large bruise on his left side. Nunnery said he and Lee's family believe those injuries, especially to Lee's back, occurred when Lee was beaten or struck with some sort of instrument. If he mutilated himself, like some have alleged, how did he sustain injuries on his back, Nunnery said. Mae Lee said Wednesday that she wants to know who beat her son and she wants the person or people responsible convicted. The mother said she felt she had to file the lawsuit to get to the truth about what happened to her son. "I'm hoping the truth will come out," she said. "The pictures are proof." In a letter from Hunt Warden C. M. Lensing to state Sen. Arthur Lentini, R-Metairie, Lensing said he received information from Evangeline Parish authorities that Lee had tried to escape the morning of June 17. Upon capture, "he mutilated himself and while bleeding from the mouth he began spitting at the guards and medical staff," Lensing wrote. Lee was HIV positive, Lensing wrote. Lee arrived at Hunt in a paper gown and wrapped in a blanket, Lensing wrote. He was fully restrained. Lensing wrote that there were numerous cuts, bruises and scrapes on Lee's body. Once at Hunt, Lee was placed on extreme suicide watch until the following morning, Lensing wrote. Lensing wrote that Lee's "wounds were tended to, he took his medication, his appetite was poor but he did eat and drink." The suicide watch log indicates that Lee was observed sleeping at 2:01 p.m. About 2:15 p.m., Lee was found dead in his cell, Lensing wrote. Lensing also wrote that after an autopsy performed by Dr. William Newman of the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office, Newman theorized that an infection in the heart valve, which can be caused by AIDS, led to an arrhythmia which in turn caused sudden cardiac arrest. Nunnery said he and Lee's family attribute Lee's death to a "major collapse" in the Louisiana prison system, partly attributed to the privatization of some prisons. "I think they knew he was in such bad shape, they got him out of the private prison system," Nunnery said. Nunnery also said that federal officials have decided to get involved in the matter. "I do know it's being taken very seriously," Nunnery said. Attorney Christopher Edwards, who represents Copes and LCS Corrections Services, the company that owns and operates the Basile correctional center, said he has spoken with security officers and other prisoners who said they saw Lee leap from his top bunk and fall head first into his toilet in a suicide attempt. The witnesses allegedly watched Lee awake from a daze, bang his head and throw his body against his cell wall, Edwards said. "I think what happened was a big misunderstanding," Edwards said. When the family received Lee's body, it was covered with self-inflicted cuts and scrapes, Edwards said. The escape attempt referred to occurred when Lee was being loaded into an ambulance for his transfer to Hunt, Edwards said. "He was still mad and angry and trying to run," Edwards said. The attorney said that Lee's transfer was a common procedure for any inmate deemed a danger to himself or to others. He also defended the facility's care of its inmates. "We have policies and procedures written down for the care of prisoners," Edwards said. Stalder was unavailable for comment late Wednesday afternoon. Copes, who served as Lafayette police chief from 1987 to 1994, faced federal criminal charges in 1996 in connection with a prison disturbance at the private Tensas Parish Correctional Center. He was acquitted on a charge of witness tampering, but jurors in the federal trial in Monroe were unable to reach a verdict on one count of conspiracy and six counts of violating civil rights of inmates. Nunnery has scheduled a news conference today in Lafayette to discuss the lawsuit. (Advocate)

September 15, 2003
Lawyer Bruce Rozas, who was handling four sexual harassment cases against LCS Corrections Services Inc., which operates private, for-profit prisons in Basile and Pine Prairie, is now handling seven. "Following the media coverage, I had three more women come to see me today," Rozas said Friday from his office in Mamou. He said the newest complaints date back to 1998, all involving the same two officers named in his earlier Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints on behalf of Maggie Dupre, a nurse at South Louisiana Correctional Center near Basile, and Sandra Whittington, a nurse at Pine Prairie Correctional Center. Dupre was fired this week after coming forward with her complaints. According to Rozas, the new complaints show the same pattern. He said two of his new clients, Carla T. Zeno and Laurie Ardoin, both claim they were also fired after making complaints about unwanted sexual advances by superior officers. "I expect that before this is over, we will have many more complaints," Rozas said. Lafayette-based LCS Corrections Services Inc., which also operates two private prisons in Texas and another in Tensas Parish, referred calls to Sue Fontenot, an Abbeville attorney who represents the company. Fontenot was unavailable for comment. (Daily World)

September 12, 2003
Two employees who filed complaints against the South Louisiana Correctional Center near Basile have lost their jobs. “They fired them,” said Mamou lawyer Bruce Rozas, who represents licensed practical nurse Maggie Dupre. “They said, ‘We don’t have to give you a reason.’ ” The prison Wednesday fired Dupre and Bethani Benjudah, a corrections officer. Benjudah has asked Rozas to represent her. Dupre’s story of alleged continuing sexual harassment and intimidation by prison guards and administrators, along with that of Fonda Autin, a female corrections officer at the private, for-profit prison, was reported Thursday. At that time, Rozas was representing three women charging LCS Corrections Services Inc., which operates the Basile facility, with fostering an atmosphere of intimidation and sexual harassment. “I now have four cases and naming three different officers,” Rozas said. “You have to blame management. One complaint is a campfire — four is a bonfire. The problem is clearly at the top.” Dick Harbison, general manager of LCS, said that now that lawyers are involved, he cannot comment on the case. He referred all calls to Sue Fontenot, an Abbeville attorney who represents the company. Fontenot said she has just received the case, but from what she’s learned “it does not appear Ms. Dupre’s complaint is meritorious.” She said that, to her knowledge, Dupre was reprimanded for “a serious violation of policy.” In the case of Benjudah, Fontenot said “her termination was clearly for good cause. It had absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the claims of Ms. Dupre.” Fontenot declined to go into any specifics. Rozas got involved in the matter last year when Sandra Whittington, a nurse at the Pine Prairie Correctional Center, also owned by LCS, came to him with complaints of sexual harassment. As with the other three women Rozas represents, Benjudah tells a tale of continuing sexual harassment and complaints to administrators that went unanswered. Rozas has filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office in New Orleans. All laws enforced by EEOC, including sexual harassment, require filing a complaint with EEOC before a private lawsuit can be brought. (The Advertiser)

September 11, 2003
Two female employees of the South Louisiana Correctional Center near Basile have come forward, charging the private, for-profit prison with fostering an institutional atmosphere of sexual harassment and intimidation. Acting on the complaints of Maggie Dupre, a licensed practical nurse at the prison, the Evangeline Parish District Attorney's office has issued a warrant against Capt. Ray Rider, a shift captain at the prison, charging him with battery. Dupre said her complaint is the most recent against the prison. "They have other suits like mine," Dupre said. "There was even a rape in the prison. The company won't do anything. Something needs to be done about this prison." Dupre has charged Rider with a pattern of harassment, including sexually explicit language, fondling and exposing himself in her presence. Dupre claims that after the most recent incident, in which she alleges Rider commented on her breasts, pulled open her shirt and poured a bottle of water down her chest, he was only given a three-day suspension and required to watch a sensitivity tape. She had hoped for more. "Other women have had complaints, but this time I had a witness," Dupre said. "He's back now and he's making my life hell. He basically told me he can do whatever he wants," Dupre said. Dupre's story is similar to that of Fonda Autin, a female correctional officer at the prison. She said sexually explicit conversations and touching of female employees is common. Autin filed a complaint with the company about an incident in July when she alleges a male officer harassed her. "I couldn't make him leave. He has rank over me," Autin said. She claims that after more than 40 days she has yet to get a response to her complaint. "I could still feel his hands on me five hours later," Autin said of the July incident in which she claims the officer fondled her. She claims the officer had previously been disciplined for harassing another woman by removing her blouse in front of the prisoners. "He wasn't back two weeks before he did this to me," Autin said. "I feel safer around the prisoners than the guards," Autin said. "At least they know if they step out of line there are consequences." Capt. Caesar, the prison's complaint officer, refused to confirm or deny whether any complaints have been filed with her office. "I cannot talk to you," she said, refusing even to give her first name. Both Dupre and Autin have filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against LCS Corrections Services Inc., a Lafayette-based firm that owns the Basile facility and several others in Texas and Louisiana. "My last resort was legal help. It is clear the company is not going to protect us," Dupre said. Both women have retained Mamou lawyer Bruce Rosa to represent them. "It seems starting with Warden (Gary) Copes on down there is a disregard toward enforcing the sexual harassment laws," Rosa said. Rosa is also representing Sandra Whittington, a nurse at LCS' Pine Prairie Correctional Center. Copes, as executive warden, is over all of LCS' prison facilities. Calls for Copes' office were answered by a male voice that refused to give an indentity. That voice asked the nature of the call and then refused to comment. Copes, a former chief of police in Lafayette, retired from that position under a cloud in 1994 when he was accused of tipping off the owners of a strip club about a pending police sting operation. Copes went to work with LCS and in 1996. Rosa said for now his clients will simply have to wait. All laws enforced by EEOC, including sexual harassment, require filing a complaint with EEOC before a private lawsuit can be filed. EEOC then has 180 days to investigate. If it has not acted within that time frame, it will issue a letter allowing the parties to seek legal action on their own. "They are flooded with complaints and so many are bogus. I believe they intentionally go slow hoping that many of these situations will work themselves out," Rosa said. John Berendsen, a case manager with the New Orleans EEOC office where Rosa filed the complaint, said the agency does not confirm or deny whether cases exist. Dick Harbison, general manager of LCS, referred all calls to Sue Fontenot, an Abbeville attorney who represents the company. Fontenot's secretary said she was out of the office Wednesday and could not be reached. (Daily World)

April 16, 2003
The private Louisiana prison where Alabama sent female inmates Monday was the scene of a riot, escapes and other problems that led Idaho to remove its inmates five yea