American Service Group
Brentwood, Tennessee
PHS
June 3, 2011 Biz Journal
Valitás Health Services Inc. on Friday completed its previously announced acquisition of America Service Group Inc. for $250 million, and the merged, privately held company has changed its name to Corizon. Valitás, the St. Louis-based parent company of Correctional Medical Services Inc., announced in March that it planned to buy Brentwood, Tenn.-based America Service Group, parent of PHS Correctional Healthcare Inc. America Service Group shareholders, who are being paid $26 per share, approved the deal Wednesday. Valitás previously was one of the largest privately held companies based in St. Louis, with $750 million in 2010 revenue. However the newly named Corizon’s operational headquarters will remain in St. Louis, but its corporate headquarters will be in Brentwood, Tenn. America Service Group President and CEO Rich Hallworth is now CEO of Corizon, and Valitás Chairman and CEO Richard Miles is Corizon’s non-executive chairman. Stuart Campbell, formerly president and chief operating officer of Valitás and Correctional Medical, is Corizon’s president and chief operating officer. The combined prison health-care service provider has about 11,000 employees and independent contractors, and serves more than 400 correctional facilities. Corizon's annual revenue is expected to total $1.4 billion for 2011.

March 3, 2011 The Street
America Service Group Inc. (NASDAQ: ASGR), the parent company of PHS Correctional Healthcare, Inc., and Valitás Health Services, Inc., the parent company of Correctional Medical Services, Inc., announced today the signing of an agreement and plan of merger (the “Merger Agreement”) under which the two companies would be combined, bringing together two leading companies in the correctional healthcare field – America Service Group's PHS Correctional Healthcare and Valitás’ Correctional Medical Services. Upon completion of the transaction, the combined company will have approximately 11,000 employees and independent contractors and will serve more than 400 correctional facilities. The combined company’s annual revenues are expected to total approximately $1.4 billion for 2011.

March 2, 2010 Tennessean
America Service Group reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $236,000 compared with net income of $1.2 million a year earlier The recent quarter’s net income would have been $4.3 million excluding after-tax costs related to a shareholder litigation settlement during the quarter. Healthcare revenues from continuing contracts rose 36.7 percent to $160.8 million. For all of 2010, the Brentwood-based prison health care company expects net income of $10.1 million, or $1.08 a share, on revenues of $635 to $645 million.

October 29, 2009 AP
Shares of Psychiatric Solutions Inc. plunged nearly 23 percent on Wednesday, a day after the behavioral hospital operator reported disappointing results for the third quarter and cut its expectations for the rest of 2009. The Franklin-based firm's stock dropped $5.47 to close at $18.67 per share in Nasdaq trading. Psychiatric Solutions said profits haven't lived up to the company's own goals and revenue per patient per day hasn't grown as much as expected. Profits at its management-contract segment did not meet its forecasts either. In a note to clients, Raymond James analyst John Ransom downgraded the stock to "market perform" from "strong buy." He said tight state budgets and uncertainty about future profits probably will pressure Psychiatric Solutions' stock over the next few months. Psychiatric Solution reported third-quarter net income attributable to its stockholders of $28.2 million, or 50 cents per share, on revenue of $455.3 million. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected profits of 56 cents per share on revenue of $462.2 million. The company this year expects to earn $2.11 to $2.14 per share, down from a previous forecast of $2.16 to $2.24 per share. In other health-care related earnings Wednesday: • Community Health Systems Inc. reported third-quarter net income of $59.7 million, up 18.5 percent from $50.4 million a year earlier. Per share results of 65 cents for the recent quarter beat the average forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters by 3 cents. Revenues rose 12 percent to $3.09 billion, better than the $3.02 billion that analysts had forecast. For all of next year, the Franklin-based hospital chain expects profits of $2.80 to $3 per share. • America Service Group in Brentwood lowered its full-year earnings forecast to 65 cents a share from 88 cents, citing the effects of large inmate medical claims in Michigan in the third quarter and unrelated litigation costs. But the prison health-care provider still more than doubled its net income in the third quarter. Net income rose to $716,000 from $348,000 a year ago.

July 15, 2009 PR Inside
A lawsuit on behalf of purchasers of America Service Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASGR) stock between September 24, 2003 to March 16, 2006, alleging America Service violated Federal Securities Laws is pending at the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. On March 31, 2009, Federal Judge William J. Haynes, Jr. granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss. If you purchased America Service Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASGR) before March 2006 and currently still hold your ASGR shares, you have certain options and you should contact the Shareholders Foundation, Inc at email: mail(at)shareholdersfoundation.com or call us at: +1 (858) 779 - 1554. According to the complaint the plaintiff alleges that that America Service Group and its top executive officers engaged in accounting fraud and violated the federal securities laws by misleading investors and failing to disclose between September 24, 2003 to March 16, 2006 that “ (1) America Service was not charging its customers in accordance with their contracts; (2) America Service failed to properly credit customers with discounts, rebates, and price concessions; (3) America Service failed to provide customers with appropriate credits for returned pharmaceutical products; and (4) America Service inappropriately established and utilized reserves to help it more closely meet budgeted results”. The complaint further alleges that after the markets closed, on March 15, 2006, America Service Group announced that as a result of the findings of an internal investigation, it would restate earnings for the years ended December 31, 2001 through December 31, 2004 and for the first six months of 2005 and issue refunds of $3.6 million, plus interest, to customers for instances in which it failed to credit them with discounts, rebates or price savings to which they were entitled. On this news, so the lawsuit, the price of America Service Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASGR) fell $5.65, or almost 29%, to close at $13.95 per share. America Service Group Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee with a $141 market cap, through its subsidiaries Prison Health Services, Inc. , EMSA Limited Partnership, and Correctional Health Services, LLC, contracts to provide and/or administer managed healthcare services to over 120 correctional facilities throughout the United States. America Service Group reported in 2007 Total Revenue of $464million with a Net Income of $2.81million and in 2008 Total Revenue of $497.74million with a Net Income of $3.83million. Shares of America Service Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ASGR) traded recently at $15.84 per share, down from a 52weekhigh of $17.22 per share and almost $30 per share in 2005.

August 17, 2007 Tennessean
America Service Group Inc. said Thursday that its Prison Health Services subsidiary would lose its contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections. The contract expires on Oct. 31. PHS provides medical services to inmates. Brentwood-based America Service Group said it would update its fourth-quarter earnings estimate later. It had projected revenues from a renewed contract of $12.3 million in the three months ending Dec. 31.

April 12, 2007 Business Wire
America Service Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ASGR) announced today that it has executed an asset purchase agreement for the sale of certain assets of its indirect subsidiary, Secure Pharmacy Plus, LLC (SPP), to Maxor National Pharmacy Services Corporation (Maxor). Additionally, as a part of the transaction, Maxor and Prison Health Services, Inc. (PHS), the Company's primary operating subsidiary, have entered into a long-term pharmacy services agreement pursuant to which Maxor will become the provider of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies to PHS. The asset purchase agreement is to be effective April 30, 2007, subject to standard closing conditions. The pharmacy services agreement will commence May 1, 2007, subject to the closing of the asset purchase agreement. America Service Group Inc., based in Brentwood, Tennessee, is a leading provider of correctional healthcare services in the United States. America Service Group Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides a wide range of healthcare and pharmacy programs to government agencies for the medical care of inmates. More information about America Service Group Inc. can be found on the Company's website at www.asgr.com or www.prisonhealthmedia.com.

December 11, 2006 AP
Prison health care and pharmacy service provider America Service Group Inc. lowered its 2006 guidance again on Monday, but said it expects "stronger, more consistent performance from its contract portfolio in 2007." The company now sees adjusted 2006 earnings of $5.3 million, or 50 cents per share, on sales between $640 million and 650 million. In October, the company forecast adjusted earnings in a range of 58 cents to 61 cents per share, on sales between $650 million to $655 million. In August, America Service said it saw profit of 72 cents to 75 cents per share on revenue between $650 million and $660 million for the year. The company said its lower 2006 outlook is due mainly to the Florida Department of Corrections' decision to "reject all bids to provide comprehensive health care services in its Region IV," and to expected cost increases, including professional liability expenses. Looking toward 2007, the company sees adjusted earnings of $8.2 million, or 86 cents per share, on sales in the range of $570 million to $580 million. Shares fell 91 cents, or 5.8 percent, to $14.69 in after-hours trading. The stock had closed unchanged at $15.60 on the Nasdaq.

November 14, 2006 Burlington Free Press
Vermont prisons are looking for a new medical services provider for the second time in three years following a decision by Prison Health Services Inc. to opt out of its contract with the state. Robert Hofmann, state Corrections Department commissioner, said Monday the Tennessee-based Prison Health Services notified him Oct. 30 that it would stop providing care to the state's 1,700 in-state inmates at the end of January. "Obviously, we're disappointed and a little bit surprised," Hofmann said of the company's decision. "There were some bumps in the road at the start of their contract but, really, over the past 12 months, they had been doing a very good job." The company's top three officials in Vermont resigned their posts just 10 months after it began operations in Vermont and the firm, along with the state, was sued last month by the family of an inmate who died from heroin withdrawal symptoms in 2005. Prison Health Services won the three-year, $26 million contract to provide health care to inmates at the state's nine prisons in early 2005. The previous contractor, Correctional Medical Services Inc., had come under fire for $700,000 in billing mistakes, including $144,547 for services that company employees never provided. Susan Morgenstern, a spokeswoman for Prison Health Services, said Monday that the company decided to opt out of the contract at the end of the second year because it was losing too much money. "The cost of providing health care to inmates has risen beyond the contract's ability to cover that cost," Morgenstern said in a statement released by the company. "Prison Health Services will never compromise the quality of our patient care because of financial reasons." According to a company Web site, Prison Health Services lost $1 million on its Vermont contract in the third quarter of 2006 alone, a figure that Hofmann disputed. Morgenstern said the staffing costs were an issue for the company in Vermont.

August 9, 2006 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager's campaign took her opponent, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, to task for taking donations from those pursuing Dane County business. Lautenschlager's aides said that was inconsistent with Falk's statements that as attorney general she would not take money from people subject to enforcement actions by the state Department of Justice. Lautenschlager's campaign blasted Falk for accepting a $10,000 donation June 27 from the political action committee of Unite Here, a laundry workers union. The donation came six days after Dane County started an audit of non-union laundry contractor Superior Health Linens - a company that Unite Here has long criticized for its labor practices. Lautenschlager's campaign also criticized Falk for: • Accepting $1,500 from America Service Group Inc.'s political action committee in 2004 because its subsidiary Prison Health Services has a contract with the county. • Taking $2,500 from Government Payment Service CEO Dale Conrad last year because his firm has a county contract allowing people to pay bail with credit cards. • Receiving money from developers and others who sat on a committee that Falk convened to advise her on a land-use plan.

August 2, 2006 Nashville Business Journal
America Service Group Inc. saw its earnings for the second quarter plummet 81 percent compared to results for the same period last year. The provider of prison health care and pharmacy services showed a profit of $514,000, or 5 cents per diluted share, in the quarter ended June 30 compared to $2.8 million, or 26 cents per diluted share last year. Though earnings were down, the second quarter saw the company return to an operating profit - something that hasn't occurred since the second quarter last year. Nevertheless, the company's stock dropped nearly 19 percent, trading at $11.66 at 10:20 a.m. The 52-week range of the stock is $11.32 to $23.20. Brentwood-based America Service (NASDAQ: ASGR) lowered its guidance and now expects revenues to fall between $650 million and $660 million and earnings to range between $7.7 million to 8 million. The company cited an underperforming Florida Department of Corrections contract as the cause of the reduction. The company's previous guidance called for revenues between $660 million and $680 million and earnings between $9.4 million and $10 million. Second-quarter revenues were on the upswing, coming in at $160 million compared to $139 million in the second quarter a year ago. Expenses increased to $150 million in the quarter compared to $128 million in the second quarter last year. The company also recorded $1.0 million in charges associated with an audit committee investigation of its Secure Pharmacy Plus subsidiary. On March 15, the company said an investigation into financial improprieties at its Secure Pharmacy Plus unit found that the company failed to properly credit customers with discounts, rebates and savings and failed to give customers proper credit for returned pharmaceuticals. Expenses related to the audit amounted to $4.6 million through the first half of this year and the company expects it will spend another $400,000 to $900,000. The company continued its stock repurchase program approved in July of last year to repurchase and retire 217,000 shares at a value of $3.0 million. The repurchase was suspended during part of the second quarter when the company received a third-party proposal to acquire pharmacy services subsidiary Secure Pharmacy Plus. Ultimately, a deal wasn't reached.

June 22, 2006 Tennessean
America Service Group Inc. says it has received notice that its stock won't be dropped from the Nasdaq National Market. Last month, after two directors quit, the Brentwood-based prison health company said it had received notice that it was no longer in compliance with Nasdaq rules requiring a majority of independent directors. On June 14, ASG added four independent directors. On Wednesday, it said Nasdaq had determined the company is now in compliance with rules governing board membership and corporate oversight.

June 14, 2006 Tennessean
Brentwood’s America Service Group Inc., the prison health company whose stock was in danger of being dropped by the Nasdaq National Market, named four new independent members to its board today. The move should bring the company back into compliance with Nasdaq’s rules requiring a certain number of outside directors and allow the stock to continue to be listed, company officials said this afternoon. Two outside directors bolted from America Service Group’s board earlier this year after they unsuccessfully tried to oust CEO Michael Catalano. New board members are: • John C. McCauley, assistant vice chancellor of risk and insurance management at Vanderbilt University. • William E. Hale, formerly president and chief executive of Beech Street Corp., a preferred provider organization. • John W. Gildea, managing director of Gildea Management Co., and a former board member of America Service Group from 1986-1999. • William M. Fenimore, managing partner of BridgeLink LLC, Swiss-based capital advisors.

May 30, 2006 Tennessean
America Service Group Inc., the beleaguered prison health-care company, expects to beat a June 14 deadline to fill at least one vacancy on its board of directors so its stock won't be dropped from the Nasdaq National Market. Under Nasdaq rules, the departure this month of two board members who quit after trying to oust CEO Michael Catalano meant the company no longer complied with a requirement that a majority of its directors be independent. A third independent director left in December. Only two of its four remaining directors have no other ties to the company. ASG has until its next annual meeting, scheduled for June 14, to address the vacancies on its board. Catalano said the company would fill at least two of the three vacant seats by that deadline. "We're confident we'll come back into compliance," he said. But this month's departure of two board members and Nasdaq's threat to drop or delist the Brentwood-based company's stock as a result aren't its only problems. It has come under fire in several states over the quality of medical care it provides to inmates. The Washington Post in an editorial recently called on officials to keep a closer eye on the company's Prison Health Services subsidiary after the Associated Press reported that some inmates in Virginia had said medical care there was so shoddy that they feared for their lives. Last spring, a report by the Metro Health Department blamed the death of a diabetic inmate at Metro Jail on myriad failures by the jail's nurses, who were employed by PHS. Catalano wouldn't comment on the specific allegations against the company but said competitors get similar complaints about the quality of care they provide.

May 19, 2006 Nashville Business Journal
America Service Group Inc. announced today it received an expected notice on May 17 from NASDAQ Listing Qualifications indicating it no longer complies stock exchange's independent director and audit committee requirements. The company received the notification due to the resignation of Michael E. Gallagher and Carol R. Goldberg on May 6 and May 8 from the company's board of directors. NASDAQ rules requires that a majority of board members be comprised of independent directors and that the company's audit committee be comprised of at least three members, each of whom are independent. Gallagher and Goldberg were members of the company's audit committee. The addition of one qualified independent director to serve on the audit committee will allow the company to regain compliance. The company is actively conducting a search for at least two independent directors to serve on its board of directors and audit committee, according to a release announcing the NASDAQ notice. Gallagher is the director of Edgar Group LLC, a health care consulting firm and was a partner in Shamrock Investments LLC, a health care advisory firm. Goldberg is president of AVCAR Group Ltd., a management consulting firm. Brentwood-based America Service (NASDAQ: ASGR - News) provides prison health services through its subsidiaries Prison Health Services and Secure Pharmacy Plus.

May 11, 2006 Tennessean
America Service Group Inc. says two members of its board quit after saying they'd lost confidence in the company's chief executive officer. Michael Gallagher, who led the board's audit committee, which recently looked into mismanagement at the company's prison pharmacy unit, submitted his resignation on Friday. Carol Goldberg, who led the board's compensation com- mittee, resigned on Monday. Brentwood-based ASG, which is being sued by shareholders in federal court over the problems at its Secure Pharmacy Plus subsidiary, disclosed the resignations in a regulatory filing after the markets closed Tuesday. According to the filing, the company's remaining board members met Tuesday and "confirmed their view that the company's chief executive officer should continue to serve in that capacity." CEO Michael Catalano, who chairs the board, "abstained from consideration of this matter," the company said in its filing. On Wednesday, Catalano said in a statement that the company wouldn't allow itself to become distracted by the developments. "While the public filings from America Service Group Inc. speak to the issues of two directors' resignations, I think it is important to know that our focus remains unchanged," Catalano said. "The dedicated health-care professionals representing our company are committed to the mission of providing quality medical care to the patients we serve in jails and prisons nationwide." Gallagher and Goldberg, who couldn't be reached yesterday, told a meeting of the board's governance committee they believed "the company would be better served by replacing its chief executive." Gallagher apparently resigned soon after the meeting. Goldberg e-mailed her resignation letter to the company on Monday. She said simply, "I hereby tender my resignation as a director of America Service Group Inc., effective today. I wish the company the best in its future endeavors." In his letter, Gallagher wrote that because "my fellow independent board members are unwilling to make a change … I have no other alternative but to hold true to the courage of my convictions and resign. "It is my business judgment that while there are many good people in the executive ranks of the company there nonetheless needs to be a change at the top," Gallagher said. "Such change is urgently needed in order to maximize the probability of successfully meeting the company's challenges and to ensure the full implementation of the recommendations resulting from the recent investigation (into Secure Pharmacy Plus)," he said. In March, the company said the audit committee recommended strengthening the company's internal controls and compliance functions after finding that problems at Secure Pharmacy Plus caused the company as a whole to post inflated earnings over a four-and-a-half-year period. ASG, which provides health services at jails and prisons nationwide, said that problems with the subsidiary had caused the company as a whole to overstate profits by $2.1 million for 2001 through the second quarter of 2005. It also agreed to refund $3.6 million to clients who were overcharged for prescription drugs. It found that some clients weren't properly credited with discounts or rebates on drug purchases and others weren't properly credited for prescription drugs that were returned. The resignation of two board members was "just one of those unfortunate things following a hard year," said Anton Hie, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. in Nashville. In a research note to clients, he maintained his "hold" rating on the stock. ASG said in its quarterly earnings filing on Wednesday that it had 104 health-care and pharmacy contracts as of April 1, five fewer than it had a year earlier. It posted a net loss of about $1.1 million in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $3.9 million in the first quarter of 2005. Still, shares of the company were up Wednesday, climbing 44 cents, or 3.4 percent, in moderate trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market to close at $13.42 a share, well below its 52-week high of $23.81.

May 3, 2006 Nashville Business Journal
Prison health services provider America Service Group Inc.'s troubles with its Secure Pharmacy Plus business helped push the company into a first-quarter loss. The company posted a loss of $1.4 million in the quarter ended March 31 compared to a profit of $3.9 million in the first quarter a year ago. Revenue from health care services were up nearly 26 percent to $167 million, but expenses to provide those services rose nearly 30 percent. Further denting the first-quarter numbers was a $3.6 million charge associated with an audit committee investigation into financial improprieties at Secure Pharmacy Plus. Brentwood-based America Service (NASDAQ: ASGR) expects to record another $200,000 to $700,000 in expenses related to the audit this year. That audit found that the company failed to properly credit customers with discounts, rebates and savings and failed to give customers proper credit for returned pharmaceuticals. The investigation also found that SPP inappropriately created reserves over the past five years to ensure the company's reported earnings matched budgeted results. The company restated its earnings going back to 2001. Excluding that charge, income from operations prior to income tax, interest and discontinued operations, would have been $2.4 million. Income from operations in the first quarter a year ago amounted to $6.2 million. The company also saw a $1.6 million increase in selling, general and administrative expenses, with $1 million of that coming from share-based compensation expense. The company has affirmed its guidance for 2006 and expects total revenue to be in the range of $660 million to $680 million. Earnings per diluted share are expected to be in the range of 90 cents to 96 cents. The revised 2005 number was 39 cents.

April 11, 2006 Nashville City Paper
A Brentwood prison health company’s announcement that it will restate earnings because of internal problems in its pharmacy subsidiary has spawned a shareholders’ lawsuit by a union pension fund. The Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 51 Pension Fund filed the suit last week in U.S. District Court in Nashville against America Service Group, which provides health care services to prisons. The complaint stems from the company’s March 15 disclosure of an internal investigation that uncovered several problems with its Secure Pharmacy Plus (SPP) subsidiary, which contracts with governments to distribute medications to inmates. The announcement “shocked the market,” the suit states. The company’s stock price fell nearly 29 percent, or $5.65 per share, to close at $13.95. The pension fund claims that America Service Group, through its public statements and filings, knowingly misled shareholders about the company’s financial health, which artificially inflated ASG’s common stock. The pension fund’s law firms — Barrett, Johnston & Parsley of Nashville and Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins of New York — are seeking class-action status on behalf of shareholders of common stock between Sept. 24, 2003, and March 16, 2006. The suit asks for unspecified damages.

April 7, 2006 Tennessean
The law firm of Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP said yesterday that a potential class-action lawsuit has been filed in federal court here on behalf of investors who bought stock in America Service Group Inc. between Sept. 24, 2003, and March 16, 2006. Attorneys said the suit stems from the Brentwood-based prison health services company's internal investigation into the business practices of its Secure Pharmacy Plus subsidiary. Last month, ASG said an investigation into the unit had caused the company as a whole to overstate profits by $2.1 million for 2001 through the second quarter of 2005. ASG also said it would refund $3.6 million to clients who were overcharged for prescription drugs. It found that some clients weren't properly credited with discounts or rebates on drug purchases and others weren't properly credited for prescription drugs that were returned.

March 29, 2006 Tennessean
Brentwood-based America Service Group Inc. has named Richard Hallworth as chief operating officer. He will also serve as president and chief executive officer of the company's wholly owned subsidiary, Prison Health Services Inc. Hallworth previously held several executive positions with Tufts Health Plan, a managed care company. He began his career as a certified public accountant, first with Coopers & Lybrand and then as a partner with Ernst & Young LLP. He will replace former executive vice president Trey Hartman as president of Prison Health Services, which provides medical care to jail and prison inmates. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, America Service Group said Hartman was fired for cause in December in connection with an internal probe into whether the company’s Secure Pharmacy Plus subsidiary had overcharged for drugs and failed to follow proper accounting procedures. Hartman was a former head of the pharmacy unit.

March 16, 2006 Nashville Business Journal
Prison health care services company America Service Group Inc. has released the findings of an internal investigation into financial improprieties at its Secure Pharmacy Plus subsidiary. The results: restated earnings going back to 2001, a stock price plunge and a $3.7 million bill for the investigation. Last October, the company announced that the audit committee of its board of directors would conduct an investigation of SPP over pharmaceutical pricing and accounting practices. Independent forensic accountants conducted the investigation and found that SPP failed to properly credit customers with discounts, rebates and savings and failed to give customers proper credit for returned pharmaceuticals. Brentwood-based America Service (NASDAQ: ASGRE) plans to refund $3.6 million, plus interest, to customers as a result. Management of SPP also inappropriately created reserves over the past five years to ensure the company's reported earnings matched budgeted results. Auditors determined the company's pre-tax income was $355,000 higher than previously reported. Auditors also found that SPP charged some of its customers less than it should have to the tune of $5.9 million. The company will try to collect that money, but is uncertain of how much success it will have doing so. The news slammed America Service shares. At 12:40 p.m., they were trading at $13.90, down more than 29 percent their closing price Wednesday. The 52-week range of the stock is $12 to $26.10. On Dec. 7, the company fired Grant Bryson, president and CEO of SPP, in connection with the investigation. Two days later, it sent packing Trey Hartman, president and chief operating officer of Prison Health Services Inc., a move also connected with the investigation. Hartman was with SPP when America Service bought the company in 2000. Kendall Lynch is now CEO of SPP. In a statement announcing the results of the investigation, America Service said both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee are conducting informal inquiries. The company says it will continue to cooperate with both. As it wrapped up its own investigation, the company had delayed reporting its third-quarter results. Those financials were released after the market closed March 15 along with fourth-quarter and full-year numbers and restated earnings going back to 2001. Fourth-quarter results show America Service with a loss of $1.2 million compared to restated earnings of $4.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2004. Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 came to $149 million compared to $130 million the year before. The fourth-quarter loss includes $3.3 million in expenses related to the investigation. During the third quarter ended Sept. 30, the company also posted a loss of $1.2 million compared to restated earnings of $81,000 last year. Revenue for the quarter came to $140 million compared to $135 million last year. Third-quarter results include $370,000 in expenses related to the investigation. Other restated earnings: The company's earnings for the first two quarters of 2005 were $6.7 million instead of the $7.1 million that was reported. Revenues for the two-quarter period were $273 million instead of $315 million. In 2004, the company had a profit of $9.9 million instead of the $9 million that was reported. Revenues for the year were $517 million instead of $665 million. Earnings in 2003 were $11.3 million instead of the previously reported $11.9 million. Revenues for the year were $380 million instead of $517 million. In 2002, the company's profit was $11.3 million instead of $11.9 million. Revenue for the year was $293 million instead of $410 million. The company's loss in 2001 was $46.5 million rather than the reported $45 million. Revenue for the year was $299 million instead of $397 million.

January 16, 2006 Tennessean
Prison health care services provider America Service Group Inc. will continue to be listed on NASDAQ. The company had received notice from the stock exchange in November that it was subject to delisting because it had failed to make timely financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company delayed its third quarter financial reports pending the conclusion of an internal investigation by its audit committee of a subsidiary, Secure Pharmacy Plus. On Jan. 10, the company received a letter from NASDAQ that it would continue to be listed on the exchange provided it files its quarterly report for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 by March 15, according to a statement released by the company. The company also must provide the final report of the internal investigation by Feb. 28. The investigation was to "determine whether SPP provided pricing of pharmaceuticals in accordance with" client contracts and whether accruals and reserves maintained by the company were in line with accounting principles, according to a Oct. 24 statement by the company. America Service Group fired Grant Bryson, president and CEO of Secure Pharmacy, on Dec. 7 in connection with the internal investigation. On Dec. 9, the company also fired Trey Hartman, president and chief operating officer of Prison Health Services Inc. His termination also was based on the ongoing internal investigation. Hartman formerly served as the head of Secure Pharmacy. The trading symbol for the company currently is "ASGRE." The "E" will be removed from the trading symbol when the company has fully complied with NASDAQ filing requirements.

December 13, 2005 Tennessean
Brentwood-based America Service Group Inc. said today that it has fired two people in connection with an ongoing investigation into the billing practices of its prison pharmacy subsidiary. The company fired Trey Hartman, its executive vice president, on Dec. 9 and Grant Bryson, head of Secure Pharmacy Plus, on Dec. 7. Hartman also was president and chief operating officer of Prison Health Services, which provides medical services to jail and prison inmates. He previously ran America Service Group's pharmacy unit. The company said Hartman and Bryson were terminated for cause. Bryson had been on paid leave. He wasn't an executive officer of the company. America Service Group also said that Richard M. Mastaler would resign from the company's board of directors on Dec. 30 to pursue other interests. The company said his resignation is unrelated to its internal investigation of the pharmacy unit. The company announced in October that it was looking into whether its pharmacy operation overcharged for drugs and failed to follow proper accounting procedures. It said its audit committee had hired outside counsel who, in turn, had brought in a team of independent auditors to review the books of Secure Pharmacy Plus. Secure Pharmacy's former controller, who recently resigned, had identified the issues that are under investigation, the company said.

November 17, 2005 Tennessean
NASDAQ notified the company on Nov. 11 that its stock may be delisted because of a delay in filing its third-quarter report. ASG announced late Monday that it had received the notice. It informed the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The Brentwood-based jail and prison health-care company said on Nov. 9 that it would be late in filing its quarterly financial report because of a previously announced internal investigation into a pharmacy subsidiary. On Tuesday, the company's stock symbol changed from "ASGR" to "ASGRE." Shares in the company were at $16.27, down 83 cents, or 4.85%, in early trading today. If the company is dropped from the stock exchange, its shares would be traded over the counter. Some institutional investors have policies against owning shares in companies that aren't traded on one of the major exchanges, analyst Anton Hie said. If these investors are forced to sell a large amount of stock, the price would probably fall sharply, said Hie, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. in Nashville.

October 25, 2005 Tennessean
Shares in America Service Group Inc. plunged 28% yesterday on news that the company is looking into whether its pharmacy unit overcharged for drugs and failed to follow proper accounting procedures. The Brentwood-based prison health-care company said its audit committee had hired outside counsel who, in turn, had brought in a team of independent auditors to review the books of Secure Pharmacy Plus. Secure Pharmacy's former controller, who recently resigned, had identified the issues that are under investigation, the company said. The unit's president, Grant Bryson, has been placed on paid leave. America Service Group didn't name the former controller, and there was no controller listed on the unit's Web site yesterday, but an earlier version of the site, saved on www.google.com, identified him as Randy Beaman. Beaman would not comment on issues under investigation. Because of the probe, America Service Group has withdrawn its earlier financial guidance and warned that it will delay filing its quarterly earnings report.

October 24, 2005 Tennessean
America Service Group Inc.'s stock tumbled in early trading today on the disclosure that its audit committee is investigating the company's pharmacy subsidiary. The Brentwood-based prison health company said in a news release this morning that the inquiry is being conducted to determine whether Secure Pharmacy Plus is providing pricing of prescription drugs in accordance with the terms of its contracts. America Service Group also is looking into whether some of the unit's financial accounts were established and utilized in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. By mid-morning, the company's stock was trading at $13.31 a share, down $4.85, or nearly 27%, from Friday's closing price of $18.16 on the NASDAQ Stock Market. Jeffries & Company analysts Anton Hie downgraded the stock to "hold" from "buy" and lowered his target price to $20 from $22.50. The internal investigation is only the latest setback for America Service Group. Since its stock closed at $30 a share in February, the price has dropped on a string of bad news beginning with a series in The New York Times that month that claimed the company's care was "flawed and sometimes lethal." It also has lost several large contracts since the first of the year, including one to treat inmates at Nashville's Metro Jail. The company's nurses were blamed in the death of a diabetic inmate there last winter.

October 24, 2005 Yahoo
America Service Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ASGR - News) announced today that the Audit Committee of its Board of Directors is conducting an internal investigation into certain matters related to its subsidiary, Secure Pharmacy Plus ("SPP"). The Company said the investigation primarily is being conducted to determine whether SPP provided pricing of pharmaceuticals in accordance with applicable client contract terms and whether some of the accruals and reserves maintained by SPP were established and utilized in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. "We take allegations of impropriety very seriously, and we are conducting a thorough investigative process to determine if the issues described in this press release, as well as any other issues which may be identified as a result of the investigation, will impact the Company's previously reported financial results," said Michael Gallagher, a member of the Company's Board of Directors and Chairman of its Audit Committee. "We will report on our findings as soon as the investigation is complete." Secure Pharmacy Plus provides pharmacy services to the Company, in facilities where the Company provides correctional medical services, as well as to third party clients who provide their own correctional medical services. The Audit Committee's inquiry into whether SPP charged its clients in accordance with applicable contract terms includes reviewing whether discounts received from wholesalers, rebates received from manufacturers or wholesalers, certain temporary price reductions from alternate vendors and distributions received from a group purchasing organization of which SPP is a member should have been credited, under the terms of the contracts, to such clients. The Audit Committee also is examining whether returns of unused pharmaceuticals were appropriately credited to clients.

September 25, 2005 Tennessean
America Service Group Inc., whose business is built around providing care for sick or injured inmates, is having a rough year. Or, it's doing OK. It depends on your point of view. Since its stock closed at $30 a share in February, the price has fallen about 45% on a run of bad news — beginning with a series in The New York Times that month that claimed the company's care was "flawed and sometimes lethal." Based in Brentwood, the company has lost at least six contracts since the first of the year, including one to treat inmates at Nashville's Metro Jail. The company's nurses were blamed in the death of a diabetic inmate there last winter. Recently, it warned Wall Street of lower profits. Originally, the company expected to earn $1.45 to $1.52 a share on the year, but last month, on a Friday night, it disclosed the loss of yet another contract and lowered its earnings estimate by 2 cents. Its stock fell an additional 8% the following Monday. Only about a third of the country's correctional health services are provided by for-profit companies, said Michael Catalano, America Service Group's chairman, president and chief executive. But every year, more agencies privatize their medical services in hopes of reducing costs and improving the quality of care. It's not clear whether privatization improves the quality of correctional care; but since the 1970s, a growing number of public officials have decided that "it's much easier to turn it over to a health consortium, and they can handle the whole nine yards," said Ken Kerle, managing editor of American Jail, the magazine of the American Jail Association. America Service Group has 21% of the outsourced correctional health market, behind Correctional Medical Services, which has an estimated 22%, Catalano said. CMS, a privately held company based in St. Louis, underbid America Service Group by about 10% in Maryland, about 14% in Idaho and about 21% in Indiana. Catalano said he doesn't understand why CMS believes it can provide adequate care for less money. "We're there providing services," he said. "We know what it costs." Catalano said, "The most significant rebids we haven't won this year have been based upon price." But this month in South Carolina, the Richland County Council voted unanimously to fire Prison Health Services after the deaths of three mentally ill inmates. One council member told The State newspaper of Columbia the treatment of the prisoners was "unacceptable and inhumane." Richland County officials didn't return calls to The Tennessean. And locally, the company's contract with Metro Jail will be allowed to expire Sept. 30. In March, a city government report blamed the Jan. 19 death of a diabetic inmate on a "failure to adhere to established practices on the part of individual employees of Prison Health Services." Claims of poor medical care are common throughout the correctional health industry. Correct Care Solutions, the Nashville company replacing Prison Health Servicesat Metro Jail, was criticized by the family of a Virginia woman who died in July in a Norfolk jail. Relatives said she complained that her pneumonia wasn't being treated. Officials said the company wasn't to blame. A month earlier, the American Civil Liberties Union sued CMS, alleging that inmates of a Mississippi prison were misdiagnosed and received poor care.

July 3, 2005 The Tennessean
America Service Group couldn't seem to catch a break in the second quarter. Its stock fell 28.4% in the three months ended June 30, shoved lower by troubles that unnerved many investors and left the health-services company lying near the bottom of the Bloomberg Tennessee Index.  Of 73 businesses on the list, onlyonefell harder in the period.  "ASGR has had a tough 2005 so far," analyst Anton Hie said, referring to the Brentwood-based company by its stock symbol.  Its stock took a hit in the first quarter after The New York Times ran several stories questioningthe quality of care provided by its Prison Health Services subsidiary, which cares for inmates.  But investors really started to worry in the most recent three months, as the company announced the loss of lucrative contracts with the Maryland, Idaho and Indiana prison systems.  He said ASGR's greatest challenge, at least in the short term, could be aggressive bidding by one of its competitors, Correctional Medical Services.  CMS, based in St. Louis, is privately held, meaning it doesn't have the legal and auditing costs associated with filing quarterly earnings reports, Hie said.  Patrick Swindle, an analyst with Avondale Partners in Nashville, said CMS also doesn't have to please investors by posting ever-increasing quarterly earnings.  "What a private company can do," Swindle said, "is take lower margins in the short term, hoping to improve those margins in time."  CMS underbid ASGR in Maryland and Idaho and is likely to replace the company in Indiana, as well, Swindle said.  One issue that has affected the company's stock but shouldn't affect its ability to win business in the future is negative news about the company.   In a front-page story in February, The Times reported that a yearlong investigation into the company's operations had found numerous examples "of medical care that has been flawed and sometimes lethal."  "The company's performance around the nation has provoked criticism from judges and sheriffs, lawsuits from inmates' families and whistle-blowers and condemnations by federal, state and local authorities," the newspaper said.  Locally, the Metro Health Department concluded recently that the death of a diabetic inmate at the Metro Jail in January could have been prevented if nurses working for Prison Health Services had followed procedures. The report said nurses failed to properly document the patient's medical problems when he was booked, lost track of his medical history and ignored repeated requests for help.

Board of Probation and Parole
STOP
February 1, 2005 Tennessean
A state contract for satellite tracking of 600 sex and violent offenders will go up for bid a second time after a protest by a company chaired by the former chief executive officer of Corrections Corporation of America. Satellite Tracking of People LLC's challenge of plans for an award to rival Sentinel Offender Services has delayed start of the pilot project. ''We were anticipating it being up and running,'' said John W. Carney Jr., district attorney general for Montgomery and Robertson counties. Nashville-based STOP was among four bidders under the first request for proposals. STOP's chairman is Doctor Crants, co-founder of prison operator CCA. After the state's Board of Probation and Parole decided Sentinel had the best program, STOP protested. STOP, meanwhile, also sued another bidder, Pro Tech Monitoring of Odessa, Fla., last week. STOP's suit seeks to block Pro Tech from offering a rival product that STOP claims violates its patent. The patent in question was inherited through STOP's purchase earlier this year of a business called VeriTracks from defense contractor General Dynamics.

Brentwood Patrol
Forest Hills, Tennessee
September 3, 2003
The president of a private security firm at the center of a federal civil-rights lawsuit contends that he has ''nothing to hide'' as lawyers and state regulators begin combing through the firm's hiring practices and patrol activities.  A security guard for Brentwood Patrol was arrested last year after he was charged with rape and kidnapping. Metro police say that in August 2002, Loren Janosky flashed his green lights at a motorist, pulled her over, and after purportedly arresting her on DUI charges, took her to a Forest Hills swim club where he raped her. His jury trial is scheduled for November.  One past employee listed in the suit, Joseph Lee Bernell Bryant, had worked for Brentwood Patrol in 1993-94. After that, he worked for another security company. While employed at Integrity Security, he was charged with raping a colleague and was later convicted. Before his employment at Brentwood Patrol, court records show, he had amassed a lengthy criminal record in the 1980s.  (Tennessean.com)

Chad Youth Enhancement Center
Clarksville, Tennessee
Universal Health Services (formerly run by Keystone Education and Youth Services)
October 12, 2007 The Tennessean
A troubled Philadelphia, Pa., teen who was sent to a Tennessee youth center for treatment died of strangulation after a confrontation with staff members, a coroner found. The death of Omega Leach, 17, was ruled a homicide, according to the autopsy report by state medical examiner Bruce Levy. He found that Leach had multiple hemorrhages of his neck muscles after a struggle with two staff members at the Chad Youth Enhancement Center in Clarksville, Tenn. A grand jury in Montgomery County will have to decide if charges are warranted, said Ted Denny, a spokesman for the county sheriff's office. The Philadelphia Department of Human Services has sent scores of emotionally troubled youngsters to Chad since 2001, saying no Pennsylvania facility would take them. Leach's death on June 3 prompted city officials to begin removing children from Chad, but eight still remain there, a city official told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday. The autopsy found other scrapes and bruises on Leach's body, but also noted that the teen's enlarged heart contributed to his death. Tennessee child-welfare officials have already cited Chad in the Leach case, saying staff members needlessly provoked him.

August 6, 2007 AP
A Pennsylvania family court judge has begun removing troubled Philadelphia children from a controversial treatment center in Montgomery County, Tenn., where a 17-year-old resident died after a confrontation with staff. The children were sent to the Chad Youth Enhancement Center in Montgomery County by Philadelphia's Department of Human Services, even though an agency official who visited the facility in 2005 concluded that "residents were being harshly and improperly restrained." Chad leaders rebuked -- The family court's top judge, Kevin Dougherty, ordered six Philadelphia children discharged from Chad on Friday, and more hearings are planned. Dougherty said he harshly rebuked Chad leaders in court. "I told them I was not sending another kid down there," he told The Philadelphia Inquirer for Sunday's editions. "They were too aggressive." Philadelphia has sent scores of emotionally troubled youngsters to the center since 2001, saying it has been forced to do so because no Pennsylvania facility would take them. It has paid Chad $6 million in the past three years. A 14-year-old Long Island, N.Y., girl died of heart failure at Chad in 2005 after a confrontation with staff. Then in June, Omega Leach of Philadelphia died after Chad staff physically restrained him, pushing him face-down to the floor and apparently cutting off his air, investigators said. On the day Leach died, Philadelphia had 44 children and teens in Chad, all under city oversight. The Philadelphians — some from abusive homes, others with arrest records — made up the biggest share of 85 residents who slept, attended school and got therapy at Chad. Arthur C. Evans Jr., the acting human services commissioner, said his agency's oversight of Chad was unacceptable. The department has come under harsh criticism and has seen an administrative shake-up after Inquirer reports detailing the number of children who have died under its watch. Center defends its staff -- Chad spokesman Nick Ragone said in a statement Friday that staff put youngsters in physical holds only as a last resort to protect them or others. Moreover, he said, Chad worked zealously to train its staff and responded quickly to issues raised by Tennessee regulators.

August 5, 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer
In March 2005, a man called the Philadelphia child-abuse hotline with a warning: His coworkers were using "improper and illegal" force against city youngsters sent to the Chad Youth Enhancement Center. In June 2005, a Philadelphia child-care investigator learned that a staffer at the Tennessee center had been fired after he allegedly slammed a boy to the floor so hard the child fouled himself. In September 2005, the city was told that a 14-year-old girl from Long Island, N.Y., had dropped dead of a heart attack after a confrontation with staff. While an investigation cleared Chad of blame in the death, New York and Tennessee stopped sending children to the residential treatment center. But Philadelphia, despite a drumbeat of warnings that children were being violently subdued and injured, continued to send emotionally troubled children to Chad. The city's Department of Human Services stuck with Chad even after a top DHS official concluded that "residents were being harshly and improperly restrained." Not until the June death of 17-year-old Philadelphian Omega Leach did the city finally lose faith. In a physical restraint gone wrong, Leach died after Chad staff pushed him face-down to the floor, apparently cutting off his air, investigators say. When done safely, restraints can calm youths who are out of control and prevent children from hurting themselves or others. But when they go wrong, these "holds" can be brutal. They can dislocate a shoulder, split a chin or snap an arm. In extreme cases, they can kill. On the day Leach died, Philadelphia had 44 children and teens in Chad, all under DHS oversight. The Philadelphians - some from abusive homes, others with arrest records - made up the biggest share of 85 residents who slept, attended school and got therapy at Chad. Since 2001, the city has sent scores of youngsters to the center, saying it has been forced to do so because no Pennsylvania facility would take them. It has paid Chad $6 million in the last three years. Arthur C. Evans Jr., the acting DHS commissioner, took command late last year after Mayor Street ousted its top official following an Inquirer investigation into a string of child deaths in Philadelphia. "A good facility should not rely on restraints," Evans said. "This is really unacceptable." Further, he said, his agency's oversight of Chad was also unacceptable. Nick Ragone, a Chad spokesman, said in a statement Friday that the facility put youngsters in physical holds only as a last resort to protect them or others. Moreover, he said, Chad worked zealously to train its staff and responded quickly to issues raised by regulators. Last week, as a result of Leach's death, Philadelphia began Family Court hearings in a first step to pull children out of Chad. The court's top judge, Kevin Dougherty, said Friday that he had harshly rebuked Chad leaders in court. "I told them I was not sending another kid down there," he said. "They were too aggressive." On Friday, Dougherty ordered six children discharged from Chad, with more hearings to come. The Inquirer has obtained hundreds of regulatory documents about Chad, drawn from government files in Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Based on these records and interviews with former Chad staff, regulatory officials in both states, and former Chad residents and their families, the newspaper found: Chad's workers resorted to physical force at high rates - rates experts term excessive. By Chad's own count, filed with Tennessee officials, its workers used 104 holds in one month alone in 2006. Chad staff would on occasion hold residents down for long periods - even though experts warn that deaths can occur within six minutes of a hold. In May, Chad reported one floor-hold that lasted 23 minutes, and others that lasted 20 and 15 minutes. Tennessee repeatedly cited Chad for failing to tell its regulators about children who had been injured there. In one case, the state learned that three residents had tried to strangle another only when the victim's mother called police, records show. Philadelphia acknowledges it never reviewed Tennessee licensing documents about Chad, which would have revealed the center's heavy reliance on physical holds. No tour permitted -- Set in rolling hills about 40 miles west of Nashville, Chad was refashioned out of a former county nursing home. The 20-acre site is surrounded by horse farms and not far from Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division across the Kentucky state line. When a reporter drove up its 800-yard entranceway recently, John McDuffie, a top administrator at Chad, emerged from its offices before his visitor could reach the front door. He said no one at the facility would answer questions or provide a tour. Chad was founded in 1996 by a psychologist, Robert D. Glasner, who named it after a son who had died young in a car crash. It is owned by a King of Prussia for-profit corporation, Universal Health Services Inc. UHS, which owns 110 mental-health facilities in 33 states, bought Chad in the fall of 2005, paying $210 million for Chad and 29 other centers. Chad has a gym, a classroom building and three dorms, where residents live two to a room. Boys range in age from 7 to 17, girls from 13 to 17. When the youths arrive, they sign a form acknowledging that, if they misbehave, they may be put in a "protective hold." Leach signed his May 2, his first day there. During holds, staff members restrain children by locking the residents' hands behind their backs. Sometimes, the children are held upright, or against a wall. In more serious cases, they are put to the floor, face-down. Such holds are controversial. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Rendell's administration has been on a crusade to all but eliminate physical holds in psychiatric hospitals, mental-health centers, reform schools and the like. Instead, public welfare secretary Estelle Richman is pushing facilities to get control of unruly residents with conversation or by isolating them in a quiet space. In interviews, experts and advocates said the sheer number of holds Chad used on children appeared troubling. "I worry about the culture of the facility. Why is it so restraint-happy?" asked Michael Carter, a lawyer with the federally funded Disability Law and Advocacy Center of Tennessee. His staff has been investigating Leach's death. When presented with the "restraint logs" from Chad, DHS Commissioner Evans agreed. He said the data reflected a workplace culture with few alternatives for calming residents or gaining control. "That, to me, is just not acceptable," Evans said last week. "One thing I can't and will never tolerate is the mistreatment of children." Evans said DHS had failed to recognize Chad's problems soon enough. In response to recent reports about Chad's performance, he said, he reassigned the man who oversaw contracts for DHS, Steven C. Oakman. Oakman did not respond to requests for comment in telephone calls and a letter left at his house. In his statement, Chad spokesman Ragone disputed the data showing a high number of holds at Chad. He said the figures reflected a wide variety of "hands-on" contact by staff with residents, not just the most serious interventions. Kim J. Masters, a child psychiatrist who wrote the guidelines on restraints for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, said he was struck by Chad's data showing as many as 100 holds in a month. "That's a lot," he said. When he took charge some years ago at one center - larger than Chad - Masters considered its tally of 100 restraints a year to be "out of control." Its staff now do about two per month. A high number of restraints, Masters said, reflects "a coercive environment that says, 'You have to do this or else.' " Such techniques rarely work and may backfire, he said. "Kids act out when they don't feel safe," Masters said. "And they don't feel safe when they're being restrained all the time." A litany of problems -- Regulatory files on Chad are publicly available in the state capital in Nashville and show a history of problems. In 2004, for example, Tennessee officials wrote: "Serious incident reports revealed that the agency uses what appears to be an excessive number of physical restraints." That year, Chad admitted that a worker had to be pulled off a resident after the staffer threw 16-year-old John T. Boy against a wall. The worker said he had "overacted" and apologized, records show. Chad acknowledged that the aide had had "problems like this two or three times in the past" and said he would be fired "once they found someone to take his place." In an interview in Tennessee, Boy's mother said she had been astounded that Chad kept the worker on. "They did not care about kids at this facility," Sharon Pruett said. "It needs to be shut down." The employee was finally dismissed, records show. Boy was shot to death last year, in a killing unrelated to his Chad experience. In 2005, when Tennessee staged a surprise inspection of Chad, a girl told the inspectors that a Chad supervisor "will try to hurt students during restraints and 'wants us to scream.' " Another youngster said she had seen "Big Mike slam kids down real hard on the floor. I don't want that happening to me, so I try hard to do everything they ask me to do." In March 2005, the anonymous caller, identifying himself as a Chad employee, called the DHS hotline to warn about force at the facility. In response, DHS dispatched an investigator to Chad - three months later. According to the investigator's report, just 14 Philadelphia youths were at Chad at that time. All had been restrained - some as many as five times, the investigator found. In one case, DHS staffer Haiying Xi reported, a youngster had been cut on the chin in a restraint, requiring stitches. Chad had not reported this to regulators, DHS learned. Finally, DHS official Stephen Rosenberg wrote to Chad. "The investigation could not determine any pattern for the use of illegal physical restraints," Rosenberg wrote. "However, the investigation did validate the allegations that some residents were being harshly and improperly restrained." In a reply, Chad administrator McDuffie assured DHS that Chad was a "nurturing and positive environment." He said the facility had hired more staff and made children's safety a priority. The former owners of Chad also said it was a safe and therapeutic place for children when they handed over the keys to Universal Health in October 2005. "Our goal was to effect treatment in as nonphysical a way as possible," former chief executive officer Michael G. Lindley said. Al Smith, another former top executive with Chad's former owner, said: "Did untoward events happen? Absolutely. But was it a culture? I don't believe so." After Universal Health purchased Chad, regulators continued to flag problems. In 2006, the state complained again that Chad wasn't reporting serious incidents to regulators. Another boy went to an emergency room for cuts sustained in a restraint. And a mental-health associate quit after she got into an argument with a youth and shoved her, records show. According to a Tennessee investigation, other youths were injured this year. On Jan. 2, Tennessee officials disclosed, staff broke the left arm of a 16-year-old boy during a restraint. Later in the year, Chad told regulators, another teenage resident was "taken to the floor" in a restraint that required four stitches for cuts on the lips. In May, Edith Ruland pulled her son, Dennis, 10, out of Chad after she found numerous bruises on him, she said. Ruland, who lives near Chad, took photographs of the bruises, which the boy said staff had inflicted in a restraint hold. Though Tennessee had stopped sending children in state custody, it still permitted families to use it. "They treat people wrong," Dennis said in an interview. "And they shouldn't be having a facility that would bruise people and stuff." In response, a spokesman for Chad said Tennessee had investigated and had been "unable to substantiate these complaints." Rob Johnson, a spokesman for regulators in Tennessee, agreed that investigators couldn't unravel the episode. "They know that the child got injured somehow," Johnson said. "They just don't know how." Out of sight, out of mind -- Experts and members of the commission appointed by Street to overhaul DHS say the city's heavy use of Chad exemplifies another key failing of the agency: its reliance on out-of-state treatment centers. At last count, 233 of Philadelphia's 1,554 children in residential facilities were outside Pennsylvania. Critics note that a main goal for social-service agencies is to eventually reunite troubled children with their families. Yet faraway locations make parental or guardian visits far more difficult. And as a DHS administrator noted in a 2005 report on Chad, such far-off facilities have an obvious weakness. It's hard for officials in Pennsylvania to regulate what happens in Tennessee. Philadelphia officials said they recognized the problem and were moving to solve it. They said they often had little choice but to lean on out-of-state facilities to care for the city's most troubled youths because many in-state treatment centers wouldn't take them. Smith, the former Chad executive, said kids who lashed out violently at authority figures were hard to place. "If a child has hit a teacher, you can be certain they'll have no problem going after staff," he said. So, each year, Philadelphia shops its most hardened cases to area centers, but ends up sending hundreds to Tennessee, Utah and Virginia for mental-health treatment. Child-welfare officials in other states, such as Illinois, and the second-largest child-welfare system in Pennsylvania, that of Allegheny County, say they have found ways to keep children closer to home. Marc Cherna, who heads the Allegheny child-welfare agency, studied DHS as a member of Street's reform panel. He said none of the children under his care were placed out of state. An agency task force makes sure that even the toughest cases are placed close to home. And money is no object, Cherna said. "We will pay extraordinary rates for people who are extraordinarily difficult," he said. "Our goal is to return these children back to the community." In 1995, Illinois was shipping 784 children out of state for care. Eventually, the state realized that counselors in far-flung treatment centers were abusing children. "We flew to facilities we used in a dozen states, and in every one it got worse and worse," said Ron Davidson, a psychologist who helped the state evaluate the programs. Today just a dozen children from Illinois are placed outside the state. "Children just perform better closer to home," said Kendall Marlowe, an Illinois child-service official. Philadelphia's acting DHS commissioner, Evans, agrees. He wants to reduce the number of children placed out of state. "It's a very high priority for me," Evans said. "We send too many kids away from Philadelphia." One of those kids was Omega Leach. A month before he died, a therapist placed a note in his file. "Omega is frustrated with being placed so far from home," the therapist wrote. "But he has expressed the desire to complete the program successfully so that he can return home and start working on getting his life together." A Key City Report, Uncensored -- In 2005, an investigator for the city wrote a detailed report focusing on the Chad Youth Enhancement Center in Tennessee. The city made the report public at The Inquirer's request. Before releasing it, however, city lawyers removed the most explosive section - pages with allegations that Philadelphia children were being abused at Chad. In redacting the document, the city cited an exemption in Pennsylvania's right-to-know law that allows governments to withhold investigations, even finished ones, from the public. The Inquirer later obtained a complete version of the report. In this version, the only information removed is the names of children.

August 5, 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer
Tennessee regulators have concluded that a center for troubled children needlessly provoked the confrontation that led to the death in June of a 17-year-old Philadelphia teen. The Chad Youth Enhancement Center in Ashland City "violated its own policy and procedures" in subduing Omega Leach, social-service regulators said. The state said a Chad staffer should have given Leach space to calm down June 2 when Leach had retreated to a dorm after a fight with another resident. Instead, the staffer, Randall D. Rae, 22, ordered Leach to leave the dorm, and Leach attacked him. The worker then forced Leach prone on the floor, face-down, and the teenager lost consciousness. Leach was pronounced dead the next day. Police say they think the hold cut off his air supply. In a response to the state, Chad officials did not directly address Leach's death, but said repeatedly that they would improve training of staff members and work to better teach them "verbal de-escalation." The confrontation began at 3:50 p.m. when Rae told Leach that residents weren't permitted in the dorm at that time of day. "His training should have told him this is not the time to approach this child," said Tracey Robinson-Coffee, head of licensing for the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities. Leach leaped on Rae, trying to choke him. Rae grabbed Leach - a slender 5-foot-9 and 152 pounds - and pulled Leach's hands behind his back and put him on the floor. Rae did that even though Chad's policies allow such holds only when at least two staffers are present, regulators say. At some point, Rae turned his grip on Leach over to another aide, Milton G. Francis, 31. A Chad nurse arrived and placed a block under Leach's head to help him breathe. While police and the state medical examiner are investigating, no criminal charges have been filed, and the cause of death is pending. But state regulators have already faulted Chad and frozen all admissions there until at least October. Rae hung up on a reporter Friday. Francis did not respond to a letter requesting comment. In its July ruling, the state also faulted Chad over its training of Rae and other staffers. So far, according to documents obtained by The Inquirer, investigators have been provided with at least three estimates for how long the hold on Leach lasted. Nursing staff said it had lasted 13 minutes. Other Chad officials said 11 minutes. In a third document, the duration was put down as seven or eight minutes. The timing is significant. In a 2006 policy statement, Pennsylvania social-service officials said that "most deaths occur within the first six minutes of a restraint," and "that in most situations a restrictive procedure should not last longer than 10 minutes."

July 22, 2007 Tennessean
As officials await results of a state toxicology report on the death of a troubled teen at Chad Youth Enhancement Center in Ashland City, a community group is calling for the center to be closed. Montgomery County Sheriff's officials said they had received reports of abuse and other problems at the facility and that state health officials had ordered a corrective plan for the facility after two other residents were injured while being restrained by staff. "Chad definitely needs to be shut down," said Terry McMoore, director of the Urban Resource Center. "Chad is a big corporation and has a corporate mentality when it comes to business, and you can't have that with kids." County and state agencies have been looking into Chad since the death of Omega Leach, 17, who had been placed at the center by the Philadelphia (Pa.) Department of Human Services. Leach died June 3 after being restrained a day earlier by Chad staff at the center. According to a report to the state from Mike Wallace, risk manager at Chad, Leach attacked staff member Randell Dale Rae Jr. after an argument over leaving his room. "The staff member and the resident struggled until the staff member was able to place the resident into a neutral protective hold," Wallace reported. State officials have said Leach was pinned to the floor, held down by staff members. Rae and staff member Milton Gerald Francis, 31, kept Leach in the hold for seven to eight minutes until he became calm — and unresponsive. Staff members tried to resuscitate Leach, Wallace wrote. Leach was pronounced dead the next day at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, where doctors reported he had suffered "significant" internal bleeding, a report says. Rae and Francis have been put on administrative leave, according to state officials. The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office is investigating Leach's death, and that investigation is awaiting the release of a state toxicology report.

June 25, 2007 AP
A teenager sent to a Tennessee facility for troubled youth died after a confrontation with the center's staff, prompting Philadelphia officials to consider relocating dozens of teens sent there. Omega Leach, described by Philadelphia officials as a 17-year-old whose many troubles included racing a stolen car, was sent last month to the Chad Youth Enhancement Center, a private 50-bed residential treatment center near Clarksville for children with a history of emotional and behavioral problems. Leach is the second student to die at the Chad Youth Enhancement Center in less than two years, and authorities and the Tennessee Department of Children's Services are investigating. Leach got into a physical confrontation with the staff June 3 and died the next day at a Nashville hospital. He tried to choke one counselor, and another staffer pushed Leach face down to the floor and pulled his arms behind his back, police said. Investigators are trying to find out whether he was restrained improperly, keeping him from breathing. Agency may move others: "There's no doubt that the kid had an attitude and probably needed to be locked up somewhere," Sgt. Brian Prentice, of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department, told The Philadelphia Inquirer for a story Sunday. "It doesn't mean he has to be dead." Leach's care was the responsibility of Philadelphia's Department of Human Services. The agency was paying Chad $285 a day for Leach's treatment, even though questions had been raised about the center. In September 2005, Linda Regina Harris, 14, of Long Island, died there of heart failure as she was being escorted by a counselor. The Philadelphia agency has frozen admissions to Chad and said it is putting into place "a contingency plan" for relocating 45 city children, pending further investigation. Chad and its corporate owner, Universal Health Services Inc. of King of Prussia, Pa., declined to respond to detailed questions, instead issuing a statement to the Inquirer defending their record. "We have a reputation and history of being a high-quality provider of behavioral health and substance-abuse services to troubled youth and their families," said Duwayne Glaser, chief executive officer.

September 20, 2005 Tennessean
The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office yesterday was investigating the death of a 14-year-old girl who died while in the custody of a Montgomery County juvenile detention facility. According to officials, the girl, whose name had not been released, was being escorted by a staff member to another room of the privately owned Chad Youth Enhancement Center on Oak Plains Road near the Montgomery-Cheatham county line when she collapsed Sunday night. A press release from the Keystone Education and Youth Services in Nashville, which owns the Chad Youth Enhancement Center and 50 other facilities, said the girl was having trouble breathing and was immediately given CPR by the staff physician.

Con-Link Transportation
Memphis, Tennessee
November 25, 2003
After five days on the lam, a Tennessee prisoner was captured Sunday afternoon in a residential area a half-mile from where he escaped from custody, police said.  On Nov. 18, a private transport service was taking Robert L. South, 21, from Indiana to Blountville, Tenn., to stand trial on a bomb threat charge. The transport officers got off Interstate 64 at the Lewisburg exit about 11 p.m. and drove to a nearby Subway restaurant for a rest room break. Despite being handcuffed, South took off running across a parking lot and disappeared behind a construction site. Police later found his orange jump suit in the woods behind the Brier Inn and Conference Center.  Officers from the Lewisburg Police Department, the Greenbrier County Sheriff's Department, State Police and other law enforcement agencies scoured the area that night and warned residents to lock their doors. Despite the use of a tracking dog, they were unable to find South. Sunday at approximately 2:30 p.m., after receiving a 911 call from a resident, Lewisburg police officers J.C. Dove and D.W. Hedrick found South in the crawl space under a house on Village Road. They apprehended him without incident.  South apparently had been hiding under houses in the subdivision for several days. Earlier, he had stolen clothing from an unlocked vehicle.  South was charged with escape in Greenbrier County Magistrate Court and was taken to the Southern Regional Jail. Other charges are pending.  Lt. L.E. Reed of the Lewisburg Police Department said he is relieved South was captured without anyone being harmed. "That's the main thing, that we were able to do it without any problem," he commented.  As for South's escape, Reed said there will be an investigation of how he was able to run away from custody and later get free of his handcuffs and "belly chain."  "That never should have happened," he said. "Somebody's got some explaining to do."  The transport officers worked for Con-Link Transportation, based in Memphis, Tenn.  (The Register-Herald)

Corrections Corporation of America
Nashville, Tennessee
Incident Rates at CCA-run Prisons Higher than at Public Prisons in Tennessee: October 18, 2011, Private Corrections Institute. According to an analysis of incidents involving assaults and disturbances at publicly-operated and privately-managed prisons in Tennessee from January 2009 to June 2011, incident rates were consistently higher at the state’s three private prisons.
Private prison company’s growth went hand-in-hand with political influence: Jon Collins September 26, 2011 Minnesota Independent
Arizona prison businesses are big political contributors: Bob Ortega - September 4, 2011, The Arizona Republic. Ortega connects the dots between the for-profits, the money, and legislators.
Flush With Prison Industry Dollars, Rick Perry Pushed Privatized Prisoner Care: September 1, 2011, Tim Murphy, Mother Jones. Gov Perry's cozy relationship with the for-profits.
Hernando County's takeover of jail brings year of sweeping changes, by John Woodrow Cox and Barbara Behrendt, St Petersburg Times, August 28, 2011. This is a MUST read on CCA.
Top Ten Industry Lies: Cell Out Arizona, August 22, 2011
Prison firm optimistic about Arizona bid despite incidents: August 8, 2011, Bob Ortega, The Arizona Republic. Exposé on CCA
Business Week A Boom Behind Bars, March 17, 2011 Another great expose.
CCA's Idaho Correctional Center beating video: November 30, 2010, 3:36 min: Damning video piece.
Wall Street and the Criminalization of Immigration: October 6, 2010, 5 pages. Details profit making off immigration by the private prison vendors.
Part 2: NPR expose on for-profits and immigration law Shaping State Laws With Little Scrutiny
Part 1: NPR expose on for-profits and immigration law Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law
More from Rachel Maddow http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#38965161
Rachel Maddow stay on it http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#38700092
Rachel Maddow kicks butt http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/38685023#38685023
AZ Gov Brewer avoids questions about CCA and her administration: July 23, 2010, 5:01 min: Very funny watching Governor Brewer running away from hard questions regarding her staff's relationships with CCA.
CCA Pays Over $22,000 to American Correctional Association to Claim “Stamp of Approval” at Five Private Prisons
Behind the Bars | Kentucky had gaps in monitoring troubled Otter Creek prison July 5, 2010
Behind the Bars | Experts question benefits of private prisons July 5, 2010
Behind the Bars | Prison faced regular complaints about medical care July 5, 2010
Behind the Bars | Secretary Carla Meade's suicide raised questions July 5, 2010
How The Recession Hurts Private Prisons Nancy Cook, Newsweek June 30, 2010
Freedom Forum CEO Tied to For-Profit Prisons An advocate for--and against--freedom of information

January 26, 2012 Nashville Scene
Yesterday, Corrections Corporation of America filed its latest appeal to block an open records request filed years ago by a nonprofit media organization. On Jan. 25, CCA filed a notice of appeal in Davidson County Chancery Court in what amounts to its third appeal in a four-year-old battle with Prison Legal News, whose associate editor, Alex Friedmann, has been trying to get the private corrections company to release documents concerning its operations and potential legal snafus since 2008. "Thus, after four years, CCA is still fighting hard to avoid producing the records I requested, which would have to be produced if I requested them from any public agency," Friedmann tells Pith via email. "This is a perfect example of the lack of transparency and lack of public accountability in the private prison industry." Of course, it's no surprise why CCA is stalling. Considering CCA's reputation for poor treatment of immigrant detainees, allegations of fraudulent reporting practices, and practically writing Arizona's SB 1070 bill for the legislature, Friedmann's original records request could very well puncture even more holes in CCA's veil of secrecy. A request for comment from CCA has not been returned. At the heart of the battle is whether CCA, a private company, can be compelled to release information even though it contracts with governments and performs what has been traditionally a public service. So far, Chancery Court and the Tennessee Court of Appeals side with Friedmann, but the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case. In December, Chancery Court again ruled in Friedmann's favor on remand, which led to CCA's recent notice of appeal. If Friedmann succeeds, CCA will be ordered to release documents detailing legal complaints in which CCA has paid out in excess of $500 to complainants; "state, county and municipal government reports, audits and investigations" of CCA; "court rulings issuing injunctive or declaratory judgments against CCA, including sanctions and contempt orders"; and "spreadsheets, summaries or similar databases showing all litigation concluded against CCA in Tennessee which resulted in the payment of money damages, settlements, sanctions, claims and/or attorney fees."

January 25, 2012 Tampa Bay Times
Hernando County has reached a tentative settlement with Corrections Corporation of America over $1.86 million the county withheld in payments to the former operator of the Hernando County Detention Center. In mediation on Monday, the parties agreed to end a federal lawsuit filed by CCA in September 2010. The company would give the county $100,000 and retain the rest of the money, which has been held by the court since shortly after the suit was filed. The County Commission will vote Feb. 14 on whether to approve the settlement. "It was the best outcome we could hope for under the circumstances,'' said Commissioner Dave Russell, who attended Monday's mediation session. The county was looking at a full-blown trial in federal court, depositions, expert witnesses, and "it could have taken literally hundreds of hours of county time as it stretched on,'' Russell said. "In the long run, it would have likely cost us more money to come up with less money.'' In 2010, the county was grappling with how to make needed repairs to the jail as CCA was pulling out of the facility and the sheriff was taking over. There were several outstanding issues between the county and CCA, including how much the company owed for failing to properly maintain the facility and disputes about the inventory inside the jail. The County Commission withheld its final payment to the company. The county paid for an engineering report to detail what was needed to bring the facility back up to acceptable standards. The report detailed nearly $15 million in repairs and remodeling and determined that CCA was responsible for about $1 million of deferred maintenance. Officials have since questioned the total figure.

January 23, 2012 Chicago Tribune
A small south suburb has quietly been working with federal officials on a plan to build an immigration lockup of up to 700 beds, placing the semirural town in the middle of a national debate. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has selected Crete as the potential site for an immigration detention center — one of seven locations nationwide chosen for such a facility, as the agency consolidates its detention centers and deports illegal immigrants at a record pace. Crete would hire a private company to build and manage the facility of 500 to 700 beds if the plans evolve into a federal contract with the village, Mayor Michael Einhorn said. Officials from Crete, ICE and the private company, Corrections Corporation of America, say the detention center plan is not a done deal. But officials from all three have been talking privately since at least 2010, according to records obtained by the Tribune through the Freedom of Information Act. Crete leaders have traveled to Washington twice and toured another CCA facility in Kansas, records show. Emails indicate a contract on the proposed site of the detention center has been in effect since at least April. Some Crete residents, angered by what they call a lack of transparency, have been organizing since word of the proposed detention center leaked late last year. Yard signs scattered throughout the town — with a slash through the words "Crete detention center" — signal the feelings of many. Village officials maintain that they haven't discussed the proposal publicly because nothing is concrete.

January 20, 2012 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Kip Smith spent the hours before his DUI arrest last week with two other state lawmakers being entertained by three lobbyists, including one for brewer Anheuser-Busch, state records show Lobbyist spending disclosures for Jan. 12 show Smith, R-Columbus, and fellow House members Ben Harbin and Jason Shaw had dinner at Alfredo’s Italian Restaurant in Midtown. Smith was arrested hours later by Atlanta police on charges of driving under the influence. According to the police report, Smith recorded a .091 blood alcohol level on a Breathalyzer test. The officer reported that Smith said he had been at Hal’s, a Buckhead bistro, and claimed to have had “a single beer.” The arrest report does not mention Alfredo’s, but one of the lobbyists at the dinner said Thursday that the meal included wine. Smith, 29, was pulled over after running a red light on Peachtree Road, the police report said. The arresting officer, who was following the lawmaker’s 1998 gold Jaguar, said the light had just turned red when Smith went through the intersection at Pharr Road. Smith has not publicly discussed the events of the night leading up to his arrest, telling the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer he had admitted his mistake and was “moving forward.” He did not return a call or email from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The reported tab came to $60 per lawmaker. Entrees at the restaurant run from $14.50 to $23.95. In an e-mail, Shaw said, “I did have dinner that night at Alfredo’s with some good friends and I took a cab home.” In a separate e-mail, McMullen said the dinner ended around 9 p.m. and the six men “parted ways.” Smith was arrested several hours later. The lobbyists who paid the tab at Alfredo’s were Georgia EMC lobbyist Travis Bussey; Georgia Chamber of Commerce lobbyist David Raynor; and Chuck McMullen, a managing director of the Atlanta office of McKenna, Long and Aldridge. McMullen is lobbyist for a number of clients, including Anheuser-Busch and private prison operator Corrections Corp. of America.

January 17, 2012 The Spokesman-Review
Minority Democrats in the Idaho Legislature announced three new ethics reform proposals Tuesday and called on Republicans to work with them on the bills - and the Republicans agreed. The Democrats called for requiring financial disclosure from public and elected officials in the state, something only Idaho and two other states lack; a bill to impose a one-year wait before former lawmakers or other public officials could register as lobbyists; and a whistleblower hotline law for state employees. The proposals came on the heels of the Democrats’ call for Idaho to create an independent ethics commission; GOP leaders agreed, and both sides have formed a bipartisan working group to draft a consensus bill. On Tuesday, House Speaker Lawrence Denney and Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill both said they’d like the working group to also consider the three issues Democrats highlighted. “I think the working group ought to discuss those things, see if they can come up with suggestions,” Hill said. “I’d just encourage it.” Denney said he’s open to the ideas, including the one-year lobbying restriction. “I don’t have a problem with that,” he said. “Let’s hear it.” Idaho has had recent notable incidents of public officials turning to lobbying; the state has no restrictions on such moves. The governor’s former chief of staff is now walking the Statehouse halls as a lobbyist for Idaho Power Co. and the Corrections Corp. of America, and the former deputy director of the state Department of Insurance signed on to lobby this year for one of the state’s largest insurance companies, Regence BlueShield, after years of regulating the firm.

January 8, 2012 Hernando Today
A new report shows the Hernando County Jail successfully passed its first Florida Model Jail Standards inspection since the sheriff's office took over operations in August 2010. The inspection examined facility structures, housekeeping, sanitation, policies and procedures. A second inspection, by a certified medical professional inspector, examined inmate medical charts, medications dispensed, treatments rendered and protocols followed. "Through diligence and hard work by a professional group of personnel, (we) were able to meet the necessary standards," Sheriff Al Nienhuis said in a memo to the county. The inspection report is included on the agenda of Tuesday's county commission meeting. County Commissioner John Druzbick said he is pleased at how the sheriff's office has handled jail operations since taking over. At the time, then-sheriff Richard Nugent dropped a bombshell on the county when he announced the 23-year-old jail was in a terrible state of disrepair. Commissioners soon after ended the contract with Corrections Corporation of America, the private company which had been running the jail. "We have saved a tremendous amount of money with the sheriff coming in and running the jail," Druzbick said. "The cost is substantially lower than with CCA." The first year alone, the sheriff's office saved taxpayers some $1 million, Druzbick said. Druzbick cited the sheriff's office's positive track record of conducting business and maintaining the building. "I think it has been a positive for Hernando County so far," he said.

December 15, 2011 AP
A federal judge has refused to unseal a settlement agreement between an Idaho inmate and a private prison company involving allegations of rampant violence at a lockup near Boise known as "Gladiator School." The Associated Press had asked the court to unseal the settlement between Marlin Riggs and Corrections Corp. of America. However, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge said Wednesday the interests of Riggs and the company in keeping the settlement confidential outweighed the interest the public has in learning its terms. The AP's West regional editor, Traci Carl, said the news organization's attorneys were reviewing the ruling and considering the legal options. "The AP is disappointed with the ruling and believes the public has a right to know the terms of the settlement," Carl said. Neither Riggs' attorney James Huegli nor CCA's attorney Kirtlan Naylor immediately returned messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. Riggs initially asked for $55 million in damages, saying the Idaho Correctional Center was nicknamed "Gladiator School" and that guards knew Riggs was about to be attacked but failed to protect him. The AP contended the lawsuit raised profound and far-reaching issues of public interest. In his written ruling, Lodge acknowledged that the operation of a prison raises issues of public concern, but he said he feared releasing the document would place Riggs at risk for intimidation or assault in prison. He also said future litigants would be discouraged from participating in judicially supervised settlement conferences if they believed the outcome could be made public. The judge also noted that a settlement agreement in a "companion lawsuit" between other inmates at the prison and CCA was released to the public. In that case, the inmates were alleging the same types of civil rights violations that Riggs claimed, but they didn't ask the court for any monetary damages. Instead, the inmates wanted changes to the way the prison is run _ and in the settlement agreement, CCA agreed to make those changes, though the company did not acknowledge any guilt or liability. Both CCA and the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, which was representing the inmates, agreed to make that settlement public. "The present case now involves only a single prisoner seeking monetary damages for an assault," Lodge wrote. "The public's interest in knowing the precise terms of his agreement with CCA is outweighed by the parties' interest in confidentiality as a means of minimizing the serious risks that the Court has found to exist."

December 7, 2011 Courthouse News
A transgender woman claims she was sexually assaulted by a Corrections Corporation of America guard at the private immigration prison it runs in Eloy, outside of Phoenix. CCA is the biggest private operator of immigration prisons in the country and holds almost half of the 33,000 people in federal custody on any given day, the ACLU of Arizona said in a statement. The federal complaint against CCA, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, and the City of Eloy claims that local and federal officials failed to protect Tanya Guzman-Martinez from abusive CCA guards, even after they were notified about the sexual assault and harassment. Guzman, who was imprisoned for eight months in Eloy, says she was sexually assaulted there twice. "One incident occurred on December 7, 2009 and involved a detention officer who after repeated harassment, maliciously forced Guzman-Martinez to ingest his ejaculated semen and threatened to deport her back to Mexico if she did not comply with his demands," the ACLU said. "Guzman-Martinez immediately reported the assault to detention staff and the Eloy Police Department and the detention officer was later convicted in Pinal County Superior Court of attempted unlawful sexual contact. "Despite this attack, immigration officials did nothing to protect her from further abuse. In a separate incident that took place on April 23, 2010, Guzman-Martinez was sexually assaulted by a male detainee in the same all-male housing unit where she was subjected to the first assault. She didn't report the assault to local police until about a week later because she feared retaliation by detention staff and other detainees. Soon after she reported the second assault to the police, Guzman-Martinez was released from ICE custody." CCA has been sued repeatedly for abuses in its private prisons. Guzman seeks punitive damages for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other deprivations of constitutional rights.

December 1, 2011 AP
A Nashville judge ruled Thursday that private prison company Corrections Corporation of America must turn over more documents to a magazine that advocates for the rights of prisoners. CCA had argued that the settlement documents sought by the plaintiff were confidential and handled by the prison's general counsel, which operates independently and isn't connected in any way to the state. But Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman ruled once again that CCA is subject to Tennessee's open records law because it is the equivalent of a government agency, and that no government entity can enter into a confidential settlement. Alex Friedmann, a former prisoner who is now an editor at Prison Legal News, sent a letter to CCA in April 2007 asking for information on settlements, judgments and complaints against the company. He sued CCA when the company refused to turn over the information, claiming it wasn't subject to the state's open records law. Bonnyman also heard the case in 2008, siding with Friedmann and ordering the company to turn over most of the records. CCA appealed, arguing once again that it wasn't subject to the law. The Tennessee Court of Appeals later upheld Bonnyman's ruling that CCA is the equivalent of a government agency by running state prisons, and is subject to the open records law. The prison turned over some documents, such as contracts. But Friedmann is still seeking verdicts against the company and settlement agreements with prisoners. In her ruling Thursday, Bonnyman said the magazine won't be able to get the documents until an appeal is resolved, and CCA's attorneys have indicated they will likely appeal. However, Friedmann said he doesn't mind waiting because he views the judge's latest ruling as a victory that sends a message once again that "CCA is considered a public agency when operating prisons and jails, and must comply with the Public Records Act." "This ruling provides some much needed transparency to CCA's operations in Tennessee," he said. "CCA has fought hard to avoid releasing records that would be public if sought from any government agency that runs prisons or jails." The ruling only applies to Tennessee prisons, not federal prisons or other facilities in other states that CCA runs.

November 29, 2011 Christian Post Reporter
A controversial private prison corporation that has been accused of creating poor conditions for inmates while raking in $1.5 billion in profits annually is donating prison labor to a Christian organization that provides prosthetic limbs to amputees in developing countries as part of a voluntary, faith-based program. Although the program itself is praised for what it does, critics of the prison corporation worry that the program is being used as a PR gimmick to help the prison corporation, while doing very little for the prisoners doing all of the work. Standing with Hope (SWH) is an evangelical Christian outreach that provides artificial limbs to amputees in developing countries "as a means of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ," according to its website. With a compelling story, starting with Gracie Rosenberger, who had to have her legs amputated after a brutal car accident in 1983, she co-founded SWH with husband Peter and has become an author, speaker and an inspiration for other amputees. Rosenberger also became the first disabled woman to perform at a major political party convention, when she sang the national anthem at the 2004 Republican National Convention. On Nov. 16, SWH announced a partnership with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest builder and operator of for-profit prisons, with over 75,000 inmates in 60 federal, state and local prisons, in order to create a work program for inmates to disassemble used prosthetic limbs for amputees in other countries, including Ghana. The program is expected to make SWH's work more effective in its goal of providing limbs for amputees. "We regularly purchase a great deal of new supplies in order to make the custom fit, carbon-fiber sockets for each patients, but recycling specific components from used limbs is critical to our program, and that's why CCA's help is so important to this work," said SWH president, Peter Rosenberger, in a press release. The work program is also expected to be beneficial for inmates, according to Dennis Bradby, Vice-President of Inmate Programs for CCA. "Positive work programs such as this one are key to rehabilitation efforts for inmates. Not only do we share enthusiasm in this new initiative, but the CCA family is deeply moved knowing that amputees in developing countries will be equipped to walk as a direct result of this program," Bradby said in the same statement. Like us on Facebook The announcement of the partnership came three days after "Occupy Nashville" protesters held a mock "human auction" outside of CCA's Nashville headquarters and chanted "people, not profits," according to Nashville's News Channel 5. Over the past three years alone, CCA has taken in $5 billion in profit off of taxpayer-funded, government contracts, according to financial statements, while also being severely criticized for neglecting and abusing prisoners, as well as exploiting costs for even bigger profits. In 2010, The Associated Press released a video taken from inside the Idaho Corrections Center (ICC), a CCA-run facility, of an inmate being beaten mercilessly by another inmate for 30 minutes as guards stood by and watched. The beating victim suffered brain damage as a result of the attack. Between 2006 and 2008, several inmate deaths occurred at a CCA-run immigrantion detention center in Arizona, including an inmate with testicular cancer that went untreated for at least two months, according to The New York Times. More recently, CCA has come under fire from prisoner rights advocates for its decision to charge inmates at its Lumpkin, Ga., facility $5 a minute for phone calls, creating a host of problems for inmates needing to contact their families, as well as their lawyers. When asked if he had any misgivings about entering into a partnership with a company accused of such actions, Rosenberger told The Christian Post he stands behind CCA without hesitation. "I love the concept of the CCA and our relationship is extraordinarily positive," he said, adding that he personally knows several CCA employees and goes to church with many of them. As for the possibility of an ethical conflict for a Christian organization to partner with a company that has allegedly abused and neglected inmates, Rosenberger said he was unaware of any specific allegations, but reiterated that the important thing for him is the goal of SWH. "I'm just here to put legs on people," he said, adding that he was also hoping to spread the gospel. "If I were to look for a partner where I agree with 100% of what they do, I wouldn't be able to work with anybody." Rosenberger added that despite what people may think of the CCA, the important thing is the actual work SWH does, both in a physical sense for the recipients of the prosthetic limbs, as well as the spiritual sense for the inmates doing the work. "I looked at the lives of those inmates yesterday and I saw the emotion in their faces, I saw the tears in their eyes," Rosenberger said. "And I don't know what's gonna happen when those guys get out, but I'm gonna try to make the best impact as I can right now so that when they do get out, they never have to come back to a prison. So, my outreach is for people with missing limbs and my other outreach is with these guys, and if this can get them to share my faith and my passion and my heart, and not repeat what they did to get there in the first place." Mike Tartaglia, a CCA critic who runs a blog aptly titled Why I Hate the CCA, said it was a good thing for inmates to be able to participate in a voluntary work program, but that he was uncomfortable with the possibility that inmate labor was being used to generate free PR for the private prison corporation. "This is a nice bit of PR for them. This is something they will probably promote on their PR page and in their press releases and say what a great corporate citizen CCA is being," Tartaglia told CP, adding that even when prisoners do get paid for work, CCA pays them an average of $1 a day, while charging them $5 a minute for phone calls. "I don't know if CCA is justified in offering its prisoners' labor when they do that," he said. Steve Owen, CCA's Director of Public Affairs, told CP confirmed that inmates will not be paid for the work, although participation in the newly-implemented program is strictly voluntary. Owen also said that the "logistics" of the program, including the amount of work inmates will do, when they will do it, and how many limbs will be created, are still being worked out. Alex Friedmann is an associate editor of prisoner rights newspaper and website Prison Legal News. Friedmann, a former inmate who served 10 years in Tennessee prisons who now advocates for prisoners' rights, pointed out that work programs such as SWH's are important for inmates to have, but he also worries about the possibility of the program usurping more beneficial vocational programs for prisoners at the cost of an alleged PR gimmick for CCA that is ultimately paid for by taxpayers. "It's always good to see prisoners who are contributing back to society while they're still incarcerated. Society barely appreciates those efforts, but in fact the prisoners do that," Friedmann told CP. However, he added, "All these prisoners will be released one day and it's important they have the skills needed to be successful and stay out. If CCA is providing these types of non-profit programs in lieu of job training, vocational training that prisoners need when they get out, I think that's a bad thing, because they need those skills." According to Friedmann, it is important that the SWH program does not get mistaken for a work program that teaches real-world job skills. "I don't think any prisoner in this program is gonna get out of jail and go to work for a company that will pay them for making prosthetic limbs...so it's very important to make that distinction," he said. Rosenberger told CP that he would offer to employ inmates who worked in the SWH program while in prison, if he has the budget when that time comes. But even without the possibility of job skills being learned from the program, Rosenberger asked a simple question: "Would you rather see CCA not operate anything like this and not make it available to inmates if they want to do it?" he said. "You should have seen the look in their eyes. Some of them came in there and said 'this is important work and I'm so grateful to have it,'" he added. Neither Friedmann nor Tartaglia dismissed the many benefits of inmates being able to participate in a voluntary, faith-based program where amputees in developing countries are able to get new limbs. However, because CCA is a for-profit company that makes billions of dollars from the incarceration of people in a country that has the highest incarceration rate in the world, critics say it is understandable why there would be speculation about CCA possibly using the SWH program to boost its public image, especially since the publicly traded prison corporation has been accused by many people around the country of not providing adequate services for prisoners. To Friedmann, however, the main problem is not so much about PR gimmicks, but how inmate labor programs like this can make the more important issues get buried when they are used. "People are in prison for a reason," Friedmann said. "And the vast majority is substance abuse or alcohol abuse or things of that nature. Prisoners need to have those needs addressed, so they when they get out, they don't come back, in addition to whatever good, non-profit things that they do while incarcerated." In addition, Friedmann said, it is important that "the credit goes to the prisoners participating in the program – not the corporate executives. The prisoners are the ones doing the work. They deserve to get the credit," he said.

November 14, 2011 News Channel 5
Occupy Nashville protesters left their camp on Legislative Plaza Monday and traveled to the Green Hills headquarters of CCA, Corrections Corporation of America. The group says the company highlights the reason they are protesting. "This is another example of what we're talking about, corporate greed and politicians being bought by the corporations," said Occupy protester Ron White. More than 30 people gathered on the sidewalk outside CCA's Burton Hills Drive headquarters. They shouted to the workers inside, who watched from their windows. "People, not profits," the group chanted. CCA is the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons. "CCA's contracts are all with public money. That's my money, your money, all of your audiences money," explained protester Alex Friedmann. The Occupiers claim CCA is essentially bidding on prisoners for profit. They wanted CCA employees to get the message they feel that practice is not ethical. "And hopefully that will not be lost on the people inside that building, who work for CCA, who are profiting off of other people's imprisonment," Friedmann said. Late Monday afternoon CCA released a statement in response to the protest. "We're mystified why these protesters would want to occupy a company that has created over 17,000 jobs and counting, saves taxpayers millions, helps keep communities safe and rehabilitates thousands of inmates every year," said public affairs manager Mike Machack. At the end of its protest the Occupy group held a mock "human auction" to signify how they feel CCA buys prisoners for profit. Protesters took on the personas of CCA managers and bid on other protesters to dramatize their point. CCA had one security guard watching the group as it protested. Metro Nashville officers did ride by as the protest started. Occupy Nashville has been protesting since October 7th with a camp on Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville.

November 10, 2011 AP
Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said Thursday that a privately run prison in Leflore County will close in January. Epps said the state and Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America mutually agreed to cease operations. "This decision wasn't reached overnight," Epps told The Associated Press. He said the state's cost per day for taking care of inmates was $34.61 for medium custody beds. By state law, Epps said CCA had to accept a rate of 10 percent less, or about $31.15 per inmate per day. "They said they couldn't make it on that," Epps said. Epps said there will be more savings to the state because he will move the inmates to facilities where he won't have to spend anything extra other than providing meals, clothing and medical care. Delta Correctional Facility, which opened in 1996, has about 218 employees. There are presently about 900 inmates housed in the medium-security prison and another 125 in the adjacent Leflore County Jail, which CCA also has been under contract to operate. CCA announced it will be pulling out of operating the jail as well. Epps and CCA officials said plans are to cease operations of the 1,172-bed Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood, Miss. on Jan. 15, 2012. Epps said he has over 4,000 vacant beds in the corrections system, which includes state facilities, community work centers and regional prisons. "Eight hundred of them are going to regional facilities and the others to state facilities," he said.

October 28, 2011 News-Herald
The jail has long been finished and the initial contractor fired, but Bay County only recently received final judgment on a lawsuit that alleged favoritism and arbitrary behavior in awarding the jail contract in 2006. Circuit court Judge Hentz McClellan issued a final judgment Oct. 18 in favor of Bay County and against Emerald Correctional Management, a Louisiana corporation that lost a bid for jail construction and operations. Emerald Correctional filed the suit after the county entered negotiations with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) on a $117 million contract for the construction of the Star Avenue jail, which ultimately was awarded to CCA for the design, construction and six years of operation of the jail, sally port and court holding. The final judgment awards Bay County $167,761 in lawyer fees. William C. Henry, of Burke Blue, Hutchison, Walters and Smith, who represented Bay County in the suit, said county staff spent two months analyzing and comparing the proposals and matching them with their proposal request. “This RFP (request for proposal) was very complicated because it was very big,” Henry said. “There were upgrades [in CCA’s proposal] that weren’t asked for in the RFP, but later county staff said, ‘Yeah, that’s a really good idea.’ ” To give commissioners an “apples-to-apples” comparison, the proposals were manipulated in a “fair and rational manner,” Henry said, and CCA was a better deal. Commissioner Mike Thomas said the allegations of favoritism were preposterous from the beginning because the commission did not want to give the contract to CCA, who was managing the old jail at the time. “There had been a lot of complaints about the way inmates and their families were being treated,” he said. “Once we got everything done, they (CCA) were the better deal.” In the end, CCA couldn’t do the project for the price it said and left the project, and operations were turned over to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office in 2008. “The main thing is we have a good product out there now,” he said. The judge awarding lawyers’ fees “takes some of the sting out” of the litigation, Thomas said, but the time could have been better spent. The judge’s ruling was issued as a final order, but Henry said Emerald Management still has the right to appeal the decision, which attorney Obed Dorceus said he would be discussing with his client. “All these zombies, even though they are deader than dead, they still find a way to come out of the grave and eat people,” he said.

October 27, 2011 Local 10
The plan to build an 1,800-bed private immigration prison in Southwest Ranches has been met with protests and controversy, but town council members say the prison is needed to bring the town new revenues. Too bad it hasn't reaped much from the prison firm, Nashville-based CCA, yet. The company has gotten off dirt cheap on property taxes, paying less on the 22 acre property it bought to build the prison back in 1998 than most nearby homeowners. The prison company paid developer Ron Bergeron $5 million for the land and this year it's assessed at about $3 million. That equates to about a $60,000 property tax bill. Instead, the firm is paying $3,000. Over the years it has saved -- and local governments have lost -- hundreds of thousands of dollars to the exemption. How does the prison company get that break? CCA takes advantage of a loophole in Florida law that allows agricultural tax exemptions when cows are on the property -- even if cows are almost never there and the landowner intends to pave over the property. Some call it “rent-a-cow.” Broward Property Appraiser Lori Parrish has long been opposed to the law and when Local 10 asked her about the CCA property, she said it looked like a prime example of it. “It reminds me of that old country western song, she got the gold mine and I got the shaft," said Parrish. "Well, the average taxpayer on this issue is getting the shaft because somebody has to cover the bill." After Bergeron sold the land to CCA, his Green Glades Cattle Co., a d/b/a of Bergeron Property and Development, simply leased the land back from the company for a token $10 a year, according to the property appraiser. “They don’t make money on the lease," said Parrish. "It’s not to have the property make money on AG.In my opinion it’s tax avoidance.” Worse, there appears to be no cows on the property, which is nestled in the midst of Bergeron's land north of Sheridan Street, between U.S. 27 and 196th Avenue. No cows can be seen on the property, which borders an existing women's detention facility. There's no sign of any cattle in overhead photos taken in December 2010 by the property appraiser's office either. CCA spokesman Steve Owen said that the agricultural exemption was in place before the company bought the land and they have kept the same agricultural usage going. He said the absence of cows is likely due to the rotation of cows from property to property. The agricultural tax exemption was purportedly created to preserve farm lands in Florida, not to give developers tax breaks while they make plans to build on it. The statute holds that the property must be put to "bonafide agricultural purposes" -- and it's been interpreted very loosely by governments and courts. Parrish says that those wishing to keep the exemption must only have cows on the property for one day. “You could be a developer who puts cows on your property or horses on January 1 and by February 1, you could remove those cows or horses and still be entitled to that AG exemption because the only day of the year that the state cares about is January 1,” she said. In an agreement signed between the Southwest Ranches and CCA in 2005, the town promised to help the company maintain the agricultural tax exemption. Nearby homeowners -- many of whom pay a lot more in property taxes than CCA does -- weren't pleased at the arrangement. "It's shocking," said Delilah Alvarez, of Pasadena Lakes. "It seems as if everything is always imposed on homeowners and people just trying to get ahead."

October 20, 2011 Anchorage Press
Early this month the Alaska Supreme Court dished a helping of Oh-no-you-didn't to the state department of Corrections. The department lost the appeal of an inmate who, back in 2007, was punished with twenty days of "punitive segregation"-twenty days in the hole-at Red Rocks Correctional Center in Elroy, Arizona. The court found Joseph James was punished as a result of proceedings in a privately owned correctional facility that ignored his rights to due process. James was accused of threatening two people with bodily harm, but was not allowed to questions his accuser. In fact, the staff member who initially accused James of making threats did not write the report that resulted in James' segregation. A second officer did that. James appealed his segregation and got a hearing, inside Red Rocks, but the hearing was not recorded and even the author of the report did not attend along with the hearing officer. James appealed to the Alaska Superior Court, so by the time the state had an attorney on their (ultimately losing) side of the case, James was able to spank Corrections without even the benefit of an attorney. The court recognized that sometimes prisoners, unlike free people charged with crimes in the United States, don't always have the right to face their accuser. An inmate, the court decision says, "is not entitled to the full panoply of rights due an accused in a criminal proceeding." That's because prison authorities need to maintain order. They have what the courts called "substantial institutional interest" in maintaining order. But the James case was different for several reasons. One was that James' punishment, solitary confinement, was among the most severe punishments a prisoner could have. (Courts have also called revocation of good-time credit "severe punishment" as well.) The Red Rocks employees claimed James' alleged actions called for only a minor disciplinary hearing, so they went about James' disciplinary action and appeal without allowing James to question his original accuser. The court found that severe punishment was evidence of a serious infraction. They've previously found that during an administrative appeal, an inmate has a due process right to face their accuser if the infraction was serious. A single hearing officer met with James when he protested his segregation -but James told the court system that hearing was not recorded. The hearing officer had the report about the alleged infraction, but the author of the report was not present. During James' appeal to a state Superior Court, the state told the court system the recording "was no longer available"-given the various missteps any layman can watch the state's case erode while reading the Alaska Supreme Court's 21-page opinion. One footnote in the Supreme Court opinion says, "it is troubling" the state implied an audio recording "had been misplaced or perhaps destroyed, when in fact, no such recording existed." (A Corrections official referred the Press to an attorney in the Department of Law, but the lawyer was not available Monday or Tuesday, the latter a state holiday.)

October 19, 2011 Idaho Statesman
After four years as Gov. Butch Otter’s top aide, Jason Kreizenbeck is leaving to join forces with one of Idaho’s leading lobbyists, former Sen. Skip Smyser. Kreizenbeck said leaving his $130,000 job is not a signal Otter won’t seek a third term in 2014. “There’s an effective shelf life to this position and I think I’ve hit it,” he said Tuesday. Kreizenbeck, 39, is affable, charismatic and popular at the Legislature, with deep connections in the Republican establishment. “You measure chief-of-staff age in dog years, not human years,” said Kreizenbeck’s predecessor, Jeff Malmen, now a lobbyist for Idaho Power. Details of his partnership with Smyser will be announced next month, but Kreizenbeck said it’s “safe to assume” Smyser will continue to represent his powerful clients, including cigarette and drug makers, an oil company, education technology companies and AT&T. Smyser also represents two state contractors with serious performance issues: Corrections Corp. of America, the operator of the state’s violence-plagued private prison; and Molina Healthcare, widely criticized by lawmakers for making late payments to Medicaid providers last year.

October 19, 2011 American Independent
Amid a national push to expose incidents of sexual abuse at immigrant detention facilities across the country, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas filed a federal suit Wednesday on behalf of three women who say they were sexually abused at a Central Texas facility with a history of abuse. The suit names Donald Dunn, a former employee at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, just east of Austin, who pled guilty last fall to charges he abused women he was driving to the airport and Greyhound stations. Allegations by one victim prompted his arrest and a nationwide search for more victims, the Taylor Daily Press reported last year. “Eight female victims were discovered, and during the investigation, Dunn admitted to abusing them during transports,” the Press said. Along with Dunn, though, the suit also names U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement and the Corrections Corporation of America — the country’s largest private prison operator, which runs the Hutto facility, for ignoring regulations that should have kept Dunn from driving the women on his own. “The lawsuit alleges that ICE, Williamson County and CCA were deliberately indifferent and willfully blind to the fact that Dunn and other employees regularly violated the rule that detainees not be transported without another escort officer of the same gender present,” the ACLU said in a statement. According to the suit, each of the three anonymous women — asylum seekers from Brazil, Guatemala and Eritrea — were being released from the facility after passing “credible fear” interviews, to await a hearing on their cases, when they were assaulted. The women say Dunn pulled over on the way to drop them off at the airport or bus station, groped them, told them to undress and exposed himself to them. Between October 2009 and May 2010, the suit claims, Dunn assaulted six other women too. A CCA spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the complaint. “The long history of rampant sexual abuse at ICE detention centers, coupled with the availability of the same opportunity Dunn exploited in the form of at least 22 documented failures of other male officers to comply with the same policy, supports a reasonable inference that other male escort officers at Hutto engaged in similar abuse,” the suit claims. The Hutto Detention Center, once a residential center for holding whole families of immigrants, has been plagued by complaints about poor conditions and family separation, and has been an ACLU target in the past. Separate allegations of sexual abuse at the facility even prompted an ICE investigation in 2007. Bob Libal with Grassroots Leadership — a group that promotes accountability for private prison operators and runs a visitation program to the Hutto facility — said the fact that CCA continues to operate the facility shows what light consequences the country’s largest private prison operators face. “This is the second time that there’s been an inappropriate sexual event at Hutto, and ICE didn’t cut the contract,” Libal said. “There’s no impact for the company that allowed this to happen.” After years of campaigning by the ACLU, Grassroots Leadership and other groups, the Hutto facility was converted from a family detention center to a 500-bed facility for women who’ve come to the U.S. seeking asylum. The suit filed Wednesday in Austin is part of a nationwide effort by the ACLU to uncover records of sexual abuse and call for accountability. The group found more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse in immigrant detention centers across the country from 2007 to 2010 returned from a public records request. “It is clear there is an urgent need for the government to recognize just how pervasive a problem the sexual abuse of immigration detainees is and take immediate steps to fix the problem and ensure that everyone in the government’s care is protected,” said David Shapiro, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project. “The detainees in immigration detention are a particularly vulnerable population. Even one incident of sexual abuse is one too many.” The group found 56 allegations of sexual abuse in Texas, far more than the next-highest total, 17 complaints in California. “It’s pretty disturbing, and pretty telling, that such a high percentage of the sexual assaults happen here in Texas,” Libal said.

October 17, 2011 New Times
We reported last week from the scene of a Southwest Ranches town hall meeting where so many people showed up to protest a proposed immigrant detention pen that BSO deputies just started blocking people from entering the council chambers, citing fire code. The detention center wasn't on the agenda -- it's been in the works for years now -- and it was only mentioned on the record by a few activists who made it in for the public-comment period. A few weeks earlier, Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff made a few heads spin with his comment that a "cone of silence" existed over the issue of the detention center, because Homeland Security and the prison contractor "asked" council members not to talk about it. Well, pissed-off residents have gone to what may be their last resort: local congressional representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And she sent a letter to Mayor Jeff Nelson, rebuking him for the perceived lack of transparency. Wasserman Schultz had previously signed a letter in support of the detention center, much to the ire of her Southwest Ranches and Pembroke Pines constituents who say, "not in my backyard" (that's actually a sign that some of them have held up at rallies). But when the accusations of silence and mystery start flying? Now that's something even a heavily funded, consensus-building congresswoman can take a stand against. Hours before the town council meeting on Thursday night, Mayor Nelson apparently had a phone conversation with Debbie.

October 11, 2011 Albuquerque Journal
Onetime prison guard Anthony Townes is now about two years into an 18-year state prison sentence after he admitted raping four women at Camino Nuevo Women’s Correctional Facility in 2007. The civil lawsuit filed by some of the women, however, still is months away from being resolved. Trial in the 2009 case filed by Heather Spurlock and two other former inmates at the detention facility was to have begun this month. Several postponements were requested by the defendants including Townes, former warden Barbara Wagner and the Corrections Corporation of America, the private contractor that operated the prison at the time. Camino Nuevo in 2007 was run as an adult prison and was taking overflow from the women’s prison in Grants. It is now a juvenile detention center operated by the state Children, Youth and Families Department. A primary reason for the latest trial delay was the late disclosure of two additional women who claimed sexual abuse by Townes but who are not involved in the civil lawsuit. The defense said it needed more time to interview those witnesses before trial. Attorneys for the victims said their anticipated testimony about “the traumatic, invasive and highly personal experience of sexual assault” is only made worse by having to repeatedly prepare for trial. CCA was well aware of the additional sexual assault victims, anyway, they said. U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson, who has now set a firm trial date of Feb. 6, previously ruled Townes civilly liable for the rapes. He has dismissed some claims against CCA. Among questions for the jury will be whether Townes’ assaults can be legally charged to CCA negligence or deliberate indifference in operating the facility, principally over what the victims contend was a custom of discouraging inmate complaints against staff. The women’s lawyers will try to give the jury a picture of what happened during the incidents, as well as the context in which each assault took place and how CCA responded. Plaintiffs’ expert Manuel D. Romero said in a report he believes CCA “did not provide a safe and secure living environment for (women) in the Camino Nuevo facility.” He said the fact that “such horrific crimes” could be undetected for several months shows there are “systemic failures within the facility.” He said in a report there was a “clear lack of accountability over Mr. Townes and his movement within the prison.” Plaintiffs’ attorneys may also seek to place Townes’ assaults in the broader context of underreporting of prison problems. Documents in the court file include excerpts from testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 2008 about a former CCA manager-turned-whistleblower who said the company maintained dual sets of quality assurance reports. The versions sent to government contracting agencies reportedly failed to include “zero tolerance” events including riots, escapes, unnatural deaths and sexual assaults at company-run facilities. CCA has said in court documents that it put Townes on leave and required him to surrender his badge.

October 7, 2011 Forbes
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Harley Lappin (55) enjoyed a 25 year career of distinguished service when he announced that May 7, 2011 would mark the beginning of his retirement. He had been director for about 8 years. That announcement also came at around the same time as a revelation that Lappin had been arrested for driving under the influence near his home in Annapolis, MD. According to numerous news sources, the BOP has stated that Lappin’s resignation had nothing to do with the DUI event. Okay, we’ll give him that. We all make mistakes, some worse than others, but for a man who made a career of holding inmates accountable for their actions it must have been a serious blow to Lappin and those that knew him. However, we live in a forgiving society and, lucky for Lappin, some are more forgiving than others. In his case, Corrections Corporation of America had an offer to not only forgive Lappin for his lapse in judgement for driving drunk, but also to bring him out of retirement. Less than a month after leaving the BOP, Corrections Corp offered Lappin the role of Chief Correctional Officer (don’t see many of those positions in corporate America….but maybe we should). Upon accepting the job, Lappin said, “I look forward to continuing my career in corrections with a reputable organization like CCA.” Nice touch. On May 25, 2005, while Lappin was Director, the BOP awarded a $129 million contract to Corrections Corp. for management of a low-security federal factility in Youngstown, OH. In April 2009, again while Lappin was Director, the BOP awarded Corrections Corp a contract to house criminal alien offenders at its facility in Adams County, Mississippi. In fact, these are just a few of the awarded contracts to Corrections Corp. from federal agencies, including the BOP. According to 10-K (SEC Annual Filing for 2010), the federal government accounts for 43% of the total revenue of the company. Business is booming in the prison sector these days. According to Market Watch, activist investor Bill Ackman made a good call on the prison industry back in October 2009 (before the big insider cases) by saying about an investment in Corrections Corp that, “It’s also a hedge against your hedge fund business, because as the SEC ramps up….”, prompting laughter at the Value Investing Congress in New York where he was speaking. He got that call right. Ackman’s real interest in Corrections Corp was for a play on the real estate it owns….hey, he’s an investor but it seems a little cold. However, many investors think it’s a good call. I’m sure Ackman and many other investors in the publicly traded Corrections Corp. (NYSE: CXW) are looking for a good return on their investment. There are a lot of pressures to perform and earn a profit. My hope is that Lappin will be the best Chief Corrections Officer that he can be without having to call in any favors from his old friends he made at the BOP. Like I said, I’m HOPING.

October 5, 2011 AP
The Associated Press is asking a federal judge to unseal the settlement agreement between an Idaho inmate and private prison company Corrections Corp. of America. The confidential settlement between Marlin Riggs and CCA was reached last month in a widely publicized lawsuit that alleged rampant violence at a CCA-run prison near Boise. Riggs originally asked for $55 million in damages, saying the prison was nicknamed "Gladiator School" and that guards knew he was about to be attacked but failed to protect him. Riggs said he suffered serious injuries in the attack, and required facial surgery to allow him to breathe normally. The AP is asking the federal judge to open the settlement because the news organization contends the lawsuit raises profound and far-reaching issues of public interest and concern.

September 30, 2011 Nashville Post
A Florida judge has ruled that lawmakers' plan to privatize prisons via the state budget is unconstitutional. The move would have given Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America and its main rival The GEO Group the chance to bid on 29 prisons in 18 counties in the southern part of the Sunshine State. She said the DOC could have initiated privatization and presented a business case to the Legislature. But neither Gov. Rick Scott nor the DOC requested the massive privatization, which popped into the budget late in the session. The DOC scheduled a bid opening on Tuesday for offers from companies interested in operating the prisons. Fulford enjoined the state from proceeding, but that edict will probably be stayed if the state appeals. Shares of CCA (Ticker: CXW) are off about 2.4 percent this afternoon and have fallen about 9 percent this year.

September 20, 2011 AP
A potential class-action lawsuit against the nation's largest private prison company over allegations of violence at the Idaho Correctional Center has been settled in federal court. The agreement between the inmates and Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boise. In it, CCA doesn't acknowledge the allegations but agrees to increase staffing, investigate all assaults and make other sweeping changes at the lockup south of Boise. If the company fails to make the changes, the inmates can ask the courts to force CCA to comply. The inmates, represented by the ACLU, sued last year on behalf of everyone incarcerated at the CCA-run state prison. They said the prison was so violent it was dubbed "Gladiator School," and that guards used inmate-on-inmate violence as a management tool and then denied prisoners medical care as a way to cover up the assaults. CCA has denied all the allegations as part of the settlement, but the agreement is governed under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which only applies in cases in which prisoners' Constitutional rights have been violated. The agreement came after both sides spent three days in federal mediation sessions last week. In the lawsuit, the inmates cited an Associated Press investigation from three years ago that found the private prison had more cases of inmate-on-inmate violence than all other Idaho prisons combined. "The unnecessary carnage and suffering that has resulted is shameful and inexcusable," the ACLU wrote in the lawsuit. "ICC not only condones prisoner violence, the entrenched culture of ICC promotes, facilitates, and encourages it." While the prison is owned by the state, it is run for a profit by CCA under a contract with the Idaho Department of Corrections. The inmates claimed the company made decisions based on profit, rather than on "responsible administration of the prison." Under the settlement, CCA has agreed to leave more prison beds open so it can easily move threatened inmates to new cellblocks when necessary. It also agreed to report all assaults that appear to amount to aggravated battery to the Ada County Sheriff's Office, to increase the level of training given to guards and to discipline staffers who don't take appropriate measures to stop or prevent assaults.

September 15, 2011 Huffington Post
Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez is a 50-year-old legal resident with a mental disability. In 2004, Gomez was detained because of a dispute at a grocery store over a bag of tomatoes. His detention led him into a labyrinth of abuse and neglect -- in an immigration system that increasingly puts profit over justice by handing the reins to private prison corporations. HuffPost LatinoVoices and Cuéntame's Immigrants For Sale campaign have documented the case of Guillermo, who got lost in this system, while his mother Dolores Gomez-Sanchez spent years desperately searching for answers. The problem: Guillermo was sent to a private detention facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Dolores approached immigration authorities, but time and again was told that because Guillermo was in a CCA facility his case was no longer their problem. At one point the only information immigration officials could offer her was that Guillermo was beaten by guards and hospitalized after requesting to use a bathroom. Private prison corporations like CCA do not care who and how they lock immigrants up. At a rate of up to $200 per inmate per night, this is the "perfect" money scheme. As such, CCA failed to report Guillermo's condition -- why should they? The longer Guillermo was locked up the more money in their coffers. Guillermo spent two years in CCA's detention center. At average contract rates, the operator pocketed an estimated $90,000 off of his incarceration. According to Bardis Vakili, the lawyer handling the Gomez-Sanchez case, this is a typical case where families have a hard time locating their detained relatives. "Getting to these big corporations represents a nightmare for people that don't have a law degree," he said. Detained immigrants also don't have the right to an attorney, which further exacerbates their struggle. CCA along with the GEO GROUP and Management and Training Corporation currently profit close to $5 billion a year -- with immigrant detention revenue representing a strong portion of their income. They view the anti-immigrant movement as a positive step to increase the value of their stock. In fact, this year CCA's share price is at record levels, oscillating around $26. In 2010, CCA CEO Damon T. Hininger received $3,266,387 in total compensation. The more immigrants detained, the more bed spaces they can fill and the more their stock shoots up. It's the perfect money machine and they have no intention of letting that go. Just last year the "major three" spent close to $20 million in lobbying and campaign contribution efforts. These corporations have been tied to the passage of anti-immigrant laws such as Arizona's SB1070 and Georgia's HB87 in an effort standardize the criminalization of immigrants across the country. As Guillermo's story demonstrates, the consequence of this is a system that eats immigrants up in a for-profit scheme. As Guillermo himself puts it, once you are in "it is very hard to get out."

September 14, 2011 AP
An inmate who sued a privately run Idaho prison over allegations of extreme violence and medical neglect has reached a settlement with the operator, Corrections Corporation of America. Meanwhile, dozens of other inmates who also sued Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA in federal court are in settlement talks with the company, possibly ending their potential class-action case by the end of the week. Marlin Riggs and the other inmates claimed the Idaho Correctional Center south of Boise was so violent that it's called "Gladiator School," and that guards used inmate-on-inmate violence as a management tool and then denied injured prisoners adequate medical care. The settlement between Riggs and CCA was filed under seal in Boise's U.S. District Court on Monday, and both sides reached a confidentiality agreement, so the terms weren't available. Before the settlement, Riggs was seeking $55 million in damages. Neither Riggs' attorney, James Huegli, nor CCA spokesman Steve Owens immediately returned messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. A CCA spokeswoman at the Idaho Correctional Center referred all calls to Owens. Riggs filed his lawsuit in 2009, saying that CCA's prison guards failed to protect him from violence at the hands of other inmates even though he told the guards he was about to be attacked. He also contended that after the attack, CCA employees failed to adequately treat his injuries. Several other inmates at the prison filed similar lawsuits in federal court around the same time, and a judge decided to consolidate them into one case. The American Civil Liberties Union took on the task of representing the inmates in the consolidated lawsuit, and they asked for class-action status on behalf of everyone at the lockup. CCA has denied all of the allegations in the lawsuit, saying that the Idaho prison is run in accordance with state and federal standards. In the joint lawsuit, Riggs originally asked for $155 million — the total net income that CCA reported for 2009 — and the rest of the inmates asked the court to order CCA to take steps to reduce the violence at the prison. Once Riggs' case was split from the other prisoners' claims, however, he changed his request for damages to $55 million. The rest of the inmates still aren't asking for money from the company, just for changes in the way CCA runs the lockup. Just before Riggs and CCA began settlement talks, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge tossed out Riggs' claim of inadequate medical care, saying he had failed to take all the steps required by the prison's formal complaint policy before taking the matter to the courts. In his lawsuit, Riggs said he was "one of the scores of prisoners brutally assaulted as a result of defendants' deliberate indifference to prisoner safety." Riggs, who is 48, was living in a general population housing unit called L-Pod in 2008 when he said gang members in the unit ordered him to begin paying "rent" or face being beaten. Riggs said they followed up the threat by stealing his headphones, food and other personal belongings. The next day, Riggs said, at least four inmates returned to his cell and told him he must leave or fight all of them. Riggs told the prisoners he would leave, and he pressed the cellblock's emergency button. A guard let him exit and sent him to talk to another guard. But when Riggs said he'd been threatened and asked to leave the unit, the guard asked Riggs to name the inmates who had threatened him. Riggs said he didn't know their names, but pointed out that the guard could look at security video to identify the prisoners. Riggs also offered to identify the inmates through photographs, but the guard refused to use either option. Instead, he ordered Riggs to return to his cell, according to the lawsuit. Riggs asked to speak to another guard, who also ordered Riggs back to the cellblock. By that time, the other prisoners were at dinner and Riggs was able to call his family to explain the situation. Within minutes of the end of the call, Riggs was attacked and beaten by another inmate, according to the lawsuit. He was knocked down, repeatedly kicked in the face and torso, his nose was broken, and the left side of his face was "smashed in." Blood spatters from the attack even reached the ceiling, according to the lawsuit. Riggs said that one of the guards who had ordered him to return to the cellblock eventually intervened, taking Riggs to the prison doctor. But while the prison doctor confirmed that his nose was broken, he refused to have the injuries X-rayed — a practice Riggs said was part of a common ICC effort to conceal the severity of attacked inmates' injuries. He was then sent to a segregated cell, where he was kept without medical follow-up for 15 days. The attack left him in enormous and constant pain, Riggs said in the lawsuit, and he ultimately needed an operation to allow him to breathe normally. "During those 15 days, Riggs was constantly bleeding from the nose, bones in his face were loose, there was a noticeable dent in his face, he was bleeding from the ears and nose, and he had difficulty breathing. When he slept, Riggs would lie in a pool of blood," the lawsuit said.

September 13, 2011 Tennessean
Former Metro Police Sgt. Mark Chesnut has settled a lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America that blamed the private prison company of negligence after an escapee shot and nearly killed him. Chesnut was shot five times by Joseph Jackson Jr. on June 25, 2009, after pulling over Jackson and his cousin on Interstate 40 near Bellevue. Unbeknownst to Chesnut, Jackson had just been sprung from a Mississippi prison owned by CCA. Jackson is serving 45 years in prison and his cousin Courtney Logan is serving 31 years. Chesnut sued CCA, accusing the company of not properly supervising Jackson. The lawsuit asked for $16.5 million, but court records do not indicate how much the case settled for. Court records show the settlement was reached in late August with a mediator.

September 1, 2011 St Petersburg Times
As Florida enters the uncharted territory of a huge expansion of private, for-profit prisons, this story serves as a cautionary tale. A citizen walks into a prison and says, Hello, I'd like to look at the visitors' sign-in log, which is a public record under state law. No, a prison official says. Things rapidly go downhill from there. Police are called, the citizen is given a trespass warning notice and now the citizen has filed a lawsuit, claiming his constitutional rights were trampled upon. He's Joel Chandler, 47, of Lakeland, a self-appointed vanguard of public records laws. He is very serious about what he does and has sold most of his worldly possessions to support himself. "I can't let go of it. It's a civil rights issue," Chandler says. Chandler has filed about three dozen lawsuits against school boards, medical examiners — and now, Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the 985-bed Moore Haven Correctional Facility in Glades County, near Lake Okeechobee, under a contract with the state. Florida has seven privately run prisons. By next year, there will be dozens more, after prisons in an 18-county section of South Florida are turned over to private operators. When Chandler went to Moore Haven on June 3, he brought a videocamera to record CCA's reaction to his public records request. That apparently did not endear him to the folks at the front desk. With his camera rolling, Chandler was asked to identify himself and declined, saying a citizen is not required to show an ID to see public records. CCA says that for obvious security reasons, anyone who enters their facilities is required to produce an ID. Videotaping is prohibited without the warden's approval (Chandler did show police his ID). Florida law says: "Any person shall have the right of access to public records for the purpose of making photographs of the record while such record is in the possession, custody, and control of the custodian of public records." Rather than let Chandler see the sign-in log, the prison asked Chandler to submit his request in writing. Then CCA called the cops. Glades County sheriff's deputies soon arrived on the scene. Chandler had no interest in what was on the visitors' log. He was testing CCA's compliance with the law. "What I care about is access to the documents," Chandler said. The prison's lawyers mailed Chandler a copy of the June 3 visitors' log soon enough. But Chandler didn't want a copy, he wanted to view the original, which he still hasn't seen. "My rights have been violated since June 3," Chandler said. He wants a written apology from the prison and wants prison officials to take a course in dealing with public records requests. Moore Haven's warden, Laura Bedard, referred questions to CCA corporate headquarters in Nashville. "This was not a typical public records request," CCA spokesman Steve Owen said. "They came in with a videocamera." Owen said safety and security is the No. 1 priority for the CCA staff. "We're going to work in good faith through the judicial process to resolve this matter," he said. Chandler went to the State Attorney's Office in LaBelle this week, hoping to jump-start a criminal investigation. He told officials CCA detained him for an hour against his will. And he's still waiting to inspect that visitors' sign-in log.

August 20, 2011 Knoxville News Sentinel
Leslie Hafner is the newest member of Gov. Bill Haslam's inner circle of advisers, but she is not new to state government. She started in 1995 with Gov. Don Sundquist's press office. "We had one fax (machine) for the whole state Capitol. We'd get news clips in the mail that were three days old. And in 1995, they redid the phone system to have voice mail for the first time," she recalls. "And then we got this new-fangled thing called computers with email capacity." ".. Now I have two cell phones I try to keep up with. Every legislator has my cell number I get about 100 emails a day not counting twitter and text messages." She adds a quip: "Thank you, technology, you're ruined my life." Hafner, 41, was named last month as the director of legislation, succeeding Dale Kelley in a position that amounts to being the governor's lead lobbyist, overseeing a team of legislative liaisons from various government departments in trying to see that 33 senators and 99 representative go along with the administration's wishes in lawmaking. "I'd never met her, but people kept talking about her, how good she was with legislators and her energy level," says Haslam. Hafner was working with a contract lobbying firm, McMahan Winstead Hafner Alexander, when Haslam first interviewed her early in the legislative session and hired her to assist Kelley, who continues to work for Haslam on special projects in West Tennessee. During the Sundquist administration, Hafner moved from the press office to the Department of Finance and Administration, where duties included working with the Legislature. She subsequently worked on government relations in several states for Corrections Corporation of America, then later as a lobbyist with the Nashville-based law firm of Bass Berry & Sims.

August 15, 2011 Street Insider
The 13F from Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital shows raised stakes in Citi (NYSE: C), JCPenney (NYSE: JCP), Family Dollar (NYSE: FDO), General Growth (NYSE: GGP) and Fortune (NYSE: FO) and a reduced stake in Kraft (NYSE: KFT). The fund sold out of its position in Corrections Corp. (NYSE: CXW).

August 4, 2011 Washington Post
The District is home to more lawyers per capita than any state in the union, yet when city officials or those aggrieved by the D.C. government find themselves in need of representation, they gravitate to a small, familiar fraternity. For instance, Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown (D), and members Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) have at one time or another been represented by Frederick D. Cooke Jr., the city’s former corporation counsel. For a time, it seemed Reed Smith partner A. Scott Bolden represented every person with a beef against the city. And the issue was renewed this week with the revelation that council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7) turned to David W. Wilmot to represent her before the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance regarding questions about her constituent services fund. The probe cleared her of the most serious charges leveled against her — that she had mismanaged her service money and had introduced legislation benefiting the landlord of her ward office in return for below-market rents. Wilmot no doubt did a creditable job representing Alexander, but the quality of his advocacy is not in question. What is questionable, and is particularly questionable for a city government under a microscope, is that Alexander would turn to perhaps the John A. Wilson Building’s most powerful and best-paid lobbyist for legal aid. Wilmot represents Wal-Mart, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Comcast, pharmaceutical manufacturers, hotel owners and others, according to city filings. Alexander said the decision to retain Wilmot, whose roots in city politics go back decades, was a no-brainer. “David Wilmot has been a family friend for years,” she said. “I’ve known him long before I was a council member.” She points out that her father used to play tennis with Wilmot and that he used to live in Hillcrest, in her ward. No doubt that friendship is powerful, and no doubt that District politics is a small world, as Alexander puts it. “It’s kind of hard to find someone that you can’t connect to something,” she said. “You know how they say there’s six degrees of separation? In D.C., there’s two.” But you don’t have to be an ethics maven to see the potential for at least the appearance of malfeasance in allowing lobbyists to render services to the politicians they lobby. All the same, here’s what an ethics maven thinks: “What you’ve just described is quite troubling,” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, a watchdog group. “It could well be a way for a special interest group to funnel resources to officeholders. . . . Most troubling, it could represent a means of gaining the allegiance and indebtment of the officeholder to the special interest.” A lot of doubts could be cleared up if there was any transparency about how and how much officeholders are paying for the services of their lawyer-lobbyists. But there’s no disclosure requirement. Alexander declined to discuss whether she paid Wilmot a fair market rate. “He was paid,” she said. “I’m not going to discuss my fee. . . . That’s my personal information.” There’s a similar lack of transparency about Cooke’s representation of Brown and Thomas. He lobbies on behalf of the Corrections Corp. of America, which runs an annex of the D.C. jail, and for Clear Channel Outdoor, which owns billboards in the city. Cooke and Wilmot noted that lawyers and lobbyists are bound by rules of professional conduct and city regulations, and they said they adhere to their requirements — which include avoiding conflicts of interest. “The fact of the matter is, with respect to persons I represent on the council, I don’t lobby them” Cooke said. “I don’t lobby Marion. I don’t go to him and say I’d like you to vote in favor of XYZ legislation or I’d like you to introduce XYZ legislation.” And now that he is representing Brown and Thomas in the course of their legal troubles, Cooke said he will no longer lobby them. But questions will persist as long as Brown and Thomas remain less than fully forthcoming with details of their financing, and Cooke said he’s being as specific as professional rules allow in saying they are “like every other client I have, that is to say, a fee for service.”

July 27, 2011 Courthouse News
Guards for Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's biggest private prison company, continue to abuse prisoners who sought a protective injunction after CCA guards stripped, beat, kicked and threatened to kill them, and "the warden himself" threatened their families, according to a new complaint in Federal Court. Five Hawaiian inmates serving their sentences on the mainland say the co-defendant Hawaii Department of Public Safety is failing to protect Hawaiian prisoners from brutal private prison guards. The five inmates at CCA's Saguaro prison in Eloy, Ariz., say they have suffered continuing retaliation and physical abuse from CCA guards, after the July 2010 prison fight that led to the original lawsuit. Eighteen Hawaiian inmates sued CCA in December 2010, seeking a protective injunction; the five inmates who sued this week have asked one too. The new complaints echo the complaints made in the first lawsuit, involving a fight in which "a lieutenant or other employee of CCA was injured." CCA gives its workers military-style ranks and titles. The plaintiffs claim that guards stripped, beat, kicked and threatened to kill them, banged their heads on tables while they were handcuffed. The original complaint claimed that "the warden himself" threatened inmates' families. The new complaint adds that "Inmates were told that if they did not provide written statements, their beatings would continue. Beatings, in fact, continued for those who refused to provide statements." The men say CCA "deliberately destroyed and failed to preserve evidence of their wrongdoing, including videotapes ... intercepted mail, delayed mail, denied mail and interfered with phone calls to family and attorneys" and "deliberately falsified reports." They say that Saguaro's Warden Todd Thomas participated in the abuses, Hawaii's on-site Public Safety monitor, John Ioane, did nothing to stop it. According to the new complaint: "Plaintiffs were stripped of nearly all of their clothing while being beaten, questioned, and humiliated. "Plaintiffs were threatened with harm to themselves and their families, including through such statements as: "a. 'We have your emergency contact information;' "b. 'We know who your family is and where they live and we are going to harm them;' "c. 'We are going to kill you;' "d. 'We will continue to beat you and the only way to stop that is to commit suicide;' "e. 'We will send you to hell;' "f. 'We will stick something up your ass.' "g. 'We will smash all the bones in your face.'" To conceal the abuses, CCA violated its own policy by refusing to videotape the acts, the complaint states. "Inmates were told that if they told anyone what had happened, they would be killed or beaten further. "CCA personnel, including the warden himself, threatened parents of some inmates, including with longer incarceration. ... "Inmates were required to get on their knees with their hands handcuffed behind their back, whereupon they were beaten by multiple officers employed by defendants. "Inmates were kicked while on the ground. ... "Inmates were denied prompt medical treatment for their injuries in an effort to conceal what had happened. "Inmates were told that if they did not provide written statements, their beatings would continue. "Beatings in fact continued for those who refused to provide statements." In January this year, a Hawaiian inmate sued CCA in Honolulu, claiming CCA prison guard Richard Ketland forced the inmate to give Ketland a blow job in his cell at the Saguaro prison in Arizona. Ketland, 64, was charged with felony unlawful sexual contact, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to probation.

July 23, 2011 AP
A campaign watchdog group and Democrats are criticizing Republicans for accepting thousands of dollars from special interests and lobbying firms at a fundraiser this spring despite a ban on in-session fundraising. The event was held March 31 at the mansion of Republican Gov. Bill Haslam. Drew Rawlins, executive director of the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press the fundraiser was legal. "You can do that all day long," Rawlins said. While lawmakers can't accept contributions during the legislative session, he said political parties can raise funds to pay for party operations and certain political activity, such as rent and salaries as well as get-out-the-vote activities and even television ads, so long as they do not expressly support or oppose a particular candidate. Haslam spokesman David Smith said "the event was not out of the ordinary." State parties, elected state officials and political action committees were required last week to file their disclosures for the first half of the year ending June 30. The state GOP's Legislative Campaign Committee's filing showed a number of individuals, businesses and groups — including political action committees — gave money during the session. Among them were the Tennessee Medical Association, liquor retailers and Corrections Corp. of America, all of which had business before the Legislature. The Medical Association, which represents physicians, was supporting Haslam's ultimately successful plan to cap non-economic damages like pain and suffering in medical malpractice and other personal injury lawsuits. Liquor store owners successfully battled grocery stores over allowing wine sales. And Corrections Corp. of America, which runs prisons nationwide, supported Haslam's budgetary reversal of a Bredesen decision to quit using a CCA-run prison. Dick Williams of the advocacy group Common Cause said he hoped "some of these are folks just interested in supporting good government, but it's not a coincidence that most of the larger ones are identified with major legislation." Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester called the Haslam-hosted fundraiser a "shakedown."

July 20, 2011 Tucson Citizen
Much has been made of Governor Brewer’s intimate ties to Corrections Corporation of America. Her Chief of Staff, Paul Senseman, is a former CCA lobbyist, and his wife is currently a lobbyist for the company. Brewer’s campaign manager and senior policy advisor, Chuck Coughlin, runs a consulting firm that also lobbies for CCA in Arizona. Brewer accepted a total of $60,000 in contributions from people associated with CCA for her campaign and the tax increase initiative that she was pushing last year. The scandal made waves after the passage of SB1070, raising questions about CCA’s role in drafting legislation that would potentially provide the company with millions more in contracts for immigrant detention facilities in Arizona. But Brewer is hardly the only powerful politician in Arizona with ties to this influential industry. A Cell-Out Arizona investigation has revealed that John Kavanagh (R-8), Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, has accepted numerous campaign contributions from lobbyists and others associated with Geo Group, the nation’s second largest private prison company and one of the bidders for a contract to build and manage 5,000 new prison beds in Arizona. Now we know why Kavanagh is such a staunch supporter of private prisons. He appeared last week on Phoenix Channel 8’s public affairs program, Horizon, debating the issue with Rep. Cecil Ash. In the 2010 election cycle, Kavanagh accepted at least 6 donations from lobbyists associated with Geo Group. According to Beau Hodai’s investigation for In These Times, “Geo Group employs consulting firm Public Policy Partners…While Public Policy Partners (PPP), an Arizona-based firm, has more than 30 Arizona clients, it only has two clients at the federal level: Geo Group (based in Florida) and Ron Sachs Communications, a Florida-based public-relations firm that, promotes prison privatization. PPP, as a firm, also appears to be an advocate for expanded use of private prisons. Federal lobbying records show PPP owner, John Kaites, lobbying on behalf of the firm on issues of “private correctional detention management.” Kavanagh’s campaign finance reports show that he accepted money from John Kaites as well as Ann Peralta Kaites, John’s lovely wife. He received his-and-hers matching donations from another husband and wife team, Ken and Laurie Quartermain. Ken is a lobbyist for Public Policy Partners. Several other donations came from lobbyists with PPP. It’s a shrewd move for Geo Group. Since CCA has bought the Governor’s office, the best way to get those lucrative contracts is to buy off the guy in charge of releasing the money for them—the Chair of Appropriations and outgoing Chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

July 5, 2011 Independent Record
Mike Mahoney, Montana State Prison’s warden since 1995, is retiring from the state next month and taking a job as assistant warden at a private prison in Shelby. “I still feel a calling to the corrections field and working in an institutional environment,” said Mahoney, who’s retiring after 31 years with the state, including 28 years in corrections. “I have the time in for retirement with the state of Montana, and an opportunity for me to have a second career.” Mahoney, 57, announced his retirement Tuesday. He’ll leave the state job Aug. 12 and start a month later as assistant warden at Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby, the state’s only operating private prison. Crossroads, opened in 1999, has 664 beds and houses state and federal prisoners. It’s owned by Corrections Corp. of America of Nashville, Tenn.

July 5, 2011 Nashville Post
Gov. Bill Haslam has picked Leslie Hafner to be his new director for legislation. Hafner had since February been deputy director for legislation to Dale Kelley, who is returning to West Tennessee to handle special projects for the governor’s office. The move is the fourth big change in 20 months for Hafner, a former director of government advocacy for Bass Berry & Sims who in late 2009 teamed to launch a lobbying firm. In January, she merged that venture with the firm run by veterans David McMahan and Beth Winstead before jumping to work with Kelley. Prior to her time at Bass, she also worked at Corrections Corp. of America and served in Gov. Don Sundquist’s administration.

June 8, 2011 Hernando Today
A sexual battery charge comes with a few stipulations – including a lack of consent by the victim. The rules change in the realm of psychotherapy. Many have been suspected of taking advantage of vague laws and patient vulnerability. In the case against a former psychiatrist at the Hernando County Jail, early reports indicated the doctor cleverly knew how to toe the line between permitted contact and battery. He bargained with them, according to a report filed in March by the Florida Department of Health. More specifically, he said he would withhold their prescription drugs unless they allowed him to fondle them or inspect their private areas, according to court documents. "The women in the case perhaps understood they were getting some sort of benefit out of it," said Assistant State Attorney Brian Trehy, recalling his early interpretation of the case. "In that sense, it's permitted conduct. Traditional battery doesn't apply." Newer allegations have surfaced suggesting the doctor brazenly crossed the legal boundary. One Fort Lauderdale attorney has accused Dr. James Yelton Rossello of sexually assaulting three former inmates at the jail. Samuel Rogatinsky said Yelton's behavior warrants a charge of sexual misconduct by a psychotherapist. "We'll definitely be in touch with the state attorney," Rogatinsky said Tuesday after the news broke that a third plaintiff had joined the lawsuit. Yelton's former employer, Corrections Corporation of America, also is being sued. CCA managed the jail until August 2010. The company has since fired Yelton. Seven years ago, the Florida Department of Health came under fire for casting aside hundreds of complaints from female patients alleging sexual misconduct from their male psychotherapists. The cases never were reported to law enforcement. A researcher filed the complaint. An investigation ensued and the allegation was sustained. Stacks of written complaints, some dated as far back as 1980, were reopened. Media calls were made to a spokeswoman with the Department of Health, but a request seeking the results of the comprehensive review from 2004 went unanswered. The Pinellas County researcher who filed the complaint has since said publicly he was encouraged with the way the agency reacted and adjusted. That doesn't mean all obstacles have been removed. "I just think they're all going by this statute in Florida and it's a crazy statute," said Rogatinsky. "Maybe it's also a politics issue. I don't know. They just don't go after doctors. It seems so many can get away with sexually abusing patients without repercussions. "It's unbelievable," Rogatinsky continued. "It's like doctors have a free pass and license to abuse patients." Rogatinsky started an advocacy group, Ax Sex Offenders Now, which counsels sex abuse victims and also aims to bring more allegations to the attention of law enforcement, according to its website. The plaintiffs in the Yelton suit accused him of massaging their legs, propositioning them for sex, probing them for information about their sexual preferences and requiring one of them to sit on his lap while he had an erection. Trehy said in March he would investigate the case after the initial reports came out about Yelton's alleged misbehavior. He also said at the time an arrest seemed unlikely.

June 3, 2011 Mother Jones
Less than a month after retiring from his post as Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Harley G. Lappin has been hired to a top position at the nation's largest private, for-profit prison contractor, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). In a move that has gone virtually unnoticed by the press except on the business pages, Lappin, who had run the BOP since 2003, has been named CCA's Executive VP and Chief Corrections Officer. According to a company press release, his responsibilities will include "the oversight of facility operations, health services, inmate rehabilitation programs, [and] purchasing." Lappin announced his retirement in March, a few days before making public his arrest, the previous month, on DUI charges in Maryland. In a memo apologizing to BOP employees, Lappin admitted to a "lapse in my judgment...giving rise to potential embarrassment to the agency," but he refused to acknowledge a direct link between his arrest and his retirement. The announcement of his appointment to a leadership position at CCA came just over three weeks after his effective retirement date of May 7. Taking advantage of two concurrent 30-year trends--toward mass incarceration and toward privatization of government services--CCA has grown to a $1.6 billion company that operates 66 facilities in 20 states, with approximately 90,000 beds. It has become notorious for its poor treatment of prisoners, and for numerous preventable injuries and deaths in its prisons and immigrant detention centers. About 40 percent of CCA's business comes from the federal government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Bureau of Prisons. As BOP director, Lappin would have overseen government contracts with CCA worth tens of millions of dollars. CCA spends approximately $1 million annually on lobbying on the federal level alone. A press release from the invaluable Private Corrections Working Group notes that Lappin's quick trip through the government-to-industry revolving door is hardly unique in the Bureau of Prisons' history: "Lappin joins another former BOP director already employed with CCA, J. Michael Quinlan, who was hired by the company in 1993. He retired as director of the BOP in 1992, several months after settling a lawsuit that accused him of sexually harassing a male BOP employee. While settling the suit, Quinlan denied allegations that he made sexual advances to the employee in a hotel room." Advertise on MotherJones.com In addition, there's the case of the recently appointed head of the U.S. Marshals Service, Stacia Hylton, who until 2010 was the Federal Detention Trustee. In between serving in these two high-ranking government positions, Hylton worked as a consultant for the GEO Group, the nation's second largest private prison contractor. During Hylton's tenure, the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee gave several contracts to GEO; and the U.S. Marshals Service, like ICE and the BOP, houses federal detainees in privately owned prisons, including some run by GEO. "Federal ethics rules do not prohibit former high-ranking employees such as Lappin and Hylton from working for private companies, even when those companies contract with the same federal agencies where those former officials were employed," the Private Corrections Working Group points out. "An Executive Order issued by President Obama restricts appointees from taking official actions that directly and substantially affect immediate former clients and employers; however, that ethics rule was not applied to Hylton and it has been waived for over two dozen other federal officials, according to a report by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics."

June 1, 2011 St Petersburg Times
Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis recommended Wednesday cutting his agency's budget for next year by more than $1.5 million, which is a 3.77 percent reduction from the current budget. That proposed reduction falls well short of the $2.5 million County Commissioners had asked Nienhuis to cut. The agency's expenditures made up about 85 percent of the total budgets of the five constitutional offices. Combined, commissioners had requested that the constitutionals shed $3 million from their budgets. Among the highlights of Nienhuis' proposed budget, his first since taking over as sheriff on Jan. 1, he noted in a memo that employees would have their wages frozen for the third consecutive year and two more deputy positions would be eliminated, bringing the total cuts to 40 since fiscal year 2008-2009. Also, the memo said, the cost to operate the county jail is nearly $1.5 million less than the projected cost would have been under Corrections Corporation of America, which for 22 years was contracted to run the jail until the sheriff's office took over operations in August.

June 1, 2011 Market Wire
CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) (NYSE:CXW - News), America's leader in partnership corrections, announced that effective June 1, 2011, Harley G. Lappin, 55, shall serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Corrections Officer (CCO). In this role, Mr. Lappin will be responsible for the oversight of facility operations, health services, inmate rehabilitation programs, purchasing and TransCor, the Company's wholly-owned transportation subsidiary. He succeeds Richard P. Seiter, who announced his decision to step down as CCO earlier this year, effective May 31, 2011. Mr. Lappin, as a career correctional administrator, previously served as the Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) -- the nation's largest correctional system, a position he held since 2003, prior to retirement in May 2011. He served in a variety of roles with the Bureau of Prisons for more than 25 years, beginning in 1985, including Regional Director, Warden of the United States Penitentiary in Indiana, and Warden of the Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina, among other positions. As Director of the BOP, Lappin had oversight and management responsibility for 116 federal prisons, 14 large, private contract facilities and more than 250 contracts for community correction facilities, in total comprising more than 215,000 inmates managed by 38,000 employees, with a $6.4 billion budget.

May 26, 2011 Atlanta Progressive News
Earlier this month, Georgia became the third state to enact some of the most anti-immigrant legislation in recent U.S. history, when Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, signed the bill, HB 87. Among other things, the bill allows law enforcement officials to ask suspicious individuals to prove that they are U.S. citizens. In practice, critics say, "suspicious looking" is another way of saying "Hispanic", raising concerns that the law encourages racial profiling. The law is modeled on Arizona's anti-immigrant law, passed last summer. Utah became the second state earlier this year. Both state's laws are currently held up in the courts, where federal judicial circuits in the Western U.S. have not been favourable on the grounds that the laws are state or local interference with federal immigration policy. The laws have already led to statewide boycotts in Georgia and are expected to bring legal challenges as well. In part, national lobbyists targeted Georgia because they wanted to set up a court battle in a more conservative eastern U.S. federal judicial circuit. Meanwhile, supporters of the bill are celebrating, including the right-wing Republican base that supported the bill, as well as the for-profit prison corporations which stand to profit from the massive influx of suspected undocumented immigrants through the private prison system. "Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), we know they have lobbyists here [at the legislature]," said Larry Pellegrini of Georgia Rural Urban Summit. CCA is one of the largest for-profit prison corporations in the U.S. "They [CCA] will benefit by the legislation. They have a corporate stake in it around the country," Pellegrini told IPS. Pellegrini also noted that the lobbying effort to pass anti- immigration laws in Georgia was part of a national effort. One national lobbying group that was instrumental in bringing together business interests and lawmakers was the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). It was an ALEC task force, which included a representative from a private prison - along with lawmakers from Arizona and other states - who helped draft Arizona's immigration bill, which became a template for Georgia's law as well. According to CCA reports obtained by National Public Radio, the corporation believes that immigration detention is its next big growth market. CCA's earnings were up 15 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago. CCA reported earnings of 40.3 million dollars, or 37 cents per share, on revenue of 428 million dollars in first quarter of 2011, according to the Nashville Business Journal newspaper. CCA's revenue for 2009 was 1.7 billion dollars. The federal government pays over 60 dollars per detainee per day to house men at CCA's Stewart Detention Center, the largest immigration detention centre in the U.S., located in Lumpkin, Georgia. CCA's top management in Tennessee contributed the largest block of out-of-state campaign contributions received by Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer. Brewer employs two former CCA lobbyists as aides who assisted with signing Arizona's SB 1070 into law. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, CCA spent 770,000 dollars lobbying at the federal level in 2009 and has spent as much as 3.4 million since 2005. Georgia State Sen. Donald Balfour, a key Republican supporter of Georgia's HB 87, in 2006, 2007, and 2008 received 2,000 dollars each year in donations from CCA; in 2009 he received 1,000; and in 2010, 750. Governor Deal received from CCA 5,000 dollars in 2010 for the General Election. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has received at least 7,000 dollars from CCA since 2006. Georgia Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers has received at least 3,500 dollars from CCA since 2008.

May 26, 2011 St Petersburg Times
Two women who allegedly were molested by a psychiatrist while they were inmates at the Hernando County jail have filed a lawsuit against the doctor and his former employer, and one of the women has lodged a new accusation against him. In March, the Florida surgeon general restricted Dr. James A. Yelton Rossello's license after four female inmates alleged that between November 2009 and August 2010 the doctor asked that they expose themselves, give him lap dances or kisses and implied he would trade medication for sex. Corrections Corporation of America, which operated the Hernando jail and employed Yelton, fired him. In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday, one of the women says Yelton digitally penetrated her after he asked that she pull down her pants during a therapy session. Prosecutor Brian Trehy has previously said that due to a complex Florida statute, the state couldn't charge Yelton, 54, with sexual misconduct because none of the inmates claimed he had penetrated them. After learning of the new allegation, Trehy said, "It's worthy of exploration. I'm willing to consider what she has to say." However, he said, because she didn't say anything when the alleged attack first occurred, it might make a criminal charge difficult to prosecute. Yelton's Gainesville attorney, Jesse Smith, said his client still denies the claims. Smith said he is negotiating a settlement with the Florida Department of Health that could allow Yelton to be freely practicing again by late summer. He declined to comment on the lawsuit. The suit seeks damages in excess of $15,000 from Yelton and CCA, which for 22 years was contracted to run the jail until the county took control of it in August. The complaint says Yelton battered one woman and sexually battered the other, and it accuses Corrections Corporation of negligent hiring, training and supervision. "The main goal is obviously to stop him from going after inmates anymore," said the women's attorney, Samuel Rogatinsky of Fort Lauderdale. "This man can't treat women." The Times interviewed the women Wednesday at their homes. Both women, who had worked as dancers, had been in jail on theft and drug charges. Because they are alleged victims of sex crimes, the two are identified by their initials, as they are in state documents. During a session around July 2010, said T.A., 21, Yelton asked her to pull down her pants and penetrated her with so much force she was bruised and bleeding. She pulled up her pants, unlocked the door and ran out. After she declined to meet with Yelton again, T.A. said, guards interviewed her, and she told them everything, except details of the supposed sexual assault. She met with him once more, T.A. said; he apologized, asked that she not tell anyone what had happened and offered to buy her a new car upon her release if she didn't. Her allegation that she met with Yelton after telling guards about his behavior contradicts CCA spokesman Steve Owen's previous assertion that, after accusations first surfaced, the company immediately placed Yelton on administrative leave. On Wednesday, Owen would only say that CCA takes the safety and fair treatment of its inmates seriously. In February, Health Department investigators interviewed T.A. Again, she did not tell them that she had been penetrated. "I was really ashamed. I didn't want anyone to know," T.A. said Wednesday. "I was an inmate. Who was going to believe me?" T.A. said she changed her mind when she learned that Yelton had allegedly targeted other women and she wanted it to stop. "He had done it to so many people," she said, "that I felt like someone should step up." S.B., 25, the other former inmate suing Yelton, described him as "creepy" and said he told her that when she was released, he would take her shopping in exchange for sex. "He was doing this to all of us at our most vulnerable points," she said. "He was supposed to help us, not use and abuse us."

May 24, 2011 Follow the Money
Florida lawmakers finalized the state’s $69.7 billion budget on May 7 after intense negotiations. Effects of this 2011–2012 budget will be felt across the state, as it will reduce government spending by $4 billion. Part of these proposed savings will come from privatizing at least 16 prisons in the southern third of the state, quadrupling the number of Florida prisons run by private firms. Put mildly, Florida’s new budget will result in a drastic reorganization of the nation’s third-largest penal system. The private prison industry was politically active during last fall’s election, giving nearly $1 million in campaign contributions—the most the industry has given over the last decade, as illustrated by the Institute’s Industry Influence tool. The majority of the money was supplied by four companies–GeoGroup, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), Global Tel* Link, and Armor Correctional Health Services. Major Private Prison Contributors to Florida’s 2010 State Elections -- Company Total -- Geo Group & Geo Care $822,415 Corrections Corporation of America $138,994 Global Tel* Link $15,000 Armor Correctional Health Services $9,500 Total $985,909 Geo Group, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, operates 20 federal prisons and 24 state prisons in 10 states, with four in Florida. Geo Group gave $705,000, and Geo Care, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geo Group, gave an additional 117,415. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), based in Nashville, Tennessee, operates 66 prisons in 19 states and the District of Columbia, including five in Florida, according to their most recently disclosed 10-K report. Global Tel* Link is a telecommunications and software company that exclusively works in prisons. The company provides software and services related to prison management and communications systems. Armor Correctional Health Services, based in Miami, Florida, is a health care company that exclusively operates in prisons, providing inmates with medical, dental, and mental health treatment. It was founded in 2004. Since the state’s contribution limits cap corporate donations at $500 per candidate per election, these private prison firms gave most of their money to the state Democratic and Republican parties, which can receive unlimited amounts from corporations. The companies demonstrated a signal preference for the Florida Republican Party, giving $783,494 compared to $143,000 to the Florida Democratic Party. Implementing the budget—and the prison privatization plan—is now the responsibility of the Legislative Budget Commission, a joint House-Senate committee. Of the 14 current committee members, five received donations from private prison interests in 2010, totaling $7,000. In descending order, they are: Senator Don Gaetz, $3,000; Senator Joe Negron, $2,000; Senator Nan Rich, $1,000; Representative Darryl Ervin Rouson, $500; and Representative Mike Horner, $500.

May 19, 2011 Nashville Post
Longtime Corrections Corp. of America board member William Andrews last Friday exercised 75,000 options that would have expired next February and then sold the resulting shares, pocketing a profit of more than $1.5 million. The timing was exquisite: Had Andrews waited until Monday afternoon, when CCA plunged on news that the Supreme Court will hear a constitutional-rights case involving CCA's top competitor, his take from the option transactions would have been smaller by more than $150,000. CCA shares (Ticker: CXW) are down about 4 percent year to date.

May 18, 2011 Dallas Observer
Pamela Weatherby, a 45-year-old Big Spring woman -- and, according to a federal suit filed Monday in Dallas, an "unstable insulin dependent diabetic" -- was serving a one-year sentence for drug possession at Dawson State Jail when she died last July. Now her parents and two sons say Weatherby would still be alive if not for the treatment she received from guards and medical staff at Dawson, which is on the Trinity River on W. Commerce Street. They're suing Corrections Corporation of America, the state jail's operator and the country's largest private prison outfit, over her death. Says the suit, which follows after the jump, Weatherby wasn't given off the regular insulin shots she needed -- she got oral diabetes treatment instead -- nor was she fed the special low-starch diet Texas requires for diabetic inmates. The suit recounts Weatherby's two months of diabetic comas after she was taken off insulin shots, blaming them on "CCA's deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs." CCA spokesman Mike Machak tells Unfair Park they hadn't been served yet and only just got a look at the suit. "However, at this point, it is important to understand that we take the health of every inmate in our care very seriously," he says. Lawyers for Weatherby's family didn't respond to messages, but Elisabeth Holland, a local nurse practitioner who runs Project Matthew, a faith-based medical program for incarcerated women, says she isn't surprised. "My opinion is that the health care in Dawson is worse than in a developing country," she says. "Any of those diseases -- HIV would be another one -- that require regular medication with regular screening gets lost." CCA is the only defendant named in the suit. But it also mentions one Quindlynn Gray, who, the suit alleges, signed off on Weatherby's health care at Dawson; Gray is listed as an employee of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which provides health care for Texas's corrections system. (That may not be the case very much longer, especially if private health care providers convince lawmakers to open the market.) The suit against CCA offers a blow-by-blow account of Weatherby's diabetic incidents at Dawson, where, the family alleges, her treatment didn't follow the course prescribed by the diagnostic intake facility Weatherby came through first. Within days of her arrival at Dawson, the suit says, Weatherby was taken off her scheduled insulin shots and given oral Glyburide instead -- ushering in "three consecutive days of diabetic comas," the suit says. Mistaking the comas for a suicide attempt, the suit says, jail officials had her transferred to a mental health unit in Gatesville, where she was put back on insulin shots and stabilized -- only to return to Dawson after a few days, where she was taken back off insulin and her comas started up again. At 1 a.m. on June 22, the suit says, guards found Weatherby unresponsive in her cell again; she was transferred to Parkland, stabilized, and returned to Dawson the next morning. Weatherby died July 14 after "yet another diabetic crisis", the suit says; an autopsy blamed effects from her diabetes. "CCA refused to treat Weatherby, ignored her complaints, and intentionally treated her incorrectly with wonton disregard for any serious medical needs," Weatherby's family claims, blaming the company for "a pattern and practice of failing to implement processes and procedures" the state requires.

May 18, 2011 Nashville Post
Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fun run by Bill Ackman, has sold all of the almost 8 million Corrections Corp. of America shares it held early this year. Ackman, who dove into CCA late in the summer of 2009 and held almost 10 percent of the company, looks to have made some money on his prison management bet: CCA shares (Ticker: CXW) rose quickly as he was building his stake, but have lagged the S&P 500 by 20 points since.

May 17, 2011 Hernando Today
An embattled police detective remains tangled in the thicket of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former co-worker who claims he threatened to shoot her fiancé out of jealousy. Bryan Drinkard, a former lieutenant with Corrections Corporation of America who is now a Brooksville police detective, was scheduled to be questioned Friday during a deposition, but that has been postponed indefinitely, said an attorney who works on the case. Other accusations made by the plaintiff against Drinkard include offering her gifts in exchange for sex at his house, refusing to leave her workstation after repeated requests, asking her to kiss him, touching her inappropriately, telling her he loved her, going through the personal numbers on her cell phone and making suggestive comments to her in front of inmates. He also was accused of waiting for her along her route home from work and pulling her over while he was employed by the Brooksville Police Department. In spite of the list of allegations, Drinkard is not a defendant in the case. The plaintiff, Stephanie Maggard, is suing CCA and another former supervisor, Adam Nigro. Nigro was fired by CCA in July 2007 for violating the company's sexual harassment policy, according to court documents. Maggard accused him of groping her at work. A trial date will be set June 8 by a general magistrate. The trial is expected to take place in the summer or fall. Maggard filed a lawsuit against the defendants after quitting her job in July 2007. At the time, CCA managed the Hernando County Jail. "During her employment, she was subjected to unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature from her supervisors," wrote her attorney, Ryan D. Barack. "The conduct included, but was not limited to, continuous sexual comments, requests to engage in sexual activities, unwanted physical contact and various other activities of a sexual nature." She is seeking emotional and back pay damages "on the grounds that her inability to work for the past four years is due to alleged conduct by her supervisors at CCA," Barack stated. Maggard's attorney stated she was told during her orientation in June 2006 by other male co-workers "that she had already been marked by Drinkard." Barack also stated Drinkard had told other correctional officers to "stay away from" Maggard because he "would be pursuing (her) himself." Among Maggard's responsibilities was to conduct rounds every 45 minutes and check on the inmates. She would tell Drinkard to leave because she had work to do, but he would instead sit at her desk and wait for her to return — sometimes for as long as 30 minutes, according to court records. "He would ask (the) Plaintiff personal questions, he would ask her to go out with him, offering gifts, asking her to go home with him to his home in the morning to have sex while his wife was at work," Maggard's attorney wrote. "He would constantly ask (the) Plaintiff to kiss him, putting his body very close to hers." Maggard constantly refused Drinkard's offers and rejected his advances, her attorney said. "He became more forward towards (the) Plaintiff by bringing her flowers, rousing the inmates, causing a big scene, and causing the inmates to cat call at (the) Plaintiff," Barack stated. "This was very humiliating to (the) Plaintiff." Whenever Drinkard saw her talking to a male co-worker, he would press his body against hers and put his head on her shoulder, according to court records. Barack stated Drinkard's behavior toward Maggard was witnessed by several CCA employees, including supervisors. "(Drinkard) would follow (Maggard) everywhere, constantly hounding her to have sex with him," wrote Barack. "At times, he would follow (her) down the hallway to the women's bathroom. On one occasion he pushed his way into the bathroom before (Maggard) could shut the door, causing her to push past him to hurriedly get out. He did this in front of (her) whole shift while they were all waiting to clock in for work." Maggard claimed she complained about the harassment to Nigro, who was a captain and Drinkard's supervisor. "(Nigro) stated that Lt. Drinkard did this to all females and to not make a big deal of it," Barack wrote. Maggard said the harassment caused stress at home, especially after her fiancé learned about Drinkard's behavior. Both men had more than one argument about it over the phone, according to court documents. Even after she moved to the day shift, Drinkard continued asking Maggard for sex, her attorney stated. "(The) Plaintiff received a phone call from Lt. Drinkard and he told her what had happened and then asked her how big her fiancé was," Barak wrote. "He said that he was going to beat him up and that he also had a gun and would shoot him." At this point, Maggard begged Drinkard to stop calling her and to stay away from her, according to court records. "Lt. Drinkard continued this behavior until he left for his new job," Barack wrote. "At his new position as a BPD officer, he would wait in his cruiser on (Maggard's) route to work and pull her over to talk. Eventually, she never heard from him or saw him again." A message left with a CCA spokesman was not returned Tuesday. Drinkard was forced to resign in February 2003 from his job as a Manatee County Sheriff's deputy after a former girlfriend filed stalking charges against him, according to public records. He's currently under an internal affairs investigation at the Brooksville Police Department. The reason for the probe has not been disclosed.

May 17, 2011 Nashville Post
Shares of Corrections Corp. of America plunged 10 percent Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear arguments in a case that will determine if employees of private prison operators can be sued for violating inmates civil rights. The case involving CCA competitor GEO Group stems from a prisoner’s 10-year-old accusations of mistreatment at the hands of guards at California facility. The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that prison management companies can’t be sued for constitutional right violations and other courts have extended that restriction to employees, but a California appeals has ruled that the GEO suit can target individual workers. Shares of CCA (Ticker: CXW) slid almost $3 after the Supreme Court decision was announced in the middle of the day Monday and recovered slightly to close at $23.37. Volume was very heavy, with more than 6.2 million shares changing hands, seven times the stock’s daily average. GEO shares slipped about 4 percent.

May 17, 2011 Hernando Today
Repairs at the Hernando County Jail are proceeding on schedule, with county commissioners expected to get a fuller briefing on costs and timetables later this week. County commissioners committed to spending no more than the $3 million they set aside in reserves to fix some of the more pressing problems at the 23-year-old facility. Those repairs, outlined by an engineering firm's report, include modifications to the plumbing and electrical systems, heating-air conditioning, electronic and life-safety alterations. Commissioners are also awaiting requests from bidders to complete a standalone medical facility on-site, which should address space needs. That facility is estimated to cost no more than $1.5 million. In February, commissioners voted unanimously to spend up to half of the $3 million on that medical facility. County Commissioner Jim Adkins said he is scheduled to meet with county facilities director Craig Becker Wednesday to get a full update on the jail progress. County Commissioner Dave Russell said repairs are continuing and the county is expected to save in excess of $1 million the first of operations since the sheriff took over operations from Corrections Corporation of America. Last September, tempers flared during a lengthy county commission meeting when they learned that a preliminary engineering report showing the cost of repairs to the Hernando County Jail would cost $14.9 million. Commissioners agreed the county is in no position to spend that much on such an aged facility. That estimate, obtained from an engineering report, came back five times the $3 million county commissioners had set aside in reserves to pay for expected repairs. "There's no way we're going to spend $14.9 million," Commissioner Jim Adkins said at the time. "We don't have it and we're not going to." Instead, commissioners authorized staff to solicit bids and quotes to accomplish various repairs needed at the jail, not to exceed $907,420. Last year, then-sheriff Richard Nugent dropped a bombshell on the county when he announced the Hernando County jail, then run by CCA, was in a terrible state of disrepair and estimated repairs could cost in the millions. In a slide presentation, Nugent showed roof leaks, rusted doors, safety problems, cracks and separations on the concrete floor, walls and ceiling. Conditions were so bad at the jail that it was doubtful the facility could stand long-term use, former clerk of the court purchasing consultant Lisa Hammond said in March.

May 11, 2011 Detention Watch Network
As the largest for-profit prison company in the country, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), prepares for its annual shareholders meeting, new data released today by the Detention Watch Network (DWN) sheds light on the growing influence of the private prison industry on the immigration detention system. Drawn from a variety of sources, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Reading Room, and the Federal Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, the data reveals the companies most heavily invested in the business of immigration detention – CCA, The GEO Group Inc., and the Management and Training Corporation – and suggests increased lobbying activity over the last decade, both in terms of dollars spent and government entities targeted. “For years, private prison firms have played a critical role in shaping public policy around immigration detention, pursuing the bottom line at the expense of basic civil rights and tax payer dollars,” said Emily Tucker, Director of Policy and Advocacy at DWN. “This data highlights deep corporate investment in the detention business, raising concerns about how the corporate profit-motive is fueling the expansion of the detention system as a whole.” According to research by DWN, corporations have increasingly devoted resources over the last decade to lobbying for policies and programs that will increase their opportunities to do business with the government. Of the five corporations with ICE contracts for which official federal lobbying records are currently available, the total expenditure on lobbying for 1999-2009 was $20,432,000, with CCA ($18,002,000) and GEO ($2,065,000) as the top two spenders. Lobbying efforts targeted a wide range of government entities, indicating a comprehensive strategy for influencing policy and legislation. Both CCA and GEO have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, as a lack of transparency and accountability has led to multiple cases of abuse and mismanagement in their facilities, resulting in the termination of contracts in a few recent cases. “ICE has called for sweeping changes in the immigration detention system,” said Tucker. “Yet they continue to partner with private prison firms that are part of the problem. We hope this research inspires further exploration into the relationship between prison corporations and the government at all levels. We need to reduce our dependence on detention and begin putting human rights over profits.” For the full collection of data, visit: http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/privateprisons

April 27, 2011 AP
A federal judge has agreed with The Associated Press and rejected Correction Corporation of America's request for a sweeping gag order in a lawsuit between Idaho inmates and the private prison company. In the lawsuit, the inmates ask for class-action status and say the Boise-area prison is so violent that it's called "Gladiator School." They say the guards allow brutal inmate violence and then deny injured prisoners adequate medical care. CCA denies the allegations. The case has garnered media attention, and in January CCA attorneys asked the judge for a gag order. The company said opposing attorneys were making inflammatory statements, and that continued news coverage would make it impossible to find a jury. The AP opposed the gag order, saying it amounted to a prior restraint on the press.

April 19, 2011 Tennessean
A Nashville woman can sue private prison giant Corrections Corporation of America for allegedly leaving her mentally ill grandson in solitary confinement for months without showering him or cleaning his cell, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday. United States District Court Senior Judge John T. Nixon dismissed the lawsuit in 2009 after ruling that Mary Braswell failed to show that her grandson, Frank Horton, had suffered a physical injury at the hands of Nashville-based CCA. The federal appeals court disagreed. In a split decision, the three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based court also ruled that Horton’s mental condition prevented him from filing an administrative grievance at the Metro Davidson County Detention Facility. Horton was being held in the prison — which houses felons with one- to six-year sentences and is operated by CCA under a contract with Metro government — for parole violations and assault. Horton had a history of psychiatric problems and was segregated from most other prisoners while in custody. Beginning after April 2006, Horton began remaining in his cell for days at a time and refused to take part in daily opportunities to exercise and bathe, according to court records. Prison officers had used force against Horton on several occasions, including an instance in January 2007 when he was forcibly removed from his cell to be bathed and to have his cell cleaned. That was never repeated after a new assistant warden, Michael Corlew, arrived in May 2007 and instructed officers to use force only in emergencies, according to testimony. In January 2008, prison officer Patrick Perry blew the whistle. He testified that Horton could speak only gibberish, that his cell was filthy with food trays on the floor and bacteria in the toilet, and that neither Horton nor his cell had been cleaned in nine months. Perry notified the Metro Public Health Department and lost his job the same day. Horton was transferred to a special needs facility in April 2008. Braswell’s attorney, John R. Clemmons, said Horton has since gone home, continues to recover and is living with his grandmother. 1 judge dissents -- CCA spokesman Steve Owen said it would be premature to comment because the company’s legal representatives were still reviewing the 6th Circuit’s decision and weighing how to proceed. In their opinion, the majority wrote that there was enough evidence to suggest CCA had a policy or custom that violated Horton’s civil rights. Corlew’s instructions to use force only in emergencies were cited, as was testimony that use-of-force reports were tracked by CCA and could be used to make decisions about employees’ annual bonuses and pay raises. “It’s our contention that they had every incentive not to remove Mr. Horton from his cell regardless of his need for medical attention,” Clemmons said. In a dissenting opinion, 6th Circuit Chief Judge Alice M. Batchelder strongly disagreed with her peers. She wrote that Braswell wrongly sued CCA, rather than individuals, without showing that corporate policymakers either had knowledge or acquiesced to the informal policy allegedly instituted by Corlew. “Our sympathy for Mr. Horton’s situation cannot permit us to ignore the law,” Batchelder wrote.

March 1, 2011 KBOI
Monday night in part one of our special investigation, KBOI 2News showed you why Corrections Corporation of America had been hit with almost $150,000 in medical fines at the Idaho Correctional Center, the private prison it runs south of Boise. In part 2 of his exclusive KBOI 2News investigation, Mike Murad tracks C.C.A’s money trail and discovers there’s an Idaho connection at the top of the list. The problems for C.C.A. haven’t been limited to Idaho but tonight we’ll show you which Idaho politician has benefited the most from the private prison company, why C.C.A. might be setting up shop in Idaho for years to come, and who could end up paying the tab in the long run. Yesterday we told you about serious allegations about substandard medical care at I.C.C. and serious fines because of it for the private company that runs the prison in Kuna. But the problems for C.C.A. are not limited to Idaho. We found complaints against C.C.A. in all 19 states they operate, all within the past decade, involving much more than just medical care. Last year the governor of Kentucky ordered 400 female inmates to be removed from a C.C.A. run prison after allegations of sexual misconduct by male guards. In 2009, C.C.A. settled with 21 former female workers in Colorado who claimed male managers forced them to have sex to keep their jobs. In Florida, a corrections officer pleaded guilty to smuggling drugs into a C.C.A. run jail. And in December, C.C.A. settled another lawsuit with the A.C.L.U. in California requiring, in part, the San Diego Correctional Facility hire more nurses. “It’s not just unique to this facility,” says B.S.U. Criminal Science Professor Dr. Michael Blankenship. Blankenship says part of the problem is that private prison companies like C.C.A. exist to make a profit. “If you’re not delivering profits,” say Blankenship, “who’s going to buy your stock?” We checked into the financial health of C.C.A. A decade ago on February 1st, 2001, their stock was trading at $2.50 a share. Four weeks ago, on February 1st, 2011, it was ten times that amount at $25.09 a share. Dr. Blankenship says he is not a fan of privately managed prisons because of the reality that they exist to make a profit. “I think the idea is terrible,” says Blankenship. “I think if there are some things the state is going to do, like incarcerate and take people’s freedom away, then they should not parcel that out and let someone make a profit out of that.” But not only does C.C.A. make money. They give money. KBOI 2News obtained a list of candidates receiving money from C.C.A. between 2003 and 2010. At the head of the pack receiving $19,000 is Idaho Governor Butch Otter. We called C.C.A. to find out why but the company declined our request for an on camera interview. Instead, Spokesman Steve Owen sent a statement that reads in part: “Because C.C.A.’s political contributions reflect the specific laws and limits of individual states, it is difficult to compare our corporate giving to elected officials from different regions of the country.” The disparity in campaign contribution is even more noteworthy when you consider of the 75,000 inmates C.C.A. supervises nationwide only 2,000 of them are here in Idaho. That’s less than 3%. “The governor has made no secret that he’s in favor of privatization,” says Blankenship. And apparently Governor Otter has been for awhile. Four years ago, Otter asked lawmakers to begin working on legislation that would have allowed private companies to build and manage prisons from the ground up. So far, lawmakers have shot it down. But given C.C.A.’s financial backing of Otter, and the governor’s preference toward private prisons, should we assume Idaho will have more privately run facilities in the future? KBOI 2News wanted to ask Governor Otter that question. But for the past two weeks his office has told us that his schedule is too busy to schedule a 15 minute interview. If money is the only measuring stick, C.C.A. appears to be doing what they claim to do. Save the state of Idaho money. About 7,500 inmates are currently behind bars in Idaho prisons. It costs Idaho taxpayers about $52 a day per inmate, which amounts to just under $19,000 a year. 2,000 inmates are at I.C.C. The state is paying C.C.A. about $40 a day for each of them, which is less than $15,000 per prisoner per year. The annual difference is almost $9 million dollars. But Professor Blankenship says it’s not a fair comparison, partly because of who is housed where. Part of the state’s responsibility is the 400 inmates in maximum security and death row. I.C.C. houses only medium and minimum security inmates who are cheaper to oversee. "You have to cut somewhere in order to make a profit," says Blankenship. Steve Hernandez has served time at Idaho's state run prisons as well as I.C.C. and says there is a difference, especially when it comes to medical care. At I.C.C., Hernandez says “If someone got beat up, they'll get stitches but they won't take X-Rays. Let's say someone gets beat and gets their jaw hurt. They don’t X-Ray it. They refuse to X-Ray it,” says Hernandez. “They'll just patch you up and send you to the hole. And that’s pretty much it.” KBOI 2News asked Hernandez if that was the case at state run facilities as well. “No,” he says. “If you had a problem at the state run facilities they take care of it. They help you out." Last year's videotaped inmate assault at I.C.C. has gotten a lot of attention. But maybe the most troubling aspect of what's happening at I.C.C. is what's happening after the prison violence. After the assault that left him with a broken nose and black circles under his eyes, former I.C.C. inmate Mark Snowball documented months of chronic breathing problems and bloody noses. He even started working on a lawsuit in prison, not for money, but for medical care. Snowball says even that didn't get C.C.A.’s attention. "They just said you'll just have to wait until you're released because you're going to be released soon," said Snowball. And when Snowball was released in January, 2010, his lawsuit in Ada County's Fourth District Court was thrown out. The state of Idaho and C.C.A. were no longer responsible, because Snowball was no longer an inmate. His medical problems were now his alone. So what's to stop C.C.A. from withholding medical care long enough for the other 75,000 inmates they manage so the expense is eventually a burden for someone else? At this point all we can do is ask the question, because we haven't been given any answers. But here's why every Idaho taxpayer should care about what happens to Idaho inmates. If the state of Idaho is dragged into court it takes taxpayer money for a defense, not to mention a judgment. Originally the A.C.L.U. named Idaho on the lawsuit, right along with C.C.A. in the case. But last June the A.C.L.U. agreed to drop Idaho as a defendant, saving taxpayers the possible expense in this case. Currently the A.C.L.U. is suing C.C.A. for $155 million dollars, which is equal to the amount of profit the company earned in 2009. A C.C.A. spokesman told KBOI 2News the company will agree to an on camera interview after the lawsuit has been addressed.

February 2, 2011 Columbus Dispatch
Gov. John Kasich said yesterday that there will be no special favors for three of his former inner-circle campaign advisers now lobbying for clients that could benefit from his administration's actions. Kasich, who during the campaign railed against special interests with their "snouts in the trough," told The Dispatch that clients of Donald Thibaut, Robert F. Klaffky and Douglas J. Preisse will get no preferred treatment. "All of my friends understand," Kasich said. "I've told them, 'You're crazy if you don't make it clear to (clients), you don't get any favors out of me.' There is no favoritism." Thibaut, Kasich's former congressional chief of staff and his acknowledged closest friend, registered for the first time as a lobbyist in a firm he created, The Credo Company. Among the six clients Thibaut reported signing up is Corrections Corporation of America, a Nashville-based prison operator that could benefit if Kasich seeks to privatize Ohio prisons. CCA currently operates a federal prison in Youngstown. Gary C. Mohr, whom Kasich appointed director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, spent five years as a consultant to CCA, which designs, builds and manages federal and state prisons. Klaffky and Preisse, partners in the long-standing Capitol Square lobbying firm of Van Meter, Ashbrook and Associates, represent The GEO Group Inc., a Florida-based competitor of CCA.

January 31, 2011 AP
State lobbyist registration documents show a long-time adviser and political ally to Gov. John Kasich (KAY'-sik) has lined up a stable of clients he'll pitch to the new administration that specialize in energy, education, technology and private prisons. One of Don Thibaut's (TEE'-bohz) clients, Corrections Corporation of America, could stand to gain if Kasich pursues expanded prison privatization to help close an estimated $8 billion budget gap. The company retained Thibaut's new lobbying firm in mid-December. Thibaut spent nearly 20 years as Kasich's chief of staff in Congress and received compensation through political committees associated with Kasich for a decade. Thibaut's lobbying firm, The Credo Company, declined comment. Ohio already has two state-owned, privately-run prisons. Neither is operated by CCA.

January 28, 2011 Star-Advertiser
The Abercrombie administration is starting to make good on the governor's promise to bring all state prison inmates incarcerated on the mainland back to Hawaii.The state returned 243 inmates from Arizona last week and sent back just 96 to take their place. Of the 243 returning inmates, 54 are getting paroled, 28 are about to complete their prison terms and three are back for court hearings. When Gov. Neil Abercrombie promised swift action last month to bring back all Hawaii inmates serving time in mainland prisons, state Senate Public Safety Chairman Will Espero was not expecting action so soon. "I was pleasantly surprised," he said. Espero said he learned of the returning inmates yesterday from state Public Safety Director Jodie Maesaka-Hirata. He said the state conducts prison transfers quarterly, but it usually sends at least the same number of prisoners to the mainland as it returns. He applauded Abercrombie's plan to bring back all Hawaii inmates. "If we're going to spend $60 million a year to house inmates, I'd rather spend it here in Hawaii than on the mainland," Espero said. The state returned 152 inmates to Hawaii on Jan. 19, sent 96 to Arizona on Jan. 20 and returned an additional 91 last Friday. The transfers leave 1,759 Hawaii inmates in Arizona: 1,705 in Saguaro Correctional Center, 51 in Red Rock Correctional Center, two in Florence State Prison and one in Central Arizona Detention Center. Central Arizona, in Florence, and Saguaro and Red Rock, both in Eloy, are private prisons operated by Corrections Corp. of America, which houses Hawaii inmates under contract with the state. Abercrombie made his promise after 18 Hawaii inmates at Saguaro sued CCA, the state and the state's contract monitor. The inmates claim they were beaten and assaulted and their families threatened by prison guards. The Public Safety Department sent a team to examine practices at Saguaro last year after two Hawaii inmates died in February and June. The state returned all but one of the 169 women serving time in a CCA prison in Kentucky in 2009 after the inmates reported widespread sexual abuse by guards and prison employees.  The Abercrombie administration is starting to make good on the governor's promise to bring all state prison inmates incarcerated on the mainland back to Hawaii.

January 6, 2011 AP
A German woman has filed a lawsuit against a private company that ran a Kentucky prison and some of its employees, saying she was forced to trade sex to call her ill mother. The suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Louisville is the latest in a series of cases alleging sexual assault at the Otter Creek Correctional Complex in Wheelwright. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered all the female prisoners removed from the facility a year ago when a scandal involving corrections officers and inmates reached its height. The lawsuit says the inmate, a 38-year-old German citizen, is serving five years for theft and other charges. Although the lawsuit names the inmate, the Associated Press does not generally identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted. The lawsuit accuses Dwight Crowell, an internal affairs officer at the prison, of sexual assault. It also names several of his superiors - former Otter Creek Warden Jeff Little, currently the security chief at another CCA prison, Lee Adjustment Center, John Ferguson, chairman of CCA's board of directors and Tony Grande, an executive vice president of CCA - and says they didn't stop the wrongdoing. Louise Graham, a spokeswoman for CCA in Nashville, Tenn., declined to address the specifics of the inmate's allegations. "I can confirm that the Kentucky State Police have an ongoing investigation into this matter," Graham said. No listing for Crowell could be found in the area surrounding the prison. Graham declined to provide any contact information for him. Kentucky State Police did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Kentucky pulled female inmates from Otter Creek Correctional Complex after a sex scandal involving prisoners and guards at the Corrections Corporation of America-owned prison. Several hundred women were relocated 377 miles away to the state-run Western Kentucky Correctional Complex in Fredonia. Other inmates, including the one who filed suit Wednesday night, were moved to the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Pewee Valley. In the lawsuit, the inmate alleged that sexual abuse took place starting in July 2008 and kept up over an 18 month period before the state moved the female inmates. Crowell threatened to harm the inmate's chances at parole and have her deported away from her children if she reported the sexual abuse, according to the lawsuit. The inmate said the prison's internal grievance system was useless because all complaints were routed through Crowell and that anonymous phone lines given to inmates didn't protect their identities. The phone required inmates to give their identifications numbers to make the calls, the inmate said. Graham wouldn't specifically discuss that allegation, but said CCA offers multiple ways for inmates to report sexual abuse, including telephone hotlines. "Additionally, all CCA employees are provided training, and inmates are oriented on ways in which to report - both anonymously and otherwise - claims of this nature," Graham said. The inmate's lawyers, Larry Simon and Christina Norris, said prison administrators and CCA officials were aware of sexual abuse allegations at the prison, but didn't adequately investigate them or train staff. At least two other federal lawsuits have been pursued by former inmates at Otter Creek. CCA was dismissed from both. Former Otter Creek inmates have told The Associated Press that rules at Otter Creek weren't strictly enforced and that, in some cases, inmates traded sex for favors from the guards. "There was an agenda behind it, not that it was OK for a staff member to do that," said 40-year-old Stephanie Spitser, who is serving life in prison for murder and kidnapping. Kentucky changed its law concerning sex between prison staff and inmates. Under a provision passed in 2010, prison guards, jailers and other staffers who oversee inmates could be charged with felony rape and sodomy for having consensual sex with prisoners. Under current law, corrections officers face only misdemeanor charges for consensual sex with inmates.

January 4, 2011 Columbus Dispatch
Gov.-elect John Kasich, who has said he wants to explore privatizing state prison operations, has chosen a former longtime state prisons official who later worked at a company that operates private prisons to run the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Kasich introduced Gary C. Mohr during a press conference this afternoon at the Ross County Courthouse in Chillicothe, Mohr's hometown. He is the 11th cabinet nomination so far before Kasich takes office on Monday. Kasich and Mohr pledged that all state decisions involving privatization would publicly bid and transparent and that Mohr would abstain from any decision involving his former employer, Corrections Corporation of America, a private operator. Mohr, 57, worked for three decades in the state prison system, serving as deputy agency director under former Republican Govs. George V. Voinovich and Bob Taft. Mohr also held a variety of other positions, including as a warden in Chillicothe and two other facilities and both deputy director and superintendent of the Department of Youth Services. From 2007-09, Mohr was a managing director for Nashville-based CCA which owns and operates a private prison in Youngstown that houses federal inmates. The company runs 60 prison facilities housing 75,000 inmates in 18 states and the District of Columbia. Mohr currently is chief executive of the consulting company, Mohr Correctional Insight, which has mostly worked with CCA, including instituting a new management system for prison staffing. He has been in that position since 2009 after earlier serving from 2005-07.

December 31, 2010 AP
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that practices at an Idaho prison that include guards opening the wrong cell doors and allowing inmate-on-inmate attacks have caused violence at the facility and should be immediately banned. The ACLU also said in a motion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court that victims of the assaults at the Idaho Correctional Center are routinely written up for defending themselves during the attacks, a consequence that can jeopardize their eligibility for parole and access to treatment and education programs. Attorneys for the ACLU are seeking a preliminary injunction on behalf of inmates to immediately ban both practices at the prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America. “We want to try to eliminate as much suffering as quickly as we can; these two issues lent themselves to that,” said Steven Pevar, an attorney for the ACLU. The ACLU is representing inmates who sued CCA in March, saying the Idaho lockup is so violent it’s known as “gladiator school” and prison workers used inmate-on-inmate violence as a management tool, then refused to provide X-rays to injured prisoners as part of a cover-up scheme. CCA has denied the claims. Company spokesman Steve Owen declined to comment on the latest legal filing, saying lawyers would respond to the claims in court documents. The motion seeks to block the prison from issuing disciplinary reports to inmates who are acting in self-defense and calls for an investigation into claims that the guards are opening the wrong cell doors. “The first thing you have to do is find out what the problem is,” Pevar said. “Is it a mechanical problem, or are people just being careless?” Since July 2009, 13 assaults have resulted from prison guards opening, or “popping,” the wrong cell doors in areas where violent prisoners are kept, allowing inmates to attack other prisoners, attorneys for the ACLU say in a brief. Guards either mistakenly or deliberately opened the wrong doors and allowed the assaults, the ACLU says. Four of the 13 of the assaults allowed because of “popping” cell doors occurred under warden Timothy Wengler, who has been with the private prison company since 1996 and was appointed interim warden at the Idaho facility after the ACLU sued over claims of brutal inmate-on-inmate violence, ACLU attorneys say. Former Idaho warden Phillip Valdez was reassigned after the lawsuit was filed. Attorneys for the ACLU claim in court documents that Valdez created the two policies they are seeking to ban, and that Wengler continues to implement them as interim warden. “One of two things must be true: Valdez and Wengler either failed in their duty to investigate the causes of these incidents, or they failed in their duty to fashion an appropriate solution,” the ACLU says. The most violent of the “popped” cell door assaults occurred on Aug. 10, when a guard opened some 20 doors and released at least 20 prisoners who then assaulted four rival gang members, sending two to the hospital, according to the brief filed by ACLU attorneys. Guards issued disciplinary reports for the four victims of the assault, according to the ACLU.

December 29, 2010 AP
State Auditor Marion Higa on Wednesday blasted the Hawaii Department of Public Safety's management of a contract to house prisoners in privately owned Arizona prisons. In a 77-page report, Higa also criticized the financial data about the arrangement the department has provided legislators and the public for using a flawed methodology and containing inaccurate or insufficient figures. "Without clarified guidance by policymakers, the department has no incentive to perform better and will continue to evade accountability by providing unreliable and inaccurate reporting of incarceration costs," Higa wrote in the audit's conclusion. "In addition, the department has misused its procurement authority to circumvent the process designed with safeguards to protect the state's interests," she added. There was no immediate response to a request for comment from department officials or Gov. Neil Abercrombie's office. Much of the audit's findings are critical of actions taken by the administration of Abercrombie's predecessor, Linda Lingle. Abercrombie has said he wants to stop exporting inmates to other states but hasn't spelled out whether that would mean building more prisons in Hawaii or releasing less-dangerous inmates to free up existing beds. According to the audit, about 2,000 male Hawaii prisoners currently are housed in the Florence, Red Rock and Saguaro correctional centers owned by the Corrections Corporation of America. The state in 2006 signed an "intergovernmental agreement" with Eloy, Ariz., where the facilities are located, but deals almost exclusively with CCA, the report contended. The arrangement allowed agency officials to circumvent and manipulate the state's competitive procurement process to steer business to CCA, the audit found. The department also treated CCA as a government agent instead of a private vendor operating for a profit, it contended. The CCA contract is set to expire on June 30. But the report concluded the state as of early October had no plan to address that looming deadline. Without such a plan, "the department is shirking its responsibility to provide for the safety of the public through correctional management, and leaves the operational staff ill-prepared to contract for private prison beds and services," the audit stated. The report also aimed fire at the department's reporting to the Legislature. It asserted that agency officials reported "artificial cost figures" that were derived from a calculation that itself was "based on a flawed methodology." "Because funding is virtually guaranteed, management is indifferent to the needs of policymakers and the public for accurate and reliable cost information," the audit said. "As a result, true costs are unknown." In addition to improving its financial and program data, and its monitoring of operations at the CCA prisons, the auditor called on the state's chief procurement officer to suspend the public safety department's contracting authority for private prisons until its practices and policies are changed and staff have been better trained.

December 15, 2010 Portland Phoenix
In the gubernatorial campaign the controversial Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest for-profit prison operator, spent $25,000 on behalf of Republican candidate Paul LePage, now the governor-elect. The money was given to the Republican Governors Association's Maine political action committee, which spent heavily on LePage. No other Maine gubernatorial candidate benefited from CCA money, campaign-finance reports reveal. Although his transition office denies a link with the contribution, LePage has already met in Augusta with CCA representatives — weeks before becoming governor. The meeting breathed new life into the town of Milo's effort to lure CCA into building a giant prison in that remote, impoverished Piscataquis County community. Milo officials also met with LePage. The town manager, Jeff Gahagan, says CCA officials have talked about a prison housing 2000 to 2400 inmates with 200 to 300 employees. If true, that would be an extraordinarily small number of staff for such a large number of prisoners. The Maine State Prison has just over 400 workers — most of them guards — to deal with just over 900 prisoners. (CCA didn't respond by deadline to the Phoenix's inquiries.) LePage also is looking into boarding Maine inmates in CCA prisons out of state.

December 15, 2010 Tennessean
One of Gov. Phil Bredesen's top Cabinet members, Matt Kisber, crossed an ethical line when he met with a key state contractor about his new private solar business — a business that would financially benefit if hired. Everybody is dancing around the obvious. Kisber was not trading on his relationships and status, defenders say, by asking for a meeting with state contractor Corrections Corporation of America. A Republican lawmaker took the way high road and described this as a "gray area." Who are they kidding here? There is nothing gray about this. When a sitting state commissioner — one of the closest friends and most trusted confidants of the governor himself — starts meeting with state contractors about his private venture before he steps down from his state position, there is nothing gray about it. It is black, white and red-flagged all over. If you just tuned in, Kisber and former state Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr began forming a company back in July called Silicon Ranch Corp. Bredesen invested what he has called "a low six figures" of his personal fortune in the venture. The company is positioned to take advantage of the enormous outpouring of private and public investments in future solar energy ventures — millions of dollars of which Bredesen and his administration have been positioning the state to take advantage. Bredesen warned Farr Look, outgoing administrations always have folks jumping ship. These are smart men and women who have given up to eight years of their life, often making less than they would in the private sector. The problem comes when they dabble before they jump. The governor recognizes that. He told Farr in no uncertain terms to not approach any company about Silicon Ranch over which the state or Farr had influence. Farr stepped down as revenue commissioner Sept. 1. Did he tell Kisber the same thing? Why would he need to? The man is a seasoned public servant who knows the rules. Either way, Kisber violated, at the least, the spirit of those marching orders. In late October, Kisber — who remains state economic development commissioner — and Farr met with CCA, a company with $89.3 million in state contracts, to discuss the solar startup project. "CCA did let them know that we are not pursuing solar energy at this time for our facilities," CCA spokeswoman Louise Grant told Tennessean reporter Chas Sisk. The issue is not whether CCA, or less powerful vendors, feel free to say no. The inference that state vendors should give strong consideration to helping a sitting Cabinet member's new private business venture is the problem. Related Kisber-Farr solar startup met with CCA Bredesen has built a sterling reputation as a civic leader as mayor and as governor. Kisber's actions in the last minutes of this administration don't cancel all that out. But the governor cannot be happy that, just as he's leaving, one of his most trusted friends has tarnished that shine.

December 15, 2010 Courthouse News
Guards at a privately run prison in Arizona stripped, beat and kicked inmates and threatened to kill them, banged their heads on tables while they were handcuffed, and "the warden himself" joined in threatening their families, 18 inmates say in state court. Then the Corrections Corporation of America and its employees, who run the prison, "deliberately destroyed and failed to preserve evidence of their wrongdoing, including videotapes," and "deliberately falsified reports," according to the complaint. The beatings and death threats came at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., to which Hawaii sent its prisoners to be held by CCA, the nation's largest private prison company. The inmates say CCA guards beat them to retaliate for a July 26 fight or "disturbance" in which "a lieutenant or other employee of CCA was injured." The guards beat the plaintiffs to coerce "statements" from them, and "when plaintiffs wrote brief statements, defendants demanded that plaintiffs disclose more, and then engaged in the acts alleged herein [in] an effort to coerce further statements," the complaint states. "Plaintiffs were beaten and assaulted, including by having their heads banged on tables while they were stripped to their underwear and while their hands were handcuffed behind their backs. "Plaintiffs were stripped of nearly all of their clothing while being beaten, questioned, and humiliated. "Plaintiffs were threatened with harm to themselves and their families, including through such statements as: "a. 'We have your emergency contact information;' "b. 'We know who your family is and where they live and we are going to harm them;' "c. 'We are going to kill you;' "d. 'We will continue to beat you and the only way to stop that is to commit suicide;' "e. 'We will send you to hell;' "f. 'We will stick something up your ass.' "Inmates were required to get on their knees with their hands handcuffed behind their back, whereupon they were beaten by multiple officers employed by defendants. "Inmates were kicked while on the ground. ... "Inmates were denied prompt medical treatment for their injuries in an effort to conceal what had happened. "Inmates were told that if they did not provide written statements, their beatings would continue. "Beatings in fact continued for those who refused to provide statements. "In an effort to conceal what was happening, defendants violated their own policy that a handheld camera would be used to film inmates whenever they were being handled by the SORT team. "As a result [of] duress, force, and threats of force, some of the plaintiffs provide statements in the hope of ending their beatings. "Inmates were told that if they told anyone what had happened, they would be killed or beaten further. "CCA personnel, including the warden himself, threatened parents of some inmates, including with longer incarceration." The inmates also sued Hawaii, which sent them to the prison. They say: "During many of the occurrences alleged above, defendant State of Hawaii had on site its contract monitor, John Ioane, who had actual knowledge and personally was aware of some of the above occurrences, and yet acquiesced in and permitted them to continue." The inmates demand a protective injunction and punitive damages from CCA, Hawaii and Ioane, for assault and battery, cruel and unusual punishment, coercion and retaliation. They are represented by Michael Jay Green and John Rapp of Honolulu.

December 12, 2010 Tennessean
The state's top economic development official, Matthew Kisber, and Tennessee's former revenue commissioner met in late October with a company that relies on the state for $89.3 million in business to discuss their solar startup venture, which is financially backed by Gov. Phil Bredesen. Kisber and former Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr held the meeting with officials from Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, said CCA spokeswoman Louise Grant. They discussed solar usage and Kisber and Farr's new solar power company, Silicon Ranch Corp., she said. "The two of our employees who routinely meet with various prospective vendors nationally related to energy efficiency and green technologies were in the meeting with Mr. Farr and Mr. Kisber about Silicon Ranch in late October," Grant said. "CCA did let them know that we are not pursuing solar energy at this time for our facilities." The discussions took place as Farr, who stepped down Sept. 1, has been attempting to get Silicon Ranch off the ground and as Kisber, a partner in Silicon Ranch, has continued to serve as the state's economic and community development commissioner, a Cabinet-level position. Mike Kopp, a public relations agent working with Kisber and Farr on the project, said they were invited to the meeting by "friends of theirs who are associated with CCA" and did not trade on their government relationships to arrange it. "The purpose of the meeting was to get input from trusted business friends on a prospective business model," Kopp said in an e-mail response to questions about the meeting. "His (Kisber's) friendship with associates of CCA predates his years as commissioner." Bredesen has said he asked Farr not to approach companies that Farr or the state had influence over. The request was meant to prevent any appearance of a conflict of interest. CCA has contracts with the state Department of Correction to operate the Hardeman County, South Central and Whiteville correctional facilities. Combined, the contracts pay CCA about $89.3 million a year. Sen. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, vice chairman of the legislature's Select Oversight Committee on Corrections, said meeting with CCA to discuss solar energy while pursuing a solar business was "definitely a gray area."

December 2, 2010 Fox 12
Surveillance video of the beating of an Idaho Correctional Center inmate, while guards look on has gotten national attention. Now one man says this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The President of the Private Corrections Institute, a non profit that opposes private prisons, Alex Friedmann, says the prison's operator, Corrections Corporation of America, is not only the largest private prison company, they're the most sued. In fact back in the early 1990's he was a prisoner at a Corrections Corporation prison, not located here Idaho. He says he too was mistreated and endangered while held by them. "I was retaliated against by CCA officials and took them to court and obtained a federal jury award against a former CCA Unit Manager for threatening to have other prisoners assault me for filing complaints against CCA," explained Friedmann. Friedmann has since turned his life around and has even testified before congress on the issue of private prisons. When CCA issued a statement calling the surveillance video an unnecessary security risk to staff and inmates, he felt he had to speak out. "I've watched the video myself and the only unnecessary risk it poses is to CCA's liability in prisoner assault cases and the notion CCA's employees are corrections professionals." The beating has prompted a federal class-action lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and now the Department of Justice is looking into the conduct of CCA prison staff.

November 30, 2010 AP
The surveillance video from the overhead cameras shows Hanni Elabed being beaten by a fellow inmate in an Idaho prison, managing to bang on a prison guard station window, pleading for help. Behind the glass, correctional officers look on, but no one intervenes when Elabed was knocked unconscious. No one steps into the cellblock when the attacker sits down to rest, and no one stops him when he resumes the beating. Videos of the attack obtained by The Associated Press show officers watching the beating for several minutes. The footage is a key piece of evidence for critics who claim the privately run Idaho Correctional Center uses inmate-on-inmate violence to force prisoners to snitch on their cellmates or risk being moved to extremely violent units. Lawsuits from inmates contend the company that runs the prison, the Corrections Corporation of America, denies prisoners medical treatment as a way of covering up the assaults. They have dubbed the Idaho lockup "gladiator school" because it is so violent. The AP initially sought a copy of the videos from state court, but Idaho 4th District Judge Patrick Owen denied that request. The AP decided to publish the videos after a person familiar with the case verified their authenticity. The videos show at least three guards watching as Elabed was stomped on a dozen times. At no time during the recorded sequence did anyone try to pull away James Haver, a short, slight man. About two minutes after Haver stopped the beating of his own accord, the metal cellblock door was unlocked. Haver was handcuffed and Elabed was examined for signs of life. He bled inside his skull and would spend three days in a coma. CCA, the nation's largest private prison company, said it was "highly disappointed and deeply concerned" over AP's decision to release the videos. "Public release of the video poses an unnecessary security risk to our staff, the inmates entrusted to our care, and ultimately to the public," the prison company said in a statement. CCA, which oversees some 75,000 inmates in more than 60 facilities under contracts with the federal government, 19 states and the District of Columbia, has faced allegations of abuse by guards elsewhere. A year ago, CCA and another company, Dominion Correctional Services LLC, agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit in which the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission claimed male officers at a prison in Colorado forced female workers to perform sex acts to keep their jobs. In January, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered some 400 female inmates transferred to a state-run prison after more than a dozen reports of sexual misconduct by male guards employed by CCA. Similar accusations were made in March at a CCA-run prison in Hawaii, and in May, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed CCA on probation and launched an investigation of whether a guard at a central Texas detention facility sexually assaulted women on their way to being deported. Before the Idaho attack, Elabed tried to get help from prison staffers, telling them that he had been threatened and giving them details about drug trafficking between inmates and staffers that he had witnessed, according to his lawsuit. He was put in solitary confinement for his protection but was later returned to the same unit with the inmates he snitched on, his lawsuit said. He was on the cellblock only six minutes before he was attacked. Steven Pevar, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in 34 years of suing more than 100 prisons and jails, the Idaho lockup is the most violent he has seen. "This isn't even what we know of as a prison - this is a gulag," Pevar said. Pevar blames the violence on CCA and the former warden, Phillip Valdez, who was head of the prison when Elabed was attacked. Valdez was later transferred to another CCA prison in Kansas. The company refused to disclose its reason for moving him. CCA officials maintain the prison is safe and run according to state and federal standards. But at least some of those standards appear to be violated in the video - including a requirement that emergency care arrive within four minutes of a disturbance. It took medical workers nearly six minutes to get to Elabed - a delay that can be life-threatening in serious injuries, according to state prisons officials. "Nurses and medical professionals believe you need to get a heart beating and breathing started within four minutes or the person's going to die," Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Jeff Ray said. CCA spokesman Steven Owen said employees receive training and supervision designed to protect both themselves and the inmates. "As Mr. Haver's wanton attack illustrates, correctional and medical personnel must often respond to render aid in dangerous situations, not knowing the extent of the risk they may face when they do," Owen said. Owen also condemned the attack and said the surveillance videos were key to Haver's guilty plea in the beating. CCA was unable to answer additional questions surrounding the circumstances of the attack due to pending litigation, he said. Elabed's family learned through medical records that CCA officials pulled him out of the hospital before he could get significant treatment and against his doctor's advice, in order to treat him at the cheaper in-prison facility, the family said. Elabed, who was originally sentenced to two to 12 years for robbery, was ultimately released on a medical parole because he was too badly injured to be cared for in prison. A slew of federal lawsuits detail beatings behind prison walls and long waits for medical care at CCA-run prisons in Idaho. Inmate Todd Butters said in his lawsuit he was denied X-rays after he was severely beaten by gang members on his cellblock for refusing to pay $5 a week in "rent." The Idaho Supreme Court threw out the case after finding Butters didn't take the necessary steps to try to solve the problem with prison officials before suing. In another attack, inmate Daniel Dixon said he was denied X-rays and a doctor's visit after he claimed other inmates beat him until he had broken ribs and facial bones and other injuries. State officials have long been aware of allegations of mistreatment and poor management at the Idaho Correctional Center, the state's largest prison. A review of hundreds of public records by AP found in 2008 that ICC had a violence rate three times as high as other Idaho prisons. The AP found in a follow-up investigation that ICC had only marginally improved its violence rate and that inspectors were still finding rampant gang violence and extortion. State auditors have also found widespread problems keeping medical charts updated, excessive wait times for medical care and other problems with treatment. Even though Idaho Department of Correction officials have increased oversight and top department leaders have spoken out about their concern over the medical issues, state lawmakers have renewed the company's multimillion-dollar contract with Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA and added 600 beds to the prison. Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke said in a statement that he couldn't talk about the video because of pending litigation, but said the eight state-run prisons his agency operates are among the safest and most efficient in the country. Reinke also said his department began beefing up oversight at the private prison three years ago. "The Board of Correction acknowledges that when you put a group of people who have a history of criminal behavior together in one place, it is likely you will have problems. But that doesn't mean we should tolerate them," Reinke wrote. Today, the 24-year-old Elabed isn't able to talk much about the assault. He has brain damage and persistent short-term memory loss. "It's almost like Hanni's autistic after this. I feel like I'm talking to someone who's 12 or 13 years old," said his brother, Zahe Elabed. Elabed's attorney, Ben Schwartzman, said the footage is tough to forget. "Guard intervention was appropriate and could have happened in a way that would not have put the guards in danger of their personal safety," Schwartzman said. "They were spectators ... and that seems to indicate a level of callousness that I find shocking. It's an embarrassment to the institution and to the individuals."

October 26, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Hernando County Sheriff Richard Nugent handed over a check to the County Commission for $29,714 on Tuesday, representing the fees his agency has collected from inmates for the first 35 days that it has operated the county jail. That compares to the $29,000 that Corrections Corporation of America collected in the 330 days it operated the jail in the last fiscal year, ending with CCA turned over the jail at the end of August. Nugent told commissioners he was on track to return $277,000 to the commission this year. "It certainly does help cut the cost of the operation of your detention facility,'' Nugent said. The fees are comprised of the $20 booking fee, the $5 co-payment on medical services and the $3 subsistence fee to pay for food. Nugent said the jail is serving inmates meals at 87 cents per meal. While bare bones, he said that "it is all about running a constitutionally correct jail.''

October 15, 2010 Bloomberg
Computer Sciences Corp., an information-technology company that relies on government business for almost 40 percent of its revenue, won $4 billion in U.S. contracts in fiscal 2009 after failing to pay more than 250 employees the wages and benefits they were owed. Computer Sciences, based in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, Virginia, topped a list of 15 companies that received more than $6 billion in federal contracts despite records of wage, health or safety violations, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. Tyson Foods Inc., the largest U.S. chicken processor; Corrections Corp. of America, the nation’s biggest private operator of prisons; and Wackenhut Services Inc., owned by U.K.- based security contractor G4S Plc, are also among the contractors identified. The names of the companies, not revealed in the public report released Oct. 1, were provided by Representative Robert Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat who criticized the awarding of contracts to companies that didn’t meet required standards. “If a company has a pattern of violations, at the very least, it should raise greater scrutiny before they get government contracts,” Andrews, chairman of the panel that requested the investigation, said in a telephone interview. “There doesn’t seem to be much incentive to follow the laws because you can still get a contract anyway.” The report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, covered a sample of contracts in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2009. ‘Work to Do’ -- Computer Sciences, which was awarded the $4 billion from the Defense Department and NASA, was assessed $1.6 million in back pay by the Labor Department covering a five-year period. Tyson, with more than $500 million in Defense, Agriculture and Justice department contracts, was cited for more than 100 health and safety violations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the GAO said. Wackenhut, which received $200 million in security contracts with the Defense, Agriculture and Homeland Security departments and NASA, violated fair-labor laws, according to Labor Department data cited by the GAO. “Some companies that continue to receive lucrative government contracts not only pay rock-bottom wages, but have long histories of labor and workplace safety violations,” Representative Patrick Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat who joined in requesting the GAO report, said in an e-mailed statement. “We have a lot of work to do to ensure that the federal contracting process encourages safe and good-paying jobs.” Workers Misclassified -- In addition to the pay violations, Computer Sciences didn’t provide protections against cave-ins for employees working in a trench more than 10 feet (3 meters) deep, according to a 2006 inspection by the occupational safety agency cited by the GAO. Chris Grandis, a company spokesman, said Computer Sciences paid the back wages to employees assigned to a U.S. immigration office in Vermont in 2009, after the Labor Department found they had been misclassified as contract workers entitled to less compensation. The company also received a minor citation from the occupational safety agency and agreed to pay a small fine, he said. Computer Sciences, a government contractor since 1961, received 37 percent of its $16.1 billion in revenue from federal contracts in the fiscal year ended April 2, according to a regulatory filing. Army, Immigration -- It ranked 12th in U.S. government contracts in fiscal 2009, the year studied by the GAO, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Its biggest federal contract that year was with the U.S. Army to provide engineering and logistics support for the Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command. Computer Sciences also has a contract with the Homeland Security Department for a processing system used in applications for immigration benefits and services. The company said on Oct. 4 that it was one of four firms that will share in a $2.8 billion contract by the Social Security Administration for consulting and information technology services. Tyson has received more than 100 U.S. health and safety citations, including for an incident in which a worker died after being asphyxiated in a pit of wastewater debris, according to the GAO report. Last year, Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson won $500 million in federal contracts, the GAO’s report showed. Gary Mickelson, a Tyson spokesman, said the company seeks to comply with federal regulations and the report doesn’t give “the full context of the issues involved, nor does it report the measures our company takes to operate responsibly.” Corrections Corp. -- Corrections Corp., based in Nashville, Tennessee, was cited for five safety violations since 2005 and for failing to follow labor laws when firing an employee for union participation, according to the GAO. Last year, it was awarded $800 million in contracts, the agency said. Steve Owen, a Corrections Corp. spokesman, said the U.S. contracts are subject to oversight and accountability. He declined to comment on safety and labor violations cited in the GAO report. Wackenhut, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, received $200 million in contracts, the GAO said. From 2005 through 2009, the Labor Department said the company owed $4.4 million in back wages to more than 2,100 employees, and OSHA cited the company for seven cases of health and safety violations, resulting in $9,000 in fines. The company agreed this year to pay $290,000 in back pay and interest to 446 rejected black job applicants. Susan Pitcher, a Wackenhut spokeswoman, said the company had no response to the report. Violations by other federal contractors included hiring undocumented workers, failing to meet environmental standards and fraudulently billing Medicare or Medicaid, according to the report.

October 12, 2010 Spokesman-Review
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter on Tuesday reported raising $752,000 in campaign funds in the past four months, while his Democratic challenger, Keith Allred, raised $372,500. With both candidates spending heavily on advertising as the campaign season hits its peak, Otter reported $211,634 in cash on hand at the close of the period on Sept. 30, while Allred reported $102,072. Otter’s campaign said he has another $67,200 in contributions already committed, but not yet paid. “This has been an incredible quarter for my campaign,” Otter said in a statement. “We not only raised a significant amount of money, but the momentum going forward is extremely high.” Allred had actually outraised Otter, the incumbent Republican who’s seeking a second term, in the previous two reporting periods, but Otter turned that around in the most recent period, which ran from June 5 through Sept. 30. Year to date, Otter’s raised $1.04 million and spent $1.34 million, but he also carried over $316,718 from the previous year. Allred, year to date, has raised $732,640 and spent $757,532; he carried over $126,963 from the previous year. Neither candidate reported any debt. Otter reported a slew of contributions from big business interests in Idaho, with $10,000 year-to-date from Coeur d’Alene Racing LP of Post Falls, through its “Winning for Idaho” PAC, and $10,000 from Clear Springs Foods in Buhl topping the list. He also received $4,500 from Corrections Corp. of America, which operates Idaho’s privately run state prison south of Boise; $7,500 from M3 Eagle, a developer based in Phoenix, Ariz; and $6,500 each from Hecla Mining, Idaho Truck PAC and Altria Corporate Services of Sacramento, Calif., the parent company of the Philip Morris USA tobacco firm.

September 30, 2010 St Petersburg Times
The former operator of the Hernando County Jail filed suit against the county in federal court on Thursday over money held back from the firm and equipment the county claims to own. Corrections Corporation of America, which operated the county jail for 22 years, ended its contract in August. But the transition was a bumpy one with the county and CCA tussling over who owned what inside the facility and how much CCA owed for the jail's run-down condition. Last month, the Hernando County Commission voted to hold back the amount invoiced for July and August, a total of $1.8 million. County officials wanted to wait until they received word from an engineering firm they had hired to determine how much it would cost to bring the jail up to standard and how much of that should be paid by CCA for a failure to do maintenance. CCA urged the commission to not hold back the funding and indicated that they felt their liability for deferred maintenance was far less than the $1.8 million. They demanded immediate payment. But this week, the County Commission was given the preliminary engineering report and learned that the overall cost to make repairs and renovations to the jail was $14.9 million and CCA's responsibility was just under $1 million. The commission decided to defer a decision on paying CCA until the final report from the engineering firm, which should be in hand before the Oct. 12 meeting. CCA's suit also accuses the county of violating its contract because the county claimed to own some of the equipment that CCA provided for the operation of the jail. The county commission was told several weeks ago that agreement had been reached on all of the inventory issues.

September 20, 2010 News Channel 5
The prosecution called Metro Sergeant Mark Chesnut to the stand Monday afternoon in the trial of Courtney Logan. He is one of two men charged with shooting Chesnut in 2009. The jury was seated in the trial around 2 p.m. The other man charged, Joseph Jackson Jr., pleaded guilty Monday morning to attempted first degree murder and two lesser charges. Jackson shot Sergeant Mark Chesnut during an I-40 traffic stop in June of 2009. Investigators said Chesnut had no idea when he pulled over the two men that Courtney Logan had just helped Jackson, his cousin, escape from a prison in Mississippi. While checking their licenses, Jackson walked up to Chesnut's police car and shot him. Police caught both Jackson and Logan just a short time later. Jury selection for Logan's trial began Monday morning. Jackson will be sentenced by Judge Seth Norman on November 10. Chesnut has still not fully recovered from his injuries. Sergeant Chesnut has also filed a civil lawsuit against the Corrections Corporation America. The CCA allegedly did not follow their rules allowing Logan to help Jackson escape.

September 10, 2010 Hernando Today
The county is proceeding with the engineering assessment of the Hernando County Jail and hopes to have a preliminary report of repair costs finished by the end of this month. While that is going on, the county continues to withhold $1.85 million to the former operator of the jail, said Lisa Hammond, consultant to the Hernando County Clerk of the Circuit Court. That represents the last two months of pay to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Once the repair assessment is completed, the county will evaluate it and determine if any money is due from CCA for the necessary repairs, Hammond said Wednesday. County commissioners voted unanimously last week to withhold payment. Since then, Hammond said she has not heard from CCA, which she finds surprising. CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in an e-mail Wednesday the company is assessing the county's decision to withhold payment and, if necessary, will respond directly to county officials once that process is complete. The county has already spent $34,000 for facility and kitchen repairs due to the "lack of routine, preventative maintenance," according to a county memo. County Commissioner Jim Adkins said Wednesday he was hoping the engineering report would be done sooner than September to avoid litigation from CCA. Adkins said he plans to bring the matter up Thursday during his weekly meeting with County Administrator David Hamilton. "I know CCA wants its money and we want to know what has or hasn't been done right and what CCA is liable for," Adkins said. "That needs to be put on a fast track." The contract between CCA and the county includes a 35-day window for negotiations. Neither side can initiate litigation until that "cooling-off" period expires.

September 1, 2010 Phoenix New Times
Last night's report from KPHO's Morgan Loew on the ties between private prison behemoth Corrections Corporation of America and Governor Jan Brewer has drawn some serious plasma from Brewer's camp. Specifically, the hemorrhage is from Brewer's top political advisor Chuck Coughlin, president of HighGround Public Affairs, which also represents CCA. Seems Coughlin's squealing like a skewered javelina over Loew's latest. In response, HighGround today published a nasty, unsigned screed about Loew and KPHO on HighGround's Web site. Most of this whiny jeremiad is just blather. But the most interesting part has to do with an ad buy with KPHO that HighGround dropped. At the end of last night's segment, Loew mentioned that Coughlin's company canceled the governor's campaign advertising with the station. This, after KPHO began following the Brewer-CCA connection, which has scored national coverage with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show. HighGround's online reply states that, "The fact is that the Governor Brewer 2010 campaign never made a buy on CBS 5 for its current commercial. There was nothing to cancel." Um, okay. Then why does CBS 5 have on file documents signed by the Carlton Media Group's Fran Parker, who is listed on HighGround's Web site as working with the company? The docs, which are public record, show that Parker was the contact for an ad purchase in the gross amount of $13,775 that was to run in the weeks before the primary. (You can see the docs, here.) According to KPHO general manager Ed Munson, Brewer's camp canceled the buy before the ads began running. Confronted with this info, Coughlin e-mailed me that, "The ad buy he is referring to was in August and was never placed. We were considering buys all over the State. We choose [sic] not to air on Channel 5 at that time." Coughlin didn't get back to me on a question asking if this decision was because of Loew's reporting. I asked Munson the same question. He answered that it was "hard to say," but maintained that the lost dollars would not affect KPHO's coverage of the CCA-Brewer connection. HighGround's online temper-tantrum is telling. First, it attacks Loew ad hominem, calling him "maniacal," saying he has to "make things up," and that Loew is interested in advancement to a bigger gig, maybe in New York or someplace. On the first and the third charges, if so, so what? On the second, when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, HighGround doesn't really offer anything that Loew made up. That's because Loew didn't make anything up. The kvetches in the post are pretty petty, and reflect Coughlin's biased, self-centered worldview. One of them involves Caroline Isaacs of the American Friends Service Committee, a CCA critic whom Loew interviews for his piece. HighGround quotes verbatim from Loew's report, which plainly states who Isaacs is, then the post goes on to claim that Loew never did this. "Moreover, Loew never establishes who Caroline Isaacs is," the screed reads. "Apparently she is in Philadelphia and according to AFSC's own website, 'AFSC is a Quaker organization devoted to service, development, and peace programs throughout the world. Our work is based on the belief in the worth of every person, and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.' Sounds like a group with a definite political ax to grind." Like HighGround doesn't have a political ax to grind? Give me a freakin' break! Also, Isaacs is out of the AFSC's Tucson office. If whoever wrote this garbage bothered to look more than six seconds at AFSC's Web site, they could see under "Where we work" a list of AFSC's offices, including the Tucson one. And talk about a smear on Quakers. If AFSC happened to be a Mormon organization devoted to service, love and peace programs, would Coughlin's organization be so quick to slam it? As for Coughlin's Mount McKinley-sized conflict of interest, I've written about this at length in a previous Bird column. Coughlin denies that there's a conflict of interest, when there clearly is. Even by his own admission, he spoke with the governor about whether or not to sign SB 1070, Arizona's "breathing while brown law," while he already had CCA as a client. CCA stands to benefit from SB 1070 because CCA has contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain people for immigration-related crimes. And as ICE spokesman Vinnie Picard confirms in Loew's piece, individuals picked up by local law enforcement do end up in ICE-CCA custody. Indeed, Picard recently related to me that for just one CCA prison, the Central Arizona Detention Facility in Florence, ICE paid CCA a staggering $49.5 million for the period between 7/1/09 and 6/30/2010. Not all of that is inmate-related. I'm working on getting a breakdown. But it does give you an idea how much money is involved. Loew's piece from Tuesday followed up on a series of reports he's done for KPHO, pointing out what was first published by the magazine In These Times: That Coughlin lobbies for CCA, that Brewer's communications director Paul Senseman used to lobby for CCA, and that Senseman's wife Kathy still lobbies for CCA. In the past, Coughlin has insisted to me that HighGround has "no position on 1070" and did not lobby Brewer on 1070. Of course, CCA lobbyists and execs did contribute to Brewer's seed money, and donated substantially to the Prop 100 campaign, which was Brewer's baby. What is this, some Benny Hill segment where Coughlin talks to CCA out of one side of his mouth, then changes hats and talks to Brewer with the other? Just how dumb does Coughlin think the Arizona public is? On second thought, I guess he's got them pretty dead to rights.

September 1, 2010 AP
Prison operator Corrections Corp. of America spent $240,000 lobbying federal officials in the second quarter. That's down slightly from the $250,000 it spent on lobbying in the first quarter of 2010 and the $260,000 it spent lobbying in the second quarter of last year. The company said it lobbied on issues related to the private prison industry and on all provisions of the Safe Prisons Communications Act of 2009 and the Private Prison Information Act of 2009, among other topics. Aside from Congress, Corrections Corp. also lobbied the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement in the April-to-June quarter, according to a report filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on July 20.

September 1, 2010 St Petersburg Times
With the cost and responsibility for repairs at the Hernando County Jail still up in the air, the County Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to hold on to $1.86 million billed by Corrections Corporation of America. Lisa Hammond, the purchasing consultant for the clerk of the circuit court, recommended the action, citing a provision in the jail contract that spells out a process for disputed payments. Last week, the county notified CCA that the commission would consider withholding payment of the company's July and August invoices and placing them in a third-party escrow account on Tuesday. But CCA officials balked. In a letter dated Monday, Natasha Metcalf of CCA, the private company that operated the jail for the past two decades, stated that the contract "does not provide for the withholding of payment in the manner you are proposing.'' She added that she hoped that County Administrator David Hamilton would not recommend withholding payments and asked Hamilton to send to CCA detailed invoices for $34,000 worth of jail repairs for which the county believes CCA is responsible so far. "Under a complete reservation of the rights and remedies available under the contract, at law and in equity, CCA remains willing to work through any outstanding maintenance issues cooperatively with the county,'' Metcalf wrote. "We can be available to meet with you to discuss these issues at your convenience." But the commission wanted a much better picture of what was wrong with the facility before releasing the money. The county is in the process of assessing the quantity and seriousness of problems with the jail facility. CCA vacated operation of the jail last Thursday, and Sheriff Richard Nugent assumed responsibility for running it. It was Nugent who brought the deteriorating condition of the facility to the commissioners' attention in April, and since that time various investigations have been conducted inside the building. Problems with water infiltration, rusty doors, frozen hinges, an improperly sloped roof and floor surfaces, and a variety of other issues have been identified. Last month, the county agreed to hire HDR Engineering Inc. to provide a proposal for the jail upgrade at a cost of $239,000. The firm is expected to produce a report in about 40 days, Hammond told commissioners. With payment to CCA tied into the conclusion of that report, Commissioner Jim Adkins urged Hammond to have the firm work as quickly as possible. Hammond said she would talk to officials from HDR when she meets with them Thursday, and she agreed that the county doesn't want to hold on to CCA's money any longer than it has to. County Attorney Garth Coller urged commissioners to limit their discussion about the issue because the county could land in litigation.

August 31, 2010 AP
An out-of-state company that contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Capitol politicians – has secured an exclusive contract with the State – worth nearly $700 million. Critics say this deal is a prime example of pay-to-play politics at the Capitol – and it involves California prisoners – who have become a very valuable commodity for Corrections Corporation of America – a private prison operator based in Tennessee. California's prisons are costing taxpayers roughly $8 billion a year. (Proposed 2010-11 Corrections Budget | Proposed 2010-11 California Budget) Overcrowding is so extreme, the Courts have threatened to order the release of up 40 thousand prisoners. Governor Schwarzenegger declared an emergency four years ago, paving the way for ten thousand inmates to be shipped to Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma. But a $23 million contract to send prisoners out of state – has now mushroomed into a nearly $700 million deal for Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). "When you look at a contribution pattern like you see here, it's really a classic case of pay-to-play politics," said Derek Cressman, Regional Director of State Operations for Common Cause, a government watchdog group. Campaign finance records show the Tennessee firm gave $100,000 to Governor Schwarzenegger's ballot measure last year for budget reform. And this year, the same company donated $10,000 to the Meg Whitman for Governor campaign, and $25,000 more to the California Republican Party. Corrections Corporation of America also contributed $5,000 to the Jerry Brown for Governor campaign and more than $17,000 to the California Democratic Party. CCA also gave thousands of dollars to State lawmakers – Democrats and Republicans – most of them incumbents – a total of more than a quarter of a million dollars to elected officials. CCA also spent nearly $300,000 to lobby the Governor's Office, the Legislature and prison officials about the out-of-state prisoner programs. CCA netted a multi-million dollar contract that critics say was no coincidence. "The fact that they're putting money in really looks like they're greasing the skids to get a lot more money out," Derek Cressman of Common Cause told CBS 13. CCA declined our interview request – but sent a statement saying in part, "…we are no different than – and in fact, play a much smaller role in this arena – than many individual Californians, special interest groups and businesses." But the CCA contract has now been amended several times, resulting in today's nearly $700 million price tag. "And so we had a hearing along these lines and found that there was no competitive bidding," said Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, chair of the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review. The South Gate Democrat told CBS 13 that other firms – and other states – were very interested in housing California's prisoners. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said two vendors did bid for the initial contract – but one dropped out. "CCA was the only one that had the cell capacity with the perimeter security and the programming necessary to take care of the offenders in the way that California takes care of them," said Scott Kernan, Undersecretary of Operations for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The CCA contract expires next year – and there's a call at the Capitol for more transparency. Assemblyman De La Torre told CBS 13, "It has to look like all other competitive bidding processes so that the taxpayer will know that they're getting the best deal when we're sending prisoners out of state." Are taxpayers in fact getting the best bang for the buck? "We have no idea," De La Torre said.

August 31, 2010 KPHO
A July prison break in Kingman, Ariz., brought a local and national attention to the state's private prisons. But a CBS 5 News investigation discovered records of inmates in the for-profit facilities of which state Department of Corrections are unaware. In the early morning of Sept. 17, 2007, two inmates overpowered a guard and used ladders to climb out of a prison in Florence. Both were convicted murderers, including one who killed a man with a machete, according to prison records. "I just think they took the opportunity because it was there," said former guard Robert McDonald. McDonald, who worked at the Florence prison, attributed part of the problem to the fact the facility is a private, for-profit prison. "Night shift was always the weakest scheduled shift because of staffing," McDonald said. The surprising fact isn't that the prison break involved the machete murderer, but that neither the Department of Corrections nor any other law enforcement agency in Arizona was aware he was there. The escapees committed their crimes in Washington state but were sent to a privately-run prison in Arizona that houses out-of-state inmates. There are at least three of these prisons operating in Arizona, and not even the director of the Arizona Department of Corrections knows who is locked up in them. The CBS 5 investigation found inmates such as Byran Uyesugi, who was convicted of murdering seven people in Hawaii in 1999, the worst mass murder in the state's history. He is an inmate at a private prison in Eloy. There is no Arizona law that requires private prisons to report who they hold. Bill Brotherton was an Arizona state senator in 2006 and sponsored two bills that would have reined in some of the freedom private prisons enjoy. "One of the pieces of legislation was just to say nobody can import murderers or sexual offenders to the state of Arizona," he said. "You keep your people. We've got enough of our own. We don't want any more." Neither bill passed, Brotherton said. "I had a hearing on one in committee. Couldn't get a hearing on the other one. They died," he said. Brotherton found himself against a brick wall the private prison industry has created at the state Capitol. Records show that from 2001 to 2004 the companies that run private prisons and their lobbyists contributed $77,000 to powerful state lawmakers, and have contributed even more since then. "These companies have been buying influence in the Legislature for decades, really," said social justice advocate Caroline Isaacs, whose job includes monitoring the industry for the American Friends Service Committee. She said big state contracts and loose regulations combine to make Arizona the "promised land" of private prisons. Prison companies are exploring new locations in Globe, Benson, Prescott Valley, Florence, Tucson and the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation. "They've been very busy running around the state talking to these various town councils and county zoning commissions getting land rezoned for correctional usage," Isaacs said. A prison break in Kingman in July that drew national attention and a nationwide manhunt for three escaped convicts and an accomplice put a temporary stop to those prison expansion plans. Even some of the Legislature's top supporters of private prisons now say it's time to enact "some" regulation of prisons that house out-of-state inmates. State Rep. John Kavanagh said, "I think the major requirement is that we get to ensure that the custody level of the prison matches the custody level of the prisoner." Kavanagh stopped short of saying there should be limits on who these prisons house in Arizona, which means convicts like the machete murderer from Washington and the mass murderer from Hawaii will continue to call Arizona home. Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the private prisons that hold inmates from other states, issued a statement that reads, in part: "We cannot support regulations that would result in the closing of facilities and the loss of hundreds of jobs in Arizona."

August 27, 2010 Hernando Today
If the inmates at the Hernando County Jail had any intentions of sleeping in Friday morning, they soon found out differently. Several were roused from their beds early to start painting walls inside the jail. Others were kept busy outside erecting new signs indicating the county sheriff's office is now in charge. It's a whole new atmosphere at the jail, Sheriff Richard Nugent said Friday morning, on his way back from the facility. No more late morning sleep-ins. No more pizza parties (even for charity) or warm breakfasts. No more sloppy, untucked shirts. From now on, every inmate will wear the same black and white uniform and they will look presentable for hearings. There will be assigned duties for all — many will be required to clean up the grounds around the jail or in the community. "It's just a whole different way of doing business," said Nugent, whose staff of 130 sworn and nonsworn deputies took over operations from Corrections Corporation of America at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Nugent said conditions under CCA during the 22 years that private company ran things had been too lax — from the way inmates dressed to the way they talked to people. Too much of a country club atmosphere, he said. The new staff intends to run the jail more like a corrections institution so that the proper ethic will be instilled in the inmates as they work to reenter society. In the outside world, people get up early and prepare for work. An inmate's day should be no different, he said. "Our goal is, we don't want them to come back," Nugent said. "The way CCA was running it, why wouldn't you want to come back?" CCA, he said, was a profit-oriented business and did not object to repeat business. Now, that profit motive is gone, he said. The turnover of the operations went off without a hitch. "It was a smooth, smooth transition," Nugent said. "It was uneventful, and that's how we like it." Capt. Billy Beetz, who was part of the transition team in the operations turnover, said the transfer was seamless for all involved. CCA, the county and the sheriff's office worked as a team to make sure there were no glitches, Beetz said. No more hot breakfast -- All sworn deputies at the jail will receive the same base salary of $39,401. For those CCA employees who qualified for the new deputy position and are already state-certified corrections officers, their salaries were bumped up more than $7,000, from their current $32,169. But Nugent said the county will ultimately save money because he is running the jail more efficiently and with a leaner staff than CCA —130 compared to 170. In the coming weeks, the jail staffers will institute other cost-saving measures, including an automated medical record system. One change that has already started is the elimination of hot breakfasts for inmates. That saves money by not having staffers come to work as early, Nugent said. Nugent said he will allow inmates to receive only postcards, which cuts down on staffers' time by having to take time to open and inspect letters. Nugent said he still hopes to return $500,000 back to the county after the first year of operation. A quick transition -- Nugent said last week, during the swearing in of his new jail force, that never in the history of his department did he have to hire so many so quickly. From the outset, the entire transition was fast-tracked. It all began in March when Nugent told county commissioners he wanted to take over operations at the Hernando County Jail and believed he could save the county money. On April 1, CCA opened many of its records to county staffers and purported to show the company could continue to operate the facility more cheaply and efficiently than Nugent. Then on April 13, Nugent — citing deteriorating conditions of the jail and potentially big money repair costs — withdrew his proposal. In a slide presentation, Nugent showed roof leaks, rusted doors, safety problems, cracks and separations on the concrete floor, walls and ceiling. In short, there were too many problems for him to take on operations, he said. On April 28, CCA dropped a bombshell and said it would opt out of its contract with Hernando County in 120 days but would be willing to renegotiate. That prompted Nugent to say he would again be willing to take over jail operations. "We're not going to let the county be held hostage to CCA's tactics," he said at the time.

August 25, 2010 Washington Independent
Days after the ACLU called for additional protections against sexual abuse of immigrant detainees, Human Rights Watch issued a report today demanding Congressional action to improve detention center conditions. The calls come after the Aug. 19 arrest of a former guard at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas, who was accused in May of groping three women on their way to deportation. Sexual abuse allegations at Hutto were particularly disturbing because the facility was lauded as a symbol of ICE’s year-long detention reform effort, as The Texas Independent pointed out last week. But Human Rights Watch argued they were not an isolated incident, claiming the problem is more widespread than officials realize because detainees are often deported or otherwise unable to report abuse. ICE already made some steps toward preventing sexual abuse in detention centers after Hutto abuse allegations surfaced in May. Officials plan to publish revised standards for dealing with sexual assault. ICE will also prohibit guards from searching or transporting detainees of the opposite gender. Official policy already bans male staffers from being alone with female immigration detainees — a rule contract guards at Hutto, a Corrections Corporation of America facility, were allegedly breaking. In May, ICE ordered the prison contractor to stop allowing male guards to be alone with female immigrant detainees.

August 22, 2010 Arizona Republic
Arizona puts more of its inmates into privately run prisons every year, even though the prisons may not be as secure as state-run facilities and may not save taxpayers money. Lawmakers began using private prisons to ease overcrowding and have supported their use so aggressively that today, one in five Arizona inmates is housed in a private facility. Many inmates from other states also are housed in private prisons in Arizona, but the state has little information about who they are and limited oversight of how they are secured. The state has 11 privately operated prisons. A high-profile escape of three Arizona inmates last month from a Kingman-area private prison, which spurred a nationwide manhunt and is believed to have resulted in two murders, raises questions about the industry's growth and the degree of state oversight. The last fugitives in that escape were caught Thursday, and the state's prison director has promised changes to the private sites that house Arizona inmates. State leaders in recent years have pushed for more privatization and have blocked efforts to regulate the industry, which has invested heavily in local lobbying and contributed to political campaigns. Last year, officials approved a plan to hand over the operation of nearly every state prison to private companies. The plan was repealed only after no credible bidder came forward. This year, lawmakers approved 5,000 new private-prison beds for Arizona prisoners. Data suggest that the facilities are less cost-effective than they claim to be. A cost study by the Arizona Department of Corrections this year found that it can often be more expensive to house inmates in private prisons than in their state-run counterparts. A growing industry -- Arizona's use of private prisons dates back to the early 1990s, when lawmakers, grappling with overcrowding in state facilities, authorized the construction of a 450-bed minimum-security prison in Marana to house drug and alcohol abusers. The prison is owned and operated by Management & Training Corp., the Utah-based company that also operates the Kingman facility where the three inmates escaped. Since then, Arizona has increasingly relied on for-profit operators to manage its own inmates. It also has allowed private companies to import prisoners from other states. Rapid growth began in 2003 and the years immediately following, when Arizona was again wrestling with prison overcrowding. To ease the shortage, Republican lawmakers agreed to build 2,000 new prison beds, compromising with a reluctant Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, to make half of them private. Around the same time, nearly a dozen other states grappling with the same issues began shipping their inmates to private facilities elsewhere in the country. Arizona, with cheap land and a receptive political climate, became a go-to destination for private-prison operators, who began accepting inmates from as far as Washington and Hawaii. Today, Arizona houses 20.1 percent of its prisoners in private facilities, according to state data from July. Exactly how many inmates are here from other states is unclear. Last year, lawmakers took the unprecedented step of exploring the privatization of almost the entire Arizona correctional system, passing a bill that would have turned over the state's prisons to private operators for an up-front payment of $100 million. The payment would have helped the state close a billion-dollar budget gap. The bill, which also included a host of changes related to the state's budget, was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, but the language relating to prison privatization was repealed in a later special session. The state now has an open contract for the construction and operation of 5,000 new private-prison beds. Arizona's reliance on private facilities coincides with operators' increasing national political activity in hiring lobbyists and donating to political campaigns. The ties between the companies and Arizona elected officials - which go back nearly a decade - have become a campaign issue in this year's gubernatorial race. Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of private prisons, runs six in Arizona, three of which house inmates for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Brewer's critics have suggested that she signed Senate Bill 1070, and has advocated for privatization of some prisons, in part to benefit CCA's bottom line. Democrats have called on Brewer, a Republican, to fire "aides" associated with the prison company. That includes HighGround, a Phoenix consulting and lobbying firm managing Brewer's gubernatorial campaign. The firm counts CCA among its clients. Brewer's official spokesman, Paul Senseman, also used to lobby for CCA. Campaign finance reports filed earlier this year show that eight executives with CCA contributed $1,080 of the $51,193 in seed money Brewer received for her gubernatorial campaign. CCA also gave $10,000 to the "Yes on 100" campaign, which backed a temporary, 1-cent-on-the-dollar increase in the state's sales tax. Brewer was the chief advocate for the tax, which was approved by voters in May. In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Brewer said those connections have not influenced her policy decisions. She said she never felt pressured by any of her advisers. "It's absolutely political posturing and rhetoric," Brewer said. "I find it very disappointing. We have a bed shortage here in Arizona, and we have to come up with some way to incarcerate (criminals). The best way, the least expensive way, is to do it with private prisons." The industry's political connections have extended to other Arizona politicians. According to a 2006 report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, the private-prison industry gave to the campaigns of 29 of 42 Arizona lawmakers who heard a 2003 proposal to increase state private-prison beds. Between 2001 and 2004, the industry contributed $77,267 to Arizona's legislative and gubernatorial candidates, the vast majority through lobbyists paid to represent their interests at the Legislature. In most cases, donations ranged from a couple of hundred dollars to as much as $2,500. Lax oversight -- The state Department of Corrections has varying levels of oversight of Arizona's private-prison network. Some prisons house criminals convicted in Arizona. The Corrections Department regulates those facilities, though private-prison critics question whether those facilities maintain the same safety standards as their state-run counterparts. Other private prisons house inmates from other states or on behalf of the federal government. Arizona does not dictate what kinds of inmates they may accept, nor the manner in which they are secured. In those situations, private-prison operators work with their outside-government partners on training specifications and other operational details. They report to Arizona only the names, security classifications and number of inmates housed at their facilities. State stat- utes do not require private operators to provide Arizona officials details about the crimes the prisoners committed or escape data. In 2007, two convicted killers sent from another state stole ladders from a maintenance building and climbed onto a roof at a private prison outside Florence. Brandishing a fake gun, they climbed over the prison walls and escaped to freedom. One was caught within hours, but it was almost a month before the other was caught hundreds of miles away in his home state of Washington. As with the Kingman breakout, the 2007 escape drew attention to the largely unregulated growth of private prisons in the state, particularly prisons that house other states' inmates. To address security concerns, a bipartisan bill drafted by Napolitano's office in 2008 and introduced by Republican state Sen. Robert Blendu would have required private prisons to be built to the state's construction standards. The proposal also would have ended the practice of private prisons importing murderers, rapists and other dangerous felons to Arizona. And it would have required the companies to share security and inmate information with state officials. After an initial flurry of activity, the bill died. "The private-prison industry lobbied heavily against that bill, and they were successful," said Michael Haener, Napolitano's lobbyist at the time. Blendu later left the Legislature, and the bill was not reintroduced. What little regulation private prisons have in Arizona stems from a series of escapes in the late 1990s. In response, the Legislature passed a law requiring the reimbursement of law-enforcement costs from private-prison operators in the event of an escape. Arizona laws also require companies to carry insurance to cover law-enforcement costs in cases of escape, to notify state officials when they bring new prisoners into the state and to return out-of-state prisoners to their home states to be released. But there are no penalties if the companies don't comply. Costs questioned -- Notwithstanding lawmakers' concerns about security, private prisons gained favor in part because of the promised savings they could deliver to a cash-strapped and overcrowded prison system. Yet studies have questioned whether those savings are real. In making their pitches, private-prison companies played on the desire of many lawmakers to shift more state services to the private sector. Direct cost comparisons between for-profit and public prisons can be difficult, however. According to the National Institute of Justice, private prisons tend to make much lower estimates of their overhead costs to the state for oversight, inmate health care and staff background checks. Officials at public prisons often argue that the state winds up paying a higher cost for those services than is advertised, mitigating savings that private prisons are built to deliver. A study this year by the Arizona Department of Corrections found that when various costs are factored in, it can be more expensive to house an inmate in a private prison than it is to house one in a state-run prison. The cost of housing a medium-security inmate is $3 to $8 more per day in a private prison, depending on what assumptions are made about overhead costs to the state, the study found. Travis Pratt, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University, said there is no evidence that private prisons save government agencies money, even though they typically promise up-front savings. To maintain profit margins, Pratt said, companies often cut back on staff training, wages and inmate services. "Cost savings like that don't come without consequences," Pratt said. "And that can present a security risk that's elevated." Odie Washington, a senior vice president at Management & Training Corp., acknowledged Thursday that the Kingman prison employed an inexperienced staff. "We have a lot of very young staff that have not integrated into very strong security practices," Washington said. Private-prison operators disagree with Pratt's assessment, contending that they can deliver services efficiently and safely. "That's one of the more frustrating misconceptions out there for us that we have to repeatedly respond to," said Steve Owen, director of public affairs for Corrections Corporation of America. Owen said it is CCA's "general experience" that private prisons can save states and the federal government 5 to 15 percent on operational costs. The company also can build facilities more cheaply, he said. CCA is contractually required to meet or exceed training requirements that states they work for set for themselves, Owen said. In addition, the company has made sure its prisons in Arizona comply with accreditation standards put in place by the American Correctional Association, a Virginia-based trade group. Many communities, meanwhile, eagerly welcome private prisons because the facilities generate jobs and economic activity. CCA prisons in Florence and Eloy, for example, employ 2,700 people. Last year, the company paid $26 million in property taxes, Owen said. What's next -- Lawmakers from both parties have called for hearings into what went wrong in Kingman. Presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry Goddard has said he would push to bring back the 2008 private-prison bill. Goddard also is calling for an immediate re-evaluation of the system used to classify and place inmates in facilities. The five-tiered system, which allows some violent criminals to migrate to lower-security facilities for good behavior, met with bipartisan criticism in the wake of the escapes. Two of the three inmates who escaped from the medium-security Kingman prison had been convicted of murder. Goddard said the three recent escapees never should have been in a medium-security prison. Charles Ryan, director of the Department of Corrections, announced Thursday that the state would slow its bidding process for the 5,000 new private-prison beds pending additional review. Brewer has said little publicly about the escape but told The Republic last week that she is committed to holding prison operators responsible for mistakes they made. She said she has ordered Ryan to conduct a "complete review to make sure that inmates are appropriately secured and in the right kinds of facilities." While Brewer remains confident that private prisons are well suited to house less-violent offenders, she said: "What has happened is unacceptable, and I am absolutely pushing for more accountability."

August 22, 2010 St Petersburg Times
As the sun rises over the Hernando County Jail this morning, newly sworn sheriff's correctional deputies will stand side by side with the private jailers whose company has run the facility for 22 years. While Sheriff Richard Nugent doesn't officially take over the jail from Corrections Corporation of America until 12:01 a.m. Friday, inmates today will begin to see what the future will look like under the sheriff's watch. The captive audience is in for a few changes. Gone will be the regular pizza nights. No more movie or popcorn nights either. And no more sleeping in. Inmates will be expected to work at the facility or, when a program is crafted, out in the community, where sheriff's officials say there are plenty of public lands to be cleaned up and grass to be mowed. Hot breakfasts will be a thing of the past. Inmates will be expected to be presentable at broadcast court hearings, and their movements through the facility will be regimented, militarylike and orderly. That's a far cry from the conditions there now, said Maj. Michael Page, the jail's new administrator. "They're pretty much doing what they want there while they stay within the walls," he said. Suffice it to say, the next time Playboy magazine publishes "An Insider's Guide to America's Top Ten Jails," as it did in 1992, the Hernando jail probably won't make the list. Nugent promised that the punishment aspect of incarceration will return under his leadership. "There's a new sheriff in town," Nugent said. "It's not going to be a relaxed Club Med atmosphere."

August 16, 2010 Hernando Today
Erin St. Pierre could not contain her joy at being sworn in as one of the newest deputies at the Hernando County Jail. She gave her seven-month-old daughter Madeline a big squeeze as she talked with her mom and dad in the foyer of the National Guard Armory Monday morning following a 45-minute dedication ceremony. "It feels nice to be part of something like this and to get in on the ground floor," St. Pierre said as other families and officers mingled and hugged. "This is a big opportunity for her," her dad, Mark McGrail, said. And it was a big day for 129 other deputies and officers officially sworn in Monday just 11 days before they assume their duties at the 756-bed jail and replace the current staff. Sheriff Richard Nugent and his team spent the last 80 days interviewing potential candidates as they raced to meet a deadline of Aug. 27, when the sheriff's department takes over the reins of the facility from Corrections Corporation of America. CCA had operated the jail for 22 years. But in May, it opted to get out of the contract, giving the county about three months to recruit a new detention division force. Many of the new recruits were hired from other detention facilities in the state, including Pasco and Sumter counties. "What a historic occasion for the Hernando County Sheriff's Office," Nugent told the sea of green-suited deputies sitting in folding chairs inside the armory. "Never in the history of the sheriff's office have we taken on (a hiring) endeavor like that," he said. After being called to the stage individually and being handed their deputy's stripes, Major Mike Page, the new administrator of the jail, wished the new crop of jail officers the best in their new challenge. "I expect a lot from each of you," Page said. "We will make this the best jail in the United States." Each new detention staffer had to attend 40 hours of training to comply with American Correctional Standards (ACA) requirements. Nugent will begin operations with a force of 130 people, compared with 170 CCA employees. All sworn deputies will receive the same base salary of $39,401. Billy Beetz, who was promoted from lieutenant to captain during Monday's event, said recently that about 35 CCA employees had been considered for continued employment and met the stringent requirements of the sheriff's office.

August 11, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Having seen earlier snapshots on just what is physically wrong with a portion of the Hernando County Jail, the County Commission approved a plan Tuesday to get the whole picture. The commission approved a $239,306 contract to hire HDR Engineering Inc. to examine the structure from the electrical systems to the air conditioning, from the oldest section to the newest addition. The goal is to determine just what repairs are needed to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the people living inside and the residents living outside the facility. Just as important, the report will tell Hernando officials just how much of the repair bill should be paid by Corrections Corporation of America for failing to properly maintain the facility. During the commission meeting, Chairman John Druzbick announced that Sheriff Richard Nugent had just called to tell him that he was willing to return $500,000 to the county out of the planned jail budget. Commissioners, who had a number of budget items on their agenda Tuesday, were pleased. Finding ways to plug a revenue shortfall that originally topped $10.3 million has been an ongoing project for county officials. Nugent is set to take over the Hernando County Jail from CCA at the end of the month and his staff is in the final weeks of preparation for that transition. Hiring the engineer was an important step, according to County Administrator David Hamilton. The firm, chosen on a rotating basis from the list of engineers the county uses for such projects, is supposed to examine the structure and systems, determine who is responsible for the problems, assess the cost and then manage the construction to make repairs, according to Lisa Hammond, the purchasing and contracts consultant hired by the clerk of the circuit court. The funding for the engineering work comes out of the $3 million that the commission set aside for the project. Commissioners also agreed to several other jail expenditures on Tuesday, including paying $156,200 to rekey the jail and $68,848 for ongoing jail repairs overseen by the county's facilities department. After questions were raised by Commissioner Rose Rocco about the much-talked-about jail dishwasher, Jail Administrator Maj. Michael Page explained that bids for a dishwasher had been obtained and were under review by the county.

August 9, 2010 Tennessean
By now, Trousdale County had hoped to be generating $1.5 million a year in new property tax revenues and having 350 people at work in a prison that Corrections Corporation of America planned to build here. Instead, concrete cells built in advance of the construction sit dormant not far from the building site. They're a reminder that the project remains on hold as CCA and other private prison companies deal with an oversupply of beds nationally amid weaker demand from states faced with budget difficulties. Trousdale County may have to wait even longer because CCA has 12,500 unoccupied prison beds to fill around the country. Except for a 1,072-bed detention center in Nevada, and expansions at a pair of Georgia prisons, CCA has halted new construction — especially of facilities for which it doesn't have signed contracts that would put prisoners in those beds. Here, the uncertainty of what lies ahead weighs on the minds of county officials who must deal with their own budget problems. A proposed county budget to be discussed Tuesday seeks roughly an 8 percent increase in property taxes in Tennessee's smallest county by land size — with a population of about 9,000 — to raise $250,000. Without the funds, there could be cuts in key services. "A lot of people felt like (CCA) let us down," said Jerry Clift, the former county executive who now heads the five-county Four Lake Authority, which sold land to Nashville-based CCA for its planned prison. The regional industrial development authority spent $1.5 million to bring water, sewerage and fiber optic lines to the site, officials said. CCA itself has spent roughly $27.5 million, mostly to pay for the prefabricated concrete cells, but those potentially could be transferred to other projects. Also, if CCA honors a promise to advance the county $250,000 toward building permit fees, it could help ease the current budget pressures. "But then again, having this will just be a one-year Band-Aid," said County Executive Tim Roberson, who added that he understands how CCA's business considerations stalled the prison. "If new or additional tax revenue doesn't come in next year, we'll be in the same shape as we are right now." 'Looking for anything' -- Trousdale's difficulty recruiting industry or creating jobs is illustrated by the county's double-digit unemployment rate and vacant warehouses along the way to CCA's site at the PowerCom Industrial Center off state Highway 25. Unemployment stood at 10.5 percent in June, slightly above the statewide average. County government and a plant that makes compressor valves for the refrigeration market are Trousdale's biggest employers with 200 workers each, along with the 108-employee Trousdale Medical Center and banks. Seven years ago, Trousdale passed up a chance to land a $1.1 billion uranium enrichment plant, which could have brought 400 construction jobs and 250 permanent jobs, because of residents' concerns about how byproducts would be stored. Subsequently, talks of a prison picked up steam, culminating in CCA's February 2008 announcement of its plans to build a 2,040-bed prison that was expected to be finished earlier this year. "Economically, we were looking for anything to bring industry, jobs into the community and taxes," Clift said. Filling vacancies is focus For its part, CCA was making a bet that clients such as the state of Tennessee, federal agencies or other state governments would use the prison space to house additional prisoners. But while demand from federal clients has remained steady, the U.S. recession created budget issues for state governments, the source of half of CCA's annual revenues. In a CCA conference call last week, CEO Damon Hininger said the company was focused on filling excess vacant capacity and would continue its emphasis on controlling operating costs. Hininger said that, coming out of the recession, CCA's inventory of vacant beds should give the company a competitive edge to win new business. "We could see several states use the private sector after this recession," if they need more space to handle prison overcrowding or growth, he added. But not everyone expects demand for more prison space to materialize right away, especially in states with budget shortfalls. Kevin Campbell, a stock analyst with Avondale Partners LLC in Nashville, said CCA probably would have to reduce its inventory to 5,000 beds from 12,000 before building again. "The industry has a total of 17,000-plus beds in spare capacity," Campbell said. "That really gets to the heart of the fact that you no longer have a supply-demand imbalance."

July 29, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Officials with Hernando County and Corrections Corporation of America agreed late Wednesday on who owns most of the equipment and furnishings at the county jail, which CCA is vacating next month. The agreement avoids legal action the county had threatened against the company, which has run the jail for 22 years. The County Commission on Tuesday had set a 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline for an agreement or the county was going to sue. Hour by hour negotiations over the terms of the agreement continued throughout the day, according to Jean Rags, acting county administrator while David Hamilton is out on furlough. "We've got an agreement,'' Rags said about an hour before the deadline arrived. Sheriff Richard Nugent is taking over the jail at the end of August, but time was running out to make the transition smooth with the inventory questions unsettled. On Tuesday, commissioners discussed whether to end negotiations over the remaining disputed items and go to court to stop CCA from removing property. Chairman John Druzbick expressed concern that CCA had threatened to begin moving items out of the facility next week, and he worried that needed security devices might disappear putting the jail staff, inmates and the community at risk. A divided commission voted to give the sides one more day to try to reach an amicable conclusion with Druzbick and Commissioner Dave Russell voting no. After Tuesday's meeting, CCA official Natasha Metcalf e-mailed the county to say that there had been a misunderstanding and CCA had no intention of taking out anything critical to the day-to-day operation of the facility until the contract ends at the end of August. Negotiations began in earnest. On Wednesday, all parties agreed to a list of items that CCA owns and can take out of the facility at any time. But everything else falls under another portion of the agreement. CCA will not remove any other items from the jail until the county's takeover late next month. At that point, the items that belong to CCA that the company plans to leave and the county plans to use will be appraised so that the county can reimburse CCA. Items that belong to CCA that the county doesn't want must leave with CCA, Rags said. Ownership of some items, such as the much-talked-about $30,000 dishwasher, are still in dispute. The agreement does not speak to the still ongoing debate over how much of the jail repairs and upgrading is the financial responsibility of CCA and how much is the county's responsibility. In an earlier volley of proposed inventory solutions, CCA tried to tie the topics, but the county attorneys were unwilling to do that and commissioners were not interested. Druzbick said he was thrilled that negotiations had been successful. "Did I want to have an injunction and have it get to that point? No,'' he said. But he noted that he wanted to be sure that the county's interests were looked after and no one would be put at risk if needed equipment were hauled away.

July 29, 2010 Phoenix New Times
In May, I reported in my Feathered Bastard blog that executives and lobbyists for the giant, Tennessee-based prison company Corrections Corporation of America had donated $1,780 in "seed money" for Governor Jan Brewer's Clean Elections campaign. Such early contributions are limited to $140 per person. But if that seems like chump change, consider that CCA also contributed a whopping $10,000 to the campaign for Prop 100, the state sales-tax initiative, the success of which was considered key to Brewer's bid to be more than an "accidental" governor. The proposition was approved overwhelmingly by voters in May. What's the big deal with the CCA contributions? CCA operates six prisons in Arizona, three of which house detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As this column goes to press, SB 1070, Arizona's "breathing-while-brown" law, awaits the decision of U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton on whether she will grant an injunction of all or part of the statute. The various enforcement provisions of 1070 practically ensure that more undocumented folks will be turned over to ICE. CCA probably will end up holding some of these individuals as they wait for removal proceedings or if they are convicted of federal immigration-related crimes. So CCA stands to profit from SB 1070, and as recent reports from the investigative magazine In These Times and Phoenix's CBS 5 (KPHO) indicate, Brewer's relationship to CCA runs far deeper than just the political contributions mentioned above. In These Times' July issue featured a story by Beau Hodai that revealed that Brewer's top flack, Paul Senseman, worked for Arizona's Policy Development Group, which lists CCA as a client. Senseman's wife, Kathy, is listed with the firm as a lobbyist for CCA. Hodai also reported that the CCA employs Highground Public Affairs Consultants to represent its interests in Arizona. Highground's president is Chuck Coughlin, Brewer's top political adviser and the man running her gubernatorial campaign. Though In These Times was the first to publish this information, CBS 5's investigative unit was the first to run with it locally. During a recent newscast, reporter Morgan Loew revealed that CCA gets $11 million a month for inmates in the company's Arizona facilities. Loew got that figure from the U.S. Marshal's Office. Marshal David Gonzales confirmed the figure to me. But he said that's just what he pays CCA for holding his prisoners, many of whom have been convicted on immigration-related offenses. So that $11 million doesn't include whatever ICE pays CCA for the same services. I've asked ICE for that number, but it hasn't gotten back to me. Loew sandbagged Brewer at an event, but Brewer refused to answer questions about her advisers' ties to CCA. Brewer's boy was willing to chat it up with me about his big-dollar, private prison client, however. Clearly miffed by the CBS 5 report, Coughlin referred to it as "drive-by" journalism, and claimed that CCA "doesn't house any Arizona prisoners." "They don't house those types of inmates," insisted Coughlin regarding CCA and immigration-related collars. "[The CBS 5 report] is . . . a total piece of made-up journalism." When I told him that I'd been to the federal courthouse in Tucson myself, and witnessed CCA buses carting people convicted of immigration crimes, he backpedaled — but not by much. "That may be a federal contract," he said. "It has nothing to do with the state." But it will have something to do with the state if 1070 takes effect, as 1070 is all about local police enforcing federal immigration law to the fullest extent possible. Indeed, law enforcement agencies that do not enforce 1070 can be sued by Arizona citizens under one of the law's provisions. The law makes "attrition through enforcement" the policy of Arizona, and one provision requires that all those arrested have their immigration status checked before they are released. If CCA ends up holding some of these individuals, then 1070 will benefit CCA directly. "If that happens, if it were the case, if ICE does," scoffed Coughlin. "You have a lot of ifs down the road that's not a matter of fact right now. We're not working on speculative ventures here. We had no position on 1070. We did not lobby on 1070." Didn't lobby on 1070? That's one hard-to-swallow lump of coal. I asked Coughlin if he was telling me he'd never talked to Brewer about 1070 or advised her to sign the bill, as many presume he did. "I talk with her about a lot of stuff," he admitted. "Of course, we talked about 1070. We run her campaign. Absolutely." Coughlin also admitted that his firm began representing CCA "over a year ago." So he was representing CCA at the same time he was advising Brewer on whether to sign the law. If that's not a conflict of interest big enough to drive a semi through, I don't know what is. Neither Brewer's flack Senseman nor CCA responded to requests for comment for this column. But when I wrote about CCA and Brewer in May, CCA spokeswoman Louise Grant was not shy about gabbing. Grant maintained that CCA has no position on 1070. She denied that the law would be good for her employer or that CCA had any influence over the drafting of the law. "CCA has had no involvement whatsoever with this legislation," she told me at the time. "And we will not have any involvement with it." Well, not until local cops start handing over people to ICE. After that, despite Grant's disavowals, CCA will be involved. Don't get me wrong. I'm not positing a conspiracy theory. In my view, the odious ideology of nativism was the driving force behind the passage of SB 1070. But Coughlin clearly is making bank off CCA. And the company knows where its croissant is buttered. Everybody can smell the links between Brewer and CCA. They stink like one of Brewer's headless bodies in the desert. Or they would, if those bodies were real.

July 28, 2010 Daily Kos
Bigotry may not be the only motive behind Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's rabidly xenophobic new immigration law. Another factor may be that timeless Republican standard: greed. Zaid Jilani of Think Progress explains: Yet a new investigation by local Arizona TV news station CBS 5 finds that the Brewer administration may have ulterior motives for its strong support of the new law. The station has found that "two of Brewer’s top advisers have connections" to private prison giant Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Paul Senseman, Brewer’s deputy chief of staff, is a former lobbyist for CCA. His wife continues to lobby for the company. Meanwhile Chuck Coughlin, who leads her re-election campaign, chaired her transition into the governorship, and is one of the governor’s policy advisors, is president of HighGround Public Affairs Consultants, which lobbies for CCA. The best of all possible Republican worlds: codify racism, and make money while doing so? From the CBS 5 website: The private prison industry houses illegal immigrant detainees for the federal government. Those companies could gain contracts with state and local agencies to house illegal immigrants arrested for state violations. Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, holds the federal contract to house detainees in Arizona. The company bills $11 million per month. CCA insists it had nothing to do with the creation of the new law, has no state or local contracts to house detainees, and doesn't propose to house those detained because of the new Arizona law. In other words, it will be purely coincidental if those swept up by the new law end up being held by the same private contractor the federal government pays to hold detainees in Arizona. It will be purely coincidental if those swept up by the new law end up being held by the same private contractor that once employed Brewer's deputy chief of staff as a lobbyist, still employs his wife as a lobbyist, and pays a company run by Brewer's re-election chief, transition chair, and policy advisor to lobby. In the spirit of innocent-until-proven-guilty--something the new law's supporters might not understand--someone should ask the Brewer team how, exactly, they do propose to house those swept up by their new law, and who, exactly, will be paid to house them. There can't be many options, but who can imagine that it might somehow coincidentally end up being CCA?

July 28, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Corrections Corporation of America has until 5 p.m. today to reach an agreement with the county over its jail furnishings inventory dispute or face immediate legal action. County commissioners on Tuesday voiced concerns that CCA has said it will begin removing from the jail items that it believes are owned by the firm in the coming days. Commission Chairman John Druzbick asked about security at the jail if CCA begins removing beds, mattresses, cameras and other safety equipment before their contract ends and the sheriff takes over the facility late next month. CCA officials watching the broadcast of the meeting immediately e-mailed the county saying they had "no intention of removing any items necessary for the continued day-to-day operation of the facility until the facility transitions to the county.'' Negotiations over the dispute have been ongoing for weeks. Late Monday, CCA proposed allowing the county to keep the remaining items in the jail if CCA would be held harmless on any other remaining issues. But that would mean CCA could not be responsible for paying for any of the many jail upgrades and repairs that Hernando officials have said are needed to get the facility to an acceptable level. Assistant County Attorney Jon Jouben said the county couldn't agree to that and commissioners agreed. Druzbick said he wanted to see the county file an injunction to stop CCA from taking anything out of the facility, but Jouben noted that the county would have to sue CCA to stop them. He said there was still room for negotiations. Jouben also was concerned about talking about possible litigation publicly and said there might be some complications in getting an injunction. "I'd prefer to negotiate this than litigate it,'' said Commissioner Rose Rocco. Filing the injunction would just stop the action on the inventory and allow more time for working out the details, Druzbick argued. He also noted that as the deadlines CCA has tried to set have approached, CCA's willingness to negotiate seems to diminish. Jouben and assistant county attorney Jeff Kirk offered a new proposal for the commission to consider. It would basically transfer all the items in the jail to the county when CCA leaves with CCA sending the county an invoice for the value. If a dispute arose about that amount, the two sides would agree to have an independent appraiser paid for by both sides set the value. Maj. Michael Page, Sheriff Richard Nugent's new jail administrator, urged commissioners to settle the disputes. "In 29 days it's going to be our responsibility to run the jail for the county,'' he said. In that short time, the county and CCA need to determine whether the facility will have beds or security cameras or kitchen equipment. Even though funds have been set aside to pay for startup costs, Page told commissioners he doesn't know what to buy until they determine what belongs to the county. Double spending taxpayers' money made no sense, he said. "I cannot operate it without the proper equipment and I cannot operate it without a sound structure,'' he said. In a late afternoon e-mail, CCA official Natasha Metcalf expressed interest in seeing the county's latest proposed settlement and agreed the firm "will be in contact with you as soon as we have the opportunity to review it.''

July 24, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Sheriff Richard Nugent is requesting $10.9 million from the county to run the Hernando County Jail next year, an amount that tops the current budget by more than a quarter-million dollars. Not only is it more than the County Commission had previously approved, it also is at odds with Nugent's earlier assertions that he could operate the facility for less than the amount the private company running the jail has charged. County Administrator David Hamilton, however, will recommend to the board on Tuesday that it pay the sheriff the larger sum. In a memo to the commissioners, he explained the factors leading to the different amounts. When officials developed last year's jail budget, they assumed that the county this year would adopt an electronic ankle-monitoring system, which would mean fewer inmates actually housed in the facility. Details of that program were never worked out with the judges, thus the projected savings from a lower jail population never materialized. Also, under the contract with Corrections Corporation of America, costs were figured on a per-day charge for the inmates. Nugent, by contrast, will operate under a fixed-cost budget, getting the same amount no matter how many prisoners are in the jail. Hamilton said that even if Nugent implements the ankle-monitoring program after he takes over the jail next month, there will not be a significant cut in his costs other than possibly savings from food or medical expenses. In his memo to the commissioners, Hamilton recommends adding the proposed cost of the ankle-monitoring program to the budget. That accounts for the additional $280,000 in the budget, bringing the total to $10.9 million. Hamilton adds, "Further reductions may occur based on continuing negotiations in the spirit of good faith and integrity'' as the county works on cutting general fund expenses. County Commissioner Jeff Stabins, who pointed out the differing budget amounts earlier this month, said he's not sure that Nugent should get the $280,000. He said that if the sheriff really needs the money, it should not come from the county's general fund. Rather, since the sheriff and the judiciary promised to implement the cost-cutting ankle-monitoring program last year, they should find the money themselves. "That's why we put (the projected savings) into the budget,'' Stabins said. The fact that it didn't happen, "it's no fault of the County Commission.'' He suggested that the county take the money from the fund set aside for a proposed judicial center. "It's the responsibility of the judiciary,'' Stabins said. Several other jail-related items are also on Tuesday's agenda, including correspondence between the county and CCA regarding the dispute over who owns equipment at the jail. CCA has said it will start removing equipment the company believes it owns if an agreement with the county can't be reached by Wednesday. The attorney for the Clerk of the Circuit Court has recommended that the county file an injunction to stop CCA from seizing any property. On Friday, Lisa Hammond was scrambling to assemble a list of the big-ticket items that are still under dispute. She is the consultant hired to work with the clerk and county on purchasing and contract issues. In addition to a $30,000 dishwasher, correspondence also indicates that other items under discussion range from computer terminals, cameras and razor wire to beds, mattresses and linens. In a letter to CCA on Friday, Hamilton rejected CCA's Wednesday deadline and asked CCA officials to coordinate a meeting with Hammond later next week to settle the remaining issues. "We want to put these issues to bed,'' Hammond said. Nugent has written to the commission urging a quick settlement of the disputes before the takeover happens and asks county officials to be sure not to make taxpayers pay twice for the same equipment.

July 23, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Corrections Corporation of America has told Hernando County that it may start removing items from the Hernando County Jail as soon as next week, a full month before the company is set to turn over the facility to the sheriff. In a flurry of correspondence in recent days, CCA has notified the county that it has a right to remove the items and will start doing so, even taking equipment that the county says the company may not own, if some agreement on ownership is not settled by Wednesday. Meanwhile, the attorney for the Clerk of the Circuit Court has recommended that the county seek an immediate court injunction to stop that from happening. Sheriff Richard Nugent is set to take over the jail at the end of August but the county and CCA have been arguing about which items in the jail, including a huge kitchen dishwasher, are going and which are staying. On Wednesday, Tom Hogan Jr. of the Hogan Law Firm wrote to County Attorney Garth Coller recommending the injunction. "If CCA is allowed to remove said assets from the jail, recovery of the same becomes problematic,'' wrote Hogan. "Of greater importance, however, is the fact that the operation of the jail by its very nature is a dangerous business,'' Hogan wrote. "The removal of jail assets by CCA could place the Sheriff's Office personnel in danger and thereby, the county at risk, when the Sheriff assumes the responsibility for the operation of the jail on Aug. 27, 2010.'' In a Thursday letter to County Administrator David Hamilton, CCA official Natasha Metcalf states that "CCA has the right to remove all CCA-owned property from the Hernando County Jail at any time. Accordingly, CCA will continue to remove CCA-owned property from the facility as permitted under the contract.'' She goes on to state that the county has until Wednesday to discuss any issues about those items still in dispute and, after that point, CCA will remove those items as well. If the county wants to buy any of the CCA property, Metcalf asks that the county provide an itemized list and a proposed purchase price. Throughout the inventory dispute, Nugent has been a bit of a bystander. In a letter this week to Commission Chairman John Druzbick, Nugent expressed concern that the upheaval over the inventory was making it difficult for him and his transition team to plan for a smooth takeover. Using the $30,000 dishwasher as his example, Nugent urges the county to "immediately exercise all appropriate legal measures to ensure that the county-owned property remains in the jail'' because "the taxpayers should not have to purchase the same equipment a second time.'' He concludes by encouraging the county to "resolve the equipment ownership issues now rather than later, as waiting on a post-transition legal process will likely cost the county and the taxpayers unnecessary dollars.''

July 18, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Taking over a jail in 120 days is not a task for the faint of heart. Just ask Sheriff Richard Nugent, who will begin operating the Hernando County Jail on Aug. 27, after Corrections Corporation of America notified the county in April that it was pulling out after 22 years. The transition has been all the more difficult because Nugent's command staff has had to weed through hundreds of applications to fill 100 sworn and more than 30 non-sworn positions. A third of the initial 60 applicants from CCA were rejected for lack of qualifications, or bigger problems. One current CCA employee admitted being an intermediary in drug deals. Another said he had used a variety of substances in the past, ranging from marijuana and cocaine to mushrooms and a veterinary anesthetic. The issues with some of the current staff mirror problems with the state of the facility that Nugent is inheriting, he noted. And while the county is still negotiating to bring in an engineer to examine maintenance problems at the jail, Nugent wants to see the obvious issues — such as rusting doors and a leaking roof — simply get fixed. The county doesn't need to pay an engineer to say that those repairs are needed. That just runs up the cost, he said. Nugent and his command staff also have expressed frustration over ongoing questions about who owns what equipment. Trying to order equipment and supplies when the landlord, Hernando County, and the tenant, CCA, are each claiming ownership of the same inventory — including a $30,000 dishwasher — is frustrating, officials said. Nugent plans to write to County Commission Chairman John Druzbick soon to make it clear that inventory disputes need to be settled. "We've got to know where we are and soon,'' Nugent said. After all, he said on Friday, just 41 days remain. • • • Nugent's human resources staff, a team of sworn officers doing background checks, the jail command staff and his bureau chiefs have been conducting the search for the staff that will run the jail. They are still about 12 shy in sworn positions and have about 20 more non-sworn jobs to fill. The process includes an extensive application, a detailed background check, an interview, truth verification testing, psychological screening and drug testing. Anywhere along the way, the applicant can be red flagged for a problem, according to Maj. Michael Page, the new jail administrator. Nugent has the final say on all of the choices. The sheriff's yardstick includes consideration of an applicant's drug use, criminal history, financial situation and the number of jobs an individual has held. Drug use early in life doesn't necessarily mean that an applicant is out. Drug use after the age of 25 does because Nugent says those 25 and older should be making more responsible choices. Other applicants have been rejected for a variety of errors that Nugent simply couldn't live with. One current CCA corrections officer, for example, had glowing evaluations but had, on one occasion, accidentally let the wrong inmate go. "You just have to look at it all,'' Nugent said. By a week from Wednesday, the sheriff said, he must notify those selected so they can give notice at their current jobs and get training. While CCA ran the jail with 170 employees, Nugent plans to have fewer than 135, with 100 of those sworn officers with a starting salary of $39,401 — thousands more than beginning salary for CCA employees. His workers will be certified corrections deputies with a higher professional standard, for which Nugent does not apologize. "If they're going to wear my badge and work for me,'' he said, the corrections staff will handle inmates and the public professionally. While the jail appeared to run smoothly for two decades under CCA's oversight, Nugent said it is unknown just how smooth that operation was under the private company. Problems including escapes and suicides occurred under the CCA watch. And several years ago, the sheriff voiced concerns with the jail failing to catalog hundreds of inmates' fingerprints in a timely manner. "A lot of these problems would get me un-elected,'' Nugent said. The jail's condition alone showed that CCA's stewardship was not up to a high standard, and no one was ever held accountable for maintenance and repairs. Professionals wouldn't have let that happen, he said. "If you expect more out of people," Nugent said, "you have to have a higher quality of people to start with." • • • Since Nugent was given the job of chief jailer for the county, his staff has been slowly moving in and shadowing the CCA corrections staff, and what they have learned is that they can do more with less. For example, Page noted that CCA has lots of supervisors and they rose to their positions simply by outlasting their co-workers, even if they were fairly new to the job. That might mean a corrections officer with just a few years of experience could be in charge of the hundreds of inmates and staffers at any given time, a huge responsibility, Page noted. "You need time to season, and you need time to experience the things you're going to experience'' before a promotion, Nugent said. Promoting too quickly, "it's bad for the organization and it's bad for the employee.'' Shadowing CCA also has allowed the sheriff's leadership team to see where more employees are needed and where fewer are needed. "The number of people watching inmates is going to be essentially the same,'' Page said. "By no means is anybody going to be at risk'' because of staffing changes. Nugent noted that CCA didn't keep up with technology and said many of their operations are labor intensive. For example, the sheriff will switch from a paper to a computerized system for medical record keeping. The process of checking in inmates, collecting their valuables and belongings, and returning them will be among other tasks to be automated. While Nugent's staff members are confident with the technology changes and personnel screening process, they are more frustrated with the parts of the transition that are out of their control. The tug-of-war over the dishwasher is one obvious example of the inventory problems. As CCA prepares to depart and take whatever its officials believe they own, Nugent must replace equipment, furnishings and technology that will be gone. "Nothing happens overnight,'' Page said, noting that the county can't just walk into Sears and buy a new industrial dishwasher. It might have to be custom built. Since it is county government's fight with CCA, "we're kind of caught in the middle,'' said Bureau Chief Bill Kicklighter. There is a back-up plan, pointed out Bureau Chief Royce Decker. "Styrofoam,'' he said. The sheriff's team already has a contingency in place for disposable plates, cups and utensils. Lisa Hammond, the county's purchasing consultant, acknowledged ongoing inventory issues between the county and CCA. "We're going strictly with what is a fixed asset according to accounting practices, but CCA doesn't necessarily agree,'' Hammond said. "We're hoping to have some resolution late (this) week.'' • • • Nugent pulls no punches when it comes to his assessment of the jail facility. In his opinion, it's "a piece of junk.'' And while Page assures that the jail will be operated efficiently under the sheriff's leadership, he also thinks the county could be making repairs that are necessary before the transition takes place. "We could be further along,'' he said. The sheriff and county workers were busy in their joint meeting Friday working through such issues. County Administrator David Hamilton said that written protocols will be established for who is responsible for which maintenance tasks. Rusting doors, deteriorating windows and leaks in the ceiling are all well documented problems at the facility. Nugent's team wants some issues addressed immediately, such as the doors in the holding cell area of booking that can be popped open with a shove. "We have communicated our concerns to the county,'' Page said. While there is still plenty to get done over the next six weeks, Nugent, Page and their team all say there are no worries. The sheriff will be running the jail in late August. "We're getting real close on all of it,'' Page said. "We'll be ready on the drop-dead date.''

July 12, 2010 The News-Herald
Sheriff Frank McKeithen testified Monday in a racial discrimination trial filed on behalf of a black corrections officer. The officer, Patrick Lane, has accused McKeithen of failing to hire him even though he was qualified for the job. In court documents, McKeithen argued that his reasons for not hiring Lane were simple: In 2001, Lane was charged with conspiracy to commit attempted murder for his alleged involvement in a non-fatal shooting in Franklin County. Lane countered in subsequent documents that the charge ultimately was dropped and that some white officers have been hired even though they pleaded guilty to other criminal charges, including battery, receiving stolen property and passing worthless checks. One applicant who was hired had been accused of lewd and lascivious battery on a child and pleaded guilty to battery, the documents stated. McKeithen also hired a former guard at the Bay County Boot Camp to work at CCA, which ran the Bay County Jail until the sheriff’s office took control in fall 2008. The guard, Charles Enfinger, had been charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child in the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson. That case went to a jury, which found Enfinger, six other guards and a nurse not guilty. During his testimony Monday, McKeithen said that in October 2008, as the sheriff’s office was preparing to take over the jail, he personally waded through about 300 applications. Most of those applications came from current CCA employees. McKeithen said that when he hired for the sheriff’s office he rejected anyone with a criminal history and was shocked to find out CCA employed many people with “felony backgrounds.” “I had never seen that before,” McKeithen said.

July 8, 2010 AP
A major private prison company has acknowledged that its guards watched as an Idaho inmate was beaten, but company attorneys say Corrections Corporation of America isn't to blame for any injuries the man suffered. The statements came in a response to a lawsuit filed by former inmate Hanni Elabed, who contends he was severely beaten by another inmate while guards at the CCA-run Idaho Correctional Center watched and failed to intervene. Elabed's attorneys say the assault left him with brain damage. Although CCA attorneys say several guards did watch the assault on video monitors, the company denies that the guards watched "passively." Rather, CCA says the guards ordered inmates in the housing unit where Elabed was being assaulted to return to their bunks, and most complied, according to CCA's answer to the lawsuit. The main door to the unit was opened once the Emergency Response Team arrived — a group of guards specially trained to handle assaults and other prison emergencies. CCA's answer to the lawsuit doesn't say just how long it took for the Emergency Response Team to arrive at the housing unit. Attorneys for the Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA and Elabed didn't immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press. In the lawsuit filed in April, Elabed's attorneys describe a harrowing assault in which an inmate who was a member of a white supremacist gang beat Elabed, who is Muslim and of Palestinian descent. The lawsuit says Elabed told guards and family members that he was being harassed and threatened by the gang before the attack, prompting prison staffers to move him to administrative segregation for several days. It was when the guards decided to move Elabed back to his cellblock on Jan. 18 when the assault occurred, according to the lawsuit. Within minutes and within the view of several guards standing by a window, Elabed's attorneys say, he was attacked by another inmate. Elabed was knocked to the floor, kicked and stomped in the head for so long that his attacker paused to get a drink of water and catch his breath, according to the lawsuit, before resuming the attack. Elabed's attorneys say that during that break Elabed pleaded with the guards to intervene to no avail. They contend the attack didn't end until he was unconscious and convulsing in a pool of blood. In their answer to the lawsuit, CCA attorneys acknowledge that Elabed was knocked to the floor, stomped and that his attacker took a drink at a drinking fountain before renewing the assault. They also say Elabed was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for a closed head injury, and that he was readmitted at the hospital a few days later for follow-up care. CCA denies Elabed's claims that he was left largely without medical care after he was returned to the Idaho Correctional Center. The company also denies that its employees were negligent in any way. CCA also offered several affirmative defenses — a legal move that essentially says if the facts as alleged by Elabed are found to be true, CCA still isn't to blame. Among the defenses offered by CCA attorneys are contentions that Elabed put himself at risk through no fault of the private prison company, that Elabed is wholly or at least partially to blame for his injuries, and that CCA was neither reckless or callously indifferent to Elabed's rights and that it wasn't motivated by any evil intent.

June 30, 2010 The New West
The Western Governor’s Association meeting in Whitefish, Mont., ended Tuesday, with the near half-million dollar cost of the conference mostly paid for by sponsors that include corporations –British Petroleum among them --- as well as trade associations and other special interests. The event included a “Sunset Train Ride” paid for by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway but which was “not an official WGA sponsored event,” the agenda notes in small type. WGA chair Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the event’s communications director, Karen Dieke, spun the concept that taxpayers didn’t have to pay for the three-day meeting because of the generosity of sponsors. But high levels of mistrust of politicians – and corporations like BP - shows we are not fooled by that sort of thing anymore. It’s a simple idea. Little League parents know that if Murphy’s Hardware sponsors a team, the kids’ caps and shirts are going to display the Murphy’s Hardware logo. In the big leagues, corporate sponsors might pay for a star athlete to wear their clothes or use their products during TV interviews. The idea, of course, is to create a good impression for the brand by linking it to the famous athlete in the public’s mind. (Until the famous athlete’s wife tries to beat him senseless with a golf club, that is.) Those kinds of sponsorships are meant to make money, of course; hardly worth a second thought. Campaign financing, not paying for confabs, is the main issue when the discussion is about money’s influence in politics. $3.5 billion was spent by lobbyists in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and that’s a near-insurmountable arsenal. But there are smaller, more incremental ways that corporate money finds its way into political situations where where access to politicians and influential leaders makes currying favor possible. The WGA conference is one example. Reporter Charles Johnson of the Missoulian was first to uncover the list of the WGA’s meeting sponsors. The 94 sponsors include some active in business in Montana, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe, ConocoPhillips, Corrections Corp. of America, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, MDU Resources Inc., NorthWestern Energy, Qwest Communications and Arch Coal, which plans to mine Otter Creek coal tract coal in southeastern Montana. Many are national corporations such as BP America, Hewlett-Packard Co., Kraft Foods, Microsoft, Merck & Co., PepsiCo., Shell and US Airways. Other sponsors include the American Wind Energy Association, Energy Foundation and Northwest Public Power Association. In exchange for their sponsorships, representatives of corporations and other groups are invited to attend a private reception with the governors Sunday night. The WGA’s Dieke told Johnson that she wasn’t “at liberty” to disclose which sponsors paid how much or for what, saying their contributions are defined as “different levels” of sponsorship. In the language of public relations, “not at liberty” means “I’ve been told not to tell.” It’s common for both the givers and takers of money to downplay, or even deny, that it buys influence. But with the huge financial stakes at play for corporations that depend on the outcome of legislation, denial falls flat. There’s no indication, yet, that anything untoward happened in Whitefish among sponsors, speakers and governors. But there are obvious interested parties among the sponsors. Two examples: 1. Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, spoke about the future of energy generation in the west. WGA sponsors included Northwest Public Power Association, a business trade group for energy providers; the American Wind Energy Association, the same; and the Energy Foundation, a nonprofit group which says its mission is “to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy — new technologies that are essential components of a clean energy future.” 2. A panel on conservation included the president of REI, national park superintendents and a professor of geology. The discussion was about “integrated efforts to improve the conservation of water, wildlife and forest resources” among western states. Sponsors of the meeting included Monsanto, a chemical company long accused of anti-environment products and practices. The point here is that unprincipled use of money in politics isn’t just about mammoth donors like ExxonMobile or PepsiCo, and it isn’t just about campaigns, elections and scandals involving lobbyists. The insidious practices that both donors and recipients have used to get voters to accept pretense and hypocrisy until it seems normal – like the WGA’s horsemanure about taxpayers not having to pay for the three-day meeting because of the generosity of sponsors – are also dangerous. Millions of dollars of corporate money spent to influence public perception fly under the radar when used in the subtle ways of “government relations” departments. Look into how most political money is spent at FollowTheMoney, OpenSecrets, and the Sunlight Foundation.

June 28, 2010 Hawaii Reporter
I am the associate editor of Prison Legal News, a non-profit publication that reports on criminal justice issues, and I am contacting Hawaii lawmakers in reference to HB 415, which was recently vetoed by Governor Lingle. HB 415 would, among other provisions, require that the State Auditor conduct an audit of Hawaii’s contract to house over 2,000 prisoners in mainland facilities operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). I ask that you vote to override the governor’s veto, to ensure that an audit is conducted into the state’s $60 million annual contract with CCA to house Hawaii inmates on the mainland. As you are likely aware, last year the State of Hawaii withdrew its female inmates from CCA’s Otter Creek Correctional Facility in Kentucky following a sex scandal in which at least six CCA employees were charged with sexual abuse or rape, including the prison’s chaplain. I was quoted in the New York Times concerning that egregious situation; a copy of the article is enclosed. You are also likely aware that two Hawaii inmates recently were murdered at the CCA-operated Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona – Clifford Medina was strangled to death on June 8, while Bronson Nunuha was stabbed to death on February 18, 2010. Two homicides within a four-month period is unusual in any prison system and is indicative of major problems. Most importantly, an audit of the State’s contract with CCA is necessary because CCA can not be relied upon to assess itself. Although CCA conducts its own internal audits, according to a March 13, 2008 TIME magazine article based on the reports of a corporate CCA whistleblower, the company produces two types of internal audit reports: A general audit report is provided to contracting government agencies, while an audit with specific comments and notations by the CCA auditors is retained for in-house use only. A copy of the TIME article is enclosed. In fact, the company’s then-General Counsel Gus Puryear admitted, in response to questions by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, that CCA “did not make customers aware of these documents,” and specifically said CCA does not share “the separate commentary made by auditors.” An excerpt from Mr. Puryear’s written responses is attached; the full document is too large to fax but can be accessed at the following web link or I can email you a copy upon request: www.privateci.org/private_pics/Puryear%20Sen%20Feinstein%202.pdf Based on the sex abuse scandal at CCA’s Otter Creek facility, in which a number of Hawaii inmates were sexually abused, as well as the recent murders of two Hawaii prisoners at CCA’s Saguaro facility, and CCA’s admission that it does not share all of its internal audit documents with its customers, I ask that you vote to override Governor Lingle’s veto of HB 415. An audit of the State’s $60 million contract with CCA is necessary to ensure that Hawaii taxpayers are getting the value they are paying for when housing inmates in mainland private prisons. For full disclosure purposes, I also serve as president of the Private Corrections Institute, which opposes prison privatization, and am a former prisoner who served six years at a CCA-operated facility in the 1990s. Since my release in 1999 I have extensively researched private prisons, and have testified before legislative committees in two states and the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in regard to that topic. Thank you for your time and attention. Alex Friedmann is the Associate Editor of PLN

June 25, 2010 Tennessean
Eight Corrections Corporation of America detention centers that house asylum seekers and immigrants awaiting deportation may be line for makeovers to create a less prison-like feel. The move by Nashville-based CCA to spruce up eight facilities – half of them in California and Texas – drew sharp reactions from both sides of the debate over U.S. immigration policies. “We’re coddling lawbreakers,” said Theresa Harmon, co-founder of the advocacy group Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies. “We have no teeth in our enforcement and that’s the reason this whole problem continues.” Plants, flower baskets, fresh colors of paint on prison walls, and more framed pictures were proposed by private prison operator CCA to soften the look of several detention centers as part of reform initiatives within the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE is evaluating the changes, said agency spokeswoman Gillian Brigham. Changes suggested by CCA wouldn’t apply to any detainees with criminal backgrounds or those considered a threat. Low-risk detainees would be allowed extended visiting hours up to 12 hours a day, movie and bingo nights, exercise classes, self-serve continental breakfast on holidays and weekends, better access to legal resources, free Internet-based phone service and the right to wear their own clothes. Advocates of better treatment think the proposed changes are cosmetic and superficial, avoiding the real problems within federal immigration centers. Judy Greene, criminal justice policy analyst for the New York-based policy research group Justice Strategies, remains skeptical. “Bingo nights is one thing, but still having personnel that can’t figure out how to comport themselves around women detainees or women in state custody shows that (CCA) doesn’t learn from its mistakes,” Greene said. The federal immigration agency is CCA’s fourth-largest customer after the federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Marshals Service and the state of California prison system. On a typical day, there are 30,000 people in immigration confinement at 256 detention centers run by the federal government, private firms such as CCA and local jailers. Today, CCA houses roughly 6,400 detainees for ICE. Nearly a year ago, ICE announced plans to implement revised policies and standards to make the immigration detention system less penal and more humane.

June 21, 2010 In These Times
Over the past several years private-prison companies Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the Geo Group, through their work as members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and through their ties to the Arizona Legislature and the office of Gov. Jan Brewer, have had ample opportunity--and obvious intent--to ensure the passage of S.B. 1070. According to Sen. Russell Pearce and Brewer's spokesman Paul Senseman, the S.B. 1070 went through a lengthy edit and review process that took place predominantly within the Arizona Legislature and the offices of the Maricopa County Attorney and Gov. Brewer. A little over a week after Pearce introduced S.B. 1070 on the floor of the Arizona Senate, CCA enlisted Highground Consulting, one of the most influential lobbying firms in Phoenix, to represent its interests in the state. Lobby disclosure forms filed with the Arizona Secretary of State indicate that Maricopa County also employed Highground during the time of the bill's formation. Highground's owner and principal, Charles "Chuck" Coughlin, is a top advisor and the current campaign manager of Gov. Brewer. State lobby reports show that Brewer's current spokesman, Senseman, previously worked as CCA's chief lobbyist in Arizona as an employee of Policy Development Group, another influential Phoenix consulting firm. His wife, Kathryn Senseman, is still employed by Policy Development Group and still lobbies the legislature on behalf of CCA. In other words, in 2005 and 2006, as Arizona legislators--many of them ALEC members--were drafting provisions of what would eventually become the "Breathing While Brown" law, Brewer's director of communications, Senseman, was lobbying them on behalf of CCA. Brewer's "chief policy advisor," Richard Bark--a man Senseman and Pearce both say was directly involved in the drafting of S.B. 1070--remains listed with the Office of the Secretary of State as an active lobbyist for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI). CCA is a "board level" member of the ACCI and is the top employer in Pinal County, located just south of Maricopa County, where it operates five detention facilities for both state prisoners and immigrant detainees. Geo Group employs consulting firm Public Policy Partners, which, like Highground, also provides consultation and lobbying services to Maricopa County. While Public Policy Partners (PPP), an Arizona-based firm, has more than 30 Arizona clients, it only has two clients at the federal level: Geo Group (based in Florida) and Ron Sachs Communications, a Florida-based public-relations firm that, promotes prison privatization. PPP, as a firm, also appears to be an advocate for expanded use of private prisons. Federal lobbying records show PPP owner, John Kaites, lobbying on behalf of the firm on issues of "private correctional detention management." CCA has also shown special interest in Arizona through recent hiring decisions. In 2007, CCA hired on Brad Regens as "Vice President of State Partnership Relations" for the purpose of cultivating new contracts in Arizona and California. In the two years immediately prior to his employment at CCA, Regens had worked in the Arizona House as director of fiscal policy. Before his appointment as director of fiscal policy, Regens had spent nine years working in the state legislature in various roles, including assistant director of the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee. Following its hiring of Regens, CCA elected former U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) to its board of directors.

June 19, 2010 Center for Investigative Reporting
The nation’s largest private jail operator is facing a new public relations fight following multiple high-profile incidents this year in three states – Idaho, Texas and Arizona. The Corrections Corporation of America based in Nashville, Tenn. experienced a meteoric rise during the 1990s when Washington opened its doors to privatization during the Clinton administration and helped set the stage for public-sector outsourcing that is now commonplace in the United States, notably at the still-young Department of Homeland Security. Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed in late May that a guard at the company’s T. Don Hutto Residential Center located 35 miles east of Austin, Texas, sexually assaulted women detainees held there. The federal government has since reportedly directed CCA to institute changes, such as prohibiting male guards from being alone with women in custody, and ICE said it would enhance oversight of the government’s larger detention facilities. A letter to the company from ICE obtained by the Associated Press said the guard’s alleged actions occurred because CCA failed to follow federal guidelines regulating the transport of detainees. During a past life when CCA helped lead the movement toward privatization, it so anticipated limitless fortunes that the company nearly went bankrupt building more beds than federal, state and local governments wanted to fill. But Washington pumped new life into CCA partly after the Bush administration moved to dramatically scale back the federal government’s “catch-and-release” policy in which suspected immigration violators were freed before being required to appear at a deportation hearing unless they had a criminal record. Detention facilities ballooned after the change creating significant new demand for CCA’s services and a path for the company back to big earnings. Today CCA is a top five contractor for ICE and earned more than $200 million in revenues from the agency last year alone, according to the jailer’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Executives at CCA also believe that the economic downturn and a perception by public officials that outsourcing is a solution for money woes will make it more competitive on Wall Street. The company’s latest successes, however, are occurring alongside allegations of misconduct among guards and other episodes that have attracted the attention of critics. The Hutto facility in Texas is named after one of CCA’s founders and houses not just individuals accused of entering the country illegally but also asylum seekers, the investigative journalism outfit Texas Tribune noted earlier this month. According to the most recent accusations against Hutto, women were allegedly molested while being patted down by a guard and one was propositioned for sex. The ACLU of Texas called the revelations part of a pattern at immigrant detention facilities in the Lone Star State. A guard in Los Fresnos, Texas, was sentenced to prison time in April for the repeated sexual abuse of detainees. The man admitted that he “snuck into medical isolation rooms at the detention center infirmary to grope female patients. He frequently volunteered for infirmary duty so that he would be alone with the victims, and his victims were usually asleep when he entered the room,” the Justice Department says. Also at the Hutto facility in 2007, a CCA guard was reportedly fired amid an investigation into whether he had sex with a woman inmate in her cell. According to Lisa Graybill, legal director for the Texas ACLU: Sadly, the most unusual aspect of this incident [at Hutto last month] may be that the abused women actually complained. Immigrant detainees, particularly women, are especially vulnerable to abuse because they may not speak English, and may be afraid of retaliation if they speak up. Victims may be promised help with citizenship proceedings if they comply, and threatened with rapid deportation if they resist. Further west in Idaho, meanwhile, CCA found itself in another controversy when the Associated Press reported that state officials would be fining the company over $40,000 and demanding that it improve health care services and overhaul weak alcohol treatment programs. The Idaho Correctional Center near a town called Kuna (not an immigrant detention facility, to be clear) was described by one local paper in a recent editorial as “easily the most trouble-prone prison in the state’s history.” The Magic Valley Times-News recounted how three years ago state leaders imagined savings for taxpayers by contracting out the costly responsibility of incarceration to a company like CCA, which has long lured government officials into contracts by promising fewer headaches and expenses. But documents later obtained by reporters showed that most of the facility’s alcohol and drug counselors lacked necessary qualifications. A probe also cast CCA’s procedures for carrying out medical care as flawed, while the ACLU sued the company earlier this year over how it was generally managing the Idaho prison – inmates allegedly described the facility as a “gladiator school” due to its reputation for widespread violence. The suit in addition charged that CCA guards enforced control by allowing inmates near others likely to commit brutality and withheld medical treatment to save on costs. An ACLU attorney claimed he’d brought cases against at least 100 prisons and jails nationally but none were as violent as CCA’s facility in Idaho. An AP investigation last year revealed that carnage at the prison was three times greater than elsewhere in the state, and authorities believed occurrences were underreported by inmates and CCA employees. According to the Times-News: The ACLU contends that [Idaho Correctional Center] is understaffed, with sometimes only two guards on duty to control prison wings with as many as 350 inmates. Which may be one of the reasons that the publicly traded company was able to report a four percent revenue increase for the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year, and a 12.5 percent increase in earnings per share. Not many legislators have much appetite anymore for another [such] facility in the state. There’s much more enthusiasm for alternative sentencing and drug, alcohol and mental-health courts to keep Idaho’s inmate numbers as low as possible. But stay tuned. Thanks to CCA’s actions, a federal judge – and not the state – may soon be dictating how Idaho handles its prison population. Finally, at a CCA-managed facility in Arizona where nearly 2,000 inmates from Hawaii are held as part of a contract with that state’s Department of Public Safety (also not a center that holds immigrants, for the record), two convicts have died already this year. One was killed during a dispute with another prisoner, and police concluded only in recent days that the second was strangled to death by his cellmate. The latter victim was discovered unresponsive June 8, according to news accounts, and authorities from Hawaii traveled to Arizona following both incidents to investigate what happened.

June 14, 2010 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As lawmakers returned from the coast last week, we picked up word of some serious, hand-to-hand competition between two lobbyists down at St. Simons Island. The occasion was the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s annual summer retreat. We’re told by very reliable state Capitol sources that, last Tuesday night, a pair of lobbyists treated several lawmakers and clients in the drinking section of the Village Inn and Pub, famous for its wild orchid martinis. One lobbyist was stuck at a table with the clients. The other lobbyist landed the table with the legislators. When bill-paying time came, the lobbyist stuck at the children’s table refused to pay. Insults were exchanged, and the two lobbyists ended up rolling on the restaurant floor. The fight was broken up before law enforcement became formally involved. The two lobbyists: Graham Thompson, whose clients in the last session included the Georgia Association of Health Plans, Sprint, and Satellite Tracking of People, a Texas organization; and John Clayton, whose clients in the last session included several physician and emergency response groups, Imperial Sugar, and the Corrections Corporation of America. We’ve attempted to contact both gentlemen, and haven’t heard back. But we await their June disclosures, which should tell us who ultimately paid the bill. And who was there. Clayton, many in the state Capitol will recall, was identified by police as the victim in a fracas with a fellow lobbyist at a 2007 sine die party, also attended by many lawmakers. Clayton took a beer bottle to the right side of his head.

June 7, 2010 AP
Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America says it has settled a censorship lawsuit with a publication that reports on criminal justice-related issues. Prison Legal News, a non-profit monthly, filed the lawsuit in 2009. It claimed that CCA's Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., only allowed prisoners to order books from Amazon or Barnes & Noble under the facility's mail policy in effect at the time. The company argued its inability to send books to prisoners violated its constitutional rights. CCA, the nation's largest private prison company, changed its mail policy soon after the lawsuit and settled last month. Under the settlement, the publication will not be placed on a prohibited vendor list, nor will it be subject to a blanket ban by CCA staff.

June 3, 2010 AP
The American Civil Liberties Union has reached a settlement with the Idaho Department of Correction in a lawsuit over violence at a privately run prison near Boise. The ACLU filed the lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America and the state earlier this year, saying the Idaho Correctional Center is so violent that inmates refer to it as "gladiator school" and that guards deliberately expose prisoners to brutal beatings from other inmates. The ACLU's lawsuit against CCA still stands. CCA has said the prison meets the highest professional standards. Under the agreement, the Idaho Department of Correction agrees to oversee compliance with any orders a federal judge makes against CCA in connection with the lawsuit.

June 1, 2010 Times Free-Press
A Senate Republican budget plan that calls for the state to spend $18 million to keep state prisoners at a West Tennessee prison owned by Corrections Corp. of America is drawing questions from House Speaker Kent Williams and Senate Democrats. The state would maintain a prison population of about 1,500 inmates at the Whiteville Correctional Facility in Hardeman County through the first half of next year in their proposed plan. “I think that’s Sen. Delores Gresham’s district,” said Rep. Williams in an interview over the Memorial Day weekend. “It’s pork for her. That’s basically what it is. If they’re going to call the fish hatchery pork, that’s definitely pork.” Rep. Williams, an Elizabethton independent, has taken a pounding in recent days over his effort to keep $16.1 million in one-time federal stimulus funds, which may or may not materialize, for a fish hatchery in his district. The Bredesen administration’s budget plans call for withdrawing prisoners from Whiteville by Dec. 31. Senate Minority Leader Jim Kyle, D-Memphis, said he found it “interesting” Senate Republicans were providing $18 million “to keep a prison open that the commissioner testified she didn’t need opened. The other side is saying we’re being austere. We’re not ‘porking or wasting your money.’”

May 26, 2010 Honolulu Weekly
Kulani Correctional Facility (KCF) on the Big Island, which was closed last year for financial reasons, specialized in just the sort of rehabilitative services that Bronson Nunuha and others weren’t receiving at Arizona’s Saguaro Prison. Saguaro, a private prison run by Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) in Elroy, Ariz., was contracted to house Hawaii inmates, and it was there that Nunuha was stabbed to death on Feb 18. He only had about eight months left to serve on his full sentence for three counts of burglary. Among other services, Kulani operated the state’s largest program for sexual offenders, whose graduates had a recidivism rate of only 5 percent: the best in the nation. “The hasty closure of KCF has had serious impacts to our clients, and huge subsidiary financial impact to the State,” said James Tabe, supervisor for the State Office of the Public Defender Appeals Division, at a recent hearing on HB145, an audit of the state’s Public Safety Department (PSD). “Any inmate classified as a sex offender is required to complete the rigorous 18-month SOTP [Sexual Offender Treatment program] prior to parole. The vast majority of such inmates completed their SOTP at KCF.” After SOTP is completed, the inmate must complete any other rehabilitative programs, such as work furlough and substance abuse programming–which can take another one to three years to complete.” Kulani inmates, he said, “now face the prospect of having to complete the entire program again, delaying their entry into their post-SOTP programming for substance abuse or work furlough, thus delaying their parole eligibility for another two years.” The delay, he wrote, was not only “emotionally painful for our clients, but they are extremely expensive for taxpayers, with skyrocketing incarceration costs at over $50,000 per inmate, per year.” Public Safety Director Clayton Frank told Honolulu Weekly that after some delays, sexual offender treatment programs had been started up at Halawa Correctional Facility and at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu, where many former Kulani inmates are now housed. Parents of Saguaro inmates have reported that the drug rehab program there has such a long waiting list that many inmates gave up on getting into it. One mother of a Saguaro inmate had hoped to get her son, a non-violent offender convicted on drug charges, into Kulani; she said he had been transferred to other prisons six times in three years, including two stints at Saguaro, making it virtually impossible to get the drug rehab programs and educational courses he’d requested. “He’d just gotten a job at Halawa,” she recalled. “He was finally doing something to make the days go faster, and then they sent him back.” A culture of intimidation? The inmate’s mother requested that her name be withheld for fear that officials in Arizona might retaliate against her son. She wasn’t the only one. At least seven other people–relatives of inmates, state employees, lawyers, social workers–either declined to talk with us or asked to remain anonymous, citing fear of retaliation by PSD officials or CCA employees. Some said they’d already suffered consequences for speaking up in the past. CCA is required to offer inmates an impartial grievance procedure and access to a law library, but critics say inmates who dare to exercise those options suffer consequences. Public defender Karen Tooko Nakasone testified that one Saguaro inmate had suffered “massive retaliation” after complaining. After “a herculean effort to obtain records from Saguaro,” she said, she finally won a parole case. But she added, “I learned during my representation of this client [that] a number of other inmates apparently are experiencing similar treatment, namely with the prison not following its own regulations, or selectively/arbitrarily applying these regulations.” Daphne Barbee, an attorney representing prisoners transferred to Arizona, adds flatly,“When inmates complain, they’re retaliated against. They’re ridiculed by the guards, their legal mail is opened….” In Saguaro, she says, there’s a rule that if one inmate helps another to file a grievance, “They will be written up and put in the hole. They detest inmates who are articulate, who know the law. They retaliate against people who write grievances….” Barbee, Nakasone and others also complained that inmates in Arizona were denied the right to complain to the state ombudsman, as they would be able to if housed in a PSD-run prison. Frank says CCA-housed prisoners still have a number of avenues to lodge complaints: “If there’s an issue that they feel is not being addressed, they can write to any elected official, they can write to myself…” Liability Nunuha was the first Hawaii inmate to die violently at Saguaro, but he was not the first to die. Ken Akinaka of Hepatitus Support Network testified, “We have lost several inmates since we started moving them to the mainland to serve time,” and in all of those cases, “questionable practices” were involved. Serious problems were also reported with the health system at CCA’s Otter Creek facility when Hawaiian women were housed there. Such problems, as well as other allegations of misconduct and abuse, have created another financial problem for the state: liability. “Shouldn’t we be including the cost of lawsuits for the sexual assaults and other civil rights violations at private prisons into the audit considerations?” Kat Brady, of the Community Alliance on Prisons, asked legislators. Frank told HW that CCA already had an indemnity clause in its contract and was paying some of the damages in inmate lawsuits. An audit, however, might uncover another client with a damage claim against the company: the state itself. “Last year, the State of Oklahoma withheld nearly $600,000 from CCA because CCA was not complying with its contractual obligations,” noted ACLU attorney Daniel Gluck. “These payments were only withheld after the Oklahoma Legislature•requested a performance audit of the prisons.”

May 25, 2010 St Petersburg Times
The Hernando County Commission on Tuesday formally designated the sheriff as the county's chief correctional officer, paving the way for Sheriff Richard Nugent to take over operations of the county jail in late August. While the decision to shift the operations to the sheriff was unanimous, the details were not. Commissioner Jeff Stabins questioned how much control the county would have over dollars the commission was asked to set aside for the sheriff's use at the jail. He also asked why the commission was being asked to approve an interlocal agreement with the sheriff without sufficient controls for the county. The commission has been stung by events surrounding the jail for the last several months. Nugent had been researching taking over the jail, but then backed away when he discovered a series of structural and maintenance flaws at the facility. Just weeks later, Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that has operated the facility for the past 22 years, announced it would end its partnership with the county at the end of August. Nugent was invited back into the discussion and agreed to take over the facility for the same $11.2 million that was budgeted to run it this year. The county has also talked about additional funding for the jail, including $850,000 for start-up costs and earmarking $3 million in reserves to make needed repairs and upgrades to the jail building. Stabins was the sole no vote against those budget transfers. He said he wanted a professional to tell the commission just how extensive the needed repairs are before setting aside $3 million. He also voiced concern about not having any control over how Nugent spends the $850,000. He said he specifically didn't expect the money to be spent on Nugent's employee recruiting efforts. But Commissioner Dave Russell said he expected the money to be used for some personnel costs, including the salary of new jail administrator Michael Page. As for the $3 million, Russell's motion for approval made it clear that the money was to be moved from one county reserve to another, but that the actual expenditures would come to the commission as line items. And no money was to be spent until the county has brought construction professionals on board to detail just what is needed at the jail, County Administrator David Hamilton assured the board. Stabins questioned why the interlocal agreement proposal was even on the commission's agenda Tuesday since it had not been talked about two weeks ago when the board agreed in spirit to the sheriff's takeover. Stabins questioned why a three-year term for the agreement was needed when the commission had the statutory authority to decide when to appoint the sheriff to be chief correctional officer and when to change that designation. An interlocal agreement wouldn't change that, the board was assured by assistant county attorney Jon Jouben. Stabins also protested giving Nugent the remainder of the CCA budget for the final five weeks that the sheriff would operate the jail during the current fiscal year. The current CCA contract has saved the county hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that should be the county's savings, Stabins argued. Chairman John Druzbick said that whatever Nugent gets in budget money that he doesn't spend by the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30 would get returned to the county anyway. Stabins also questioned why provisions in an earlier version of the interlocal agreement that required strict financial accounting by the sheriff were dropped in the final version. Jouben said those items were lost during negotiations with the sheriff's attorney. After the majority of the board approved the agreement, with Stabins opposed, Druzbick said, "Sheriff, good luck, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, sir.'' Nugent assured commissioners that money not spent would be returned to them and said that his past record shows that just because he has money doesn't mean he will spend it. He also promised to account for the funds that he does spend and to provide good stewardship of the jail. "We're a partner in this, not a for-profit company running it to milk it. We're a service organization,'' Nugent said.

May 19, 2010 Honolulu Advertiser
When Hawaii inmate Bronson Nunuha was stabbed to death in his cell at Corrections Corporation of America’s Saguaro Correctional Facility in Elroy, Arizona, on February 18, he had only about eight months left to serve on his full sentence for three counts of burglary. Normally, at that stage of a prisoner’s sentence, he or she would expect to be out on parole or serving in a minimum security facility and enrolled in programs to help him or her transition to life in the outside world. But Nunuha was in a high-security program that placed him under lockdown for all but two hours of each day. Nunuha was among about 1900 Hawaii inmates kept at CCA facilities–most at Saguaro, but about 50 at nearby Red Rock Correctional Center and one woman still at CCA’s Otter Creek facility in Kentucky (most Hawaii women inmates were transferred back to the islands after allegations surfaced of rape and other misconduct at Otter Creek). Nunuha’s death, along with the sudden closure of the Big Island’s Kulani Correctional Center last year, have helped to fuel calls for an independent audit of the state’s Public Safety Department and its dealings with CCA. A bill requiring such an audit passed the Hawaii Legislature in its 2010 session and HB415 is now awaiting Gov. Linda Lignle’s signature.. It received support from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Community Alliance on Prisons, the Drug Policy Forum, the United Public Workers, the Hawaii Government Employee’s Association, and various attorneys and social workers. Among the very few to testify against: Public Safety Director Clayton Frank. De-paroling for profit? “Private prisons are for-profit corporations, accountable as most of those businesses are to their shareholders and investors; with profits as their primary motive. They have a self-serving interest in keeping their census up to capacity, and their costs low, much like hotels and other lodging businesses,” testified Jean Ohta of the Drug Policy Forum. “It is because of this self-interest on the part of private prisons that an audit should be conducted.” “We have received numerous reports suggesting that CCA is not meeting its most basic of constitutional obligations in housing inmates. We have also received several reports suggesting that CCA may be keeping inmates longer than necessary; because Hawaii pays CCA per inmate per day of incarceration, the longer inmates are held, the more money CCA receives,” testified ACLU attorney Daniel Gluck. Gluck wrote that his organization had received “numerous reports” of inmates who’d been granted parole being “held for four months or more by CCA (based on vague and unsubstantiated reasons for ignoring the Paroling Authority’s orders)” and of Saguaro inmates, including those with no previous records of infractions, being “written up for spurious rule infractions shortly before their parole eligibility dates,” disqualifying them for parole. “One month of additional incarceration at CCA can easily cost the State and the taxpayers nearly $2,000–money that is sorely needed for other programs like drug rehabilitation, mental health care, and education–and the Legislature need not (and should not) allow these reports to be ignored,” he added. Asked about infractions at CCA, Franks told Honolulu Weekly, “I don’t believe that they receive anymore disciplinary writeups than what we have here.” At the legislature, Frank maintained that an independent audit was unnecessary. “These contracts and agreements referenced in this measure are already audited on a regular basis by an independent auditor,” he testified. But when the Weekly checked the department’s records for an audit of the Saguaro facility, all that turned up was a checklist. Shari Kimoto, who filled out that checklist, is the Public Safety Department’s Mainland Branch Manager, the state employee in charge of managing the department’s relations with CCA. She is also the wife of Republican Party Chair Jonah Kaauwai, who is himself a former Public Safety official. CCA has been a heavy contributor to Republican Party candidates and causes, including Republican Governor Linda Lingle, who received the maximum legal donation of $6,000 for each of her gubernatorial campaigns. Kimoto checked the “compliant” box for every one of the audit checklist’s 115 categories, covering everything from the temperatures of the freezers to the presence of “inmate property forms.” But the audit did not appear to monitor whether inmates were being kept overtime. HW asked Frank about the “independent audits” he referred to in his testimony. He said he would check. Later in the interview, he said that CCA facilities were audited and accredited by the American Correctional Association. Frank told the legislature that prisoners in CCA facilities cost the state about half as much to maintain as those at the state’s own correctional facilities. He told HW that those figures were based on the state’s contracts and included transportation costs to the mainland. But neither his figures, nor the ACA audits, nor Kimoto’s, include an examination of such factors as the length of time inmates served before parole in different facilities, the costs of lawsuits by inmates or their families, or the recidivism rates of inmates–factors that the department’s critics want examined. Services and sentences Frank said prisoners were selected to go to the mainland based on a series of criteria: They must have sentences of “a minimum of 24 months,” they must have “no major medical or health care problems, and “They don’t have any pending criminal cases here.” Apparently, though, that system doesn’t always work. “I’ve had clients who’ve been transferred to AZ who still have cases pending,” attorney Daphne Barbee said. “I’ve had to have them brought back.” One client, she said, didn’t get back in time for his own hearing; he only got his day in court because the judge granted an extension. Bronson Nunuha was in the 22-hour lockdown, Frank said, because of “disciplinary conduct.” How fast an inmate such as Nunuha goes through the system, he maintained, “depends on the inmate what the level of participation he wants.” Sometimes, he said, “Rather than participate in the program they just choose to max out on their sentence.” But the department’s critics say that often services just aren’t available, that the programs at CCA were sparse, and that the closure of Kulani Prison had aggravated the problem.

May 18, 2010 Phoenix New Times
Governor Brewer's CCA connection: Conflict of interest over SB 1070? Several months before signing SB 1070, Governor Jan Brewer accepted hundreds of dollars in "seed money" for her clean elections campaign from corporate executives and others with a possible stake in Arizona's "papers please" legislation becoming law. In all, seven executives with the Tennessee-based private prisons giant Corrections Corporation of America contributed $980 for the governor's start-up fund with Arizona's clean elections system. A warden for one of CCA's Arizona prisons gave $100. A CCA shareholder gave $140. Lobbyists listed with the state of Arizona as having CCA as a client gave another $560, for a total of $1,780. In addition, CCA has contributed a whopping $10,000 to the campaign for Prop 100, the one cent sales tax heavily promoted by Brewer, which is up for approval by voters today. The success of Prop 100 is considered by many to be the linchpin for a Brewer victory in November. How does CCA stand to gain from SB 1070? CCA, which houses 75,000 offenders and detainees in more than 60 facilities nationwide, operates six prisons in Arizona, three of which list U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a client: Florence, Eloy, and the Central Arizona Detention Center. If SB 1070 is not stopped by a federal court injunction before it goes into effect late July, as a recently filed ACLU lawsuit aims to accomplish, all Arizona law enforcement will be required to check the immigration status of those they have "reasonable suspicion" of being in the country illegally. This, during any lawful stop, detention, or arrest. So the law could potentially mean a boon in warm bodies for CCA prisons, as those aliens turned over to ICE might find themselves in CCA facilities, even if for a short stay. "The more folks that get pulled over and detained, the more money CCA makes," said Monica Sandschafer, executive director of the Phoenix immigrant rights group LUCHA, which stands for Living United for Change in Arizona. "It's a pretty disturbing connection between Brewer and this company." But Brewer campaign flack Doug Cole scoffed at the suggestion that there was anything nefarious about the connection between Brewer and CCA, referring to CCA as a "good corporate citizen" and denying that CCA's contributions to Brewer in any way affected her decision to sign the controversial law. "People contribute to political campaigns, in my experience, because they want to be part of the process," said Cole, speaking in general. "Oh, so we're talking a thousand dollars here now," he harrumphed at one point. Asked if the money might have influenced Brewer to sign SB 1070, he stated emphatically, "Absolutely not." Todd Lang, executive director of Arizona's Citizens Clean Elections Commission contended that Brewer had violated no rules in taking the money from CCA, even if CCA stood to benefit from Brewer's actions as governor. "Anyone can give to anyone," said Lang of the so-called "seed money," which is limited to a $51,250 cap. "The restriction Clean Elections puts in place is how little money those guys can give. The theory is that this restricts their influence." Clean Elections holds contributors to the initial seed money fund to a $140 per person limit. Participating gubernatorial candidates must also raise thousands of $5 individual contributions. If they obey these dictates, they are rewarded with public funds: $707,447 for the primary campaign, and $1,061,171 for the general election. However, Sandschafer pointed out that each of the CCA executives and lobbyists in question gave the maximum amount allowed, save for the warden of the Eloy Detention Center Charles DeRosa, who gave $100. "These are the people who stand to profit from this horrible racist legislation," Sandschafer asserted. CCA execs contributing to Brewer include the company's top brass: Damon Hininger, CCA President and CEO; "senior administrator" Anthony Grande; Gustavus Puryear, at one time CCA's general counsel; Todd Mullenger, executive VP and chief financial officer; and so on. Louise Grant, a CCA spokeswoman based in Tennessee, claimed that the contributions to Brewer, which were made in November of 2009, were not intended to influence public policy, and that the $10K contribution to the Yes on 100 fund, dated April 5, 2010, was made because CCA wanted what was best for its employees in Arizona. Grant also stated that under Brewer, CCA had lost two contracts with a total of 3,000 prisoners involved. She said that the main facility they use for ICE detainees is Eloy, the warden for which gave $100 to Brewer's start up fund. She denied SB 1070 would be a good thing for CCA, or that CCA had any influence over the law itself. "CCA has had no involvement whatsoever with this legislation, SB 1070," she said. "And we will not have any involvement with it."

May 17, 2010 Common Dreams
Today SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and SEIU's Immigration Campaign Director, Javier Morillo joined SEIU members and National People's Action (NPA) members at a rally outside of the DC Headquarters of Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in America. Janitors, home care workers, public employees and community allies called on CCA to stop profiting off our broken immigration system. "All around this country, there are people - some of whom were born here and others who were not - who work hard to make sure they can feed, clothe and educate their children. All they want is to make a better life for their families, and their values are the values that built this country," said SEIU President Mary Kay Henry. "But today we have bottom-feeding employers like Corrections Corporation of America who have forgotten those values and instead have decided to reap huge profits at the expense of hardworking people." "We're calling on CCA to stop profiting off of the broken system and join us in our fight to see that Congress passes smart immigration solutions that will eliminate the underground economy, lift wages for all workers, and help us build an economy that works for working families." With 40 percent of their business coming from federal government immigrant detention contracts, CCA has lobbied hard to keep taxpayer dollars flowing into their coffers. "CCA is one of the biggest winners of our broken immigration system, taking in billions of dollars in government contracts to detain immigrants and perpetuate today's failed status quo." said SEIU Immigration Campaign Director Javier Morillo. "The company recognizes that an enforcement-heavy immigration policy is good for their bottom line and has spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions to anti-immigrant politicians who push for enforcement at the expense of real comprehensive immigration reform." Now, with immigrants comprising the fastest growing segment of the federal prison population, CCA stands to lose their biggest cash cow if Congress enacts real comprehensive immigration reform. "All across the country people are standing up to challenge anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona, and today we are standing up to anti-immigrant policies at the federal level," said Teresa Molina, a teacher and spokesperson for National People's Action. "Whether it's corporations benefiting from a broken immigration system or elected officials courting the immigrant vote but not delivering for immigrant voters, we are here to say enough is enough to greed and hate." According to campaign finance documents, CCA and its employees have contributed $3.6 million in political contributions over the last 10 years to anti-immigrant and pro-enforcement politicians. "Like Wall Street banks and so many other corporations who use their paid-for power and influence to maintain the failed status quo at the expense of working people, CCA must be held accountable," Henry concluded.

May 14, 2010 AP
An appeal court says three nurses held hostage by inmates cannot sue a privately run jail because they are covered by workers compensation. The ruling Friday by the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld a judge's dismissal of a lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America, Bay County and the Bay County Sheriff's Office. One nurse and two inmates were shot by police to end a 12-hour standoff in 2004 at the Bay County Jail in Panama City. All three survived. Workers compensation pays for job-related injuries and prohibits suits against employers. The appeal court ruled that exceptions for negligence by co-workers or an employer with knowledge of a hazard based on a prior accident or explicit warning did not apply.

May 13, 2010 Business Week
Prison operator Corrections Corp. of America spent $250,000 to lobby federal officials in the first quarter, unchanged from a year earlier, according to a recent filing with Congress. The company reported lobbying officials on provisions in a Homeland Security funding bill dealing with immigration detentions. It also lobbied on Justice Department funding related to private prisons. Corrections Corp. also lobbied on a bill by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, to require private prison operators to comply with open-records laws. And it lobbied on a bill by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to let states request the jamming of wireless signals in prisons. Federal law lets federal agencies jam phone signals, but doesn't extend that power to state or local agencies. Hutchison's bill passed the Senate last year but is stalled in the House. Supporters say the bill would make it harder for prisoners to orchestrate violence and run gangs using cell phones that are smuggled into prisons. But the wireless industry argues officials should instead focus on keeping contraband phones out of prisons. Corrections Corp. lobbied Congress, the Homeland Security Department and the Bureau of Prisons.

May 7, 2010 AP
One side has big donations paying for television commercials and glossy mailers sent to voters' homes. The other is a shoestring effort based on e-mail chains and homemade signs. It's a picture of stark contrasts when it comes to campaigning for or against Proposition 100, the temporary sales tax increase on Arizona's May 18 special election ballot. If voters approve the measure, the state sales tax would rise to 6.6 cents on the dollar from the current 5.6 cents to raise a projected $1 billion annually. The increase would begin June 1 and would last three years. The Legislature narrowly sent the issue to the ballot in February. That was 11 months after Republican Gov. Jan Brewer first proposed a sales take hike to help close the state's big budget deficits, along with spending cuts, federal stimulus dollars and borrowing. But it didn't take long for Proposition 100 supporters to begin writing checks in the tens of thousands of dollars -- or amounts even larger -- to committees backing the measure. Those included over $81,000 from the Arizona and Phoenix chambers of commerce, $250,000 from the University of Arizona Foundation and $80,000 from the Arizona Education Association and its parent union. Other major contributors include hospital companies, a firefighters' union, manufacturers, arts backers, a private prison company, economic development groups and the Arizona School Boards Association. Their backing has paid for television ads endorsing the ballot measure, and full-mailers plastered with testimonials from teachers, public safety officials and Brewer. "Our state's future is tied to the success of this measure," one mailer has Brewer saying.

May 2, 2010 Jackson County Floridan
Sometimes it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. Corrections Corporation of America has been awarded the bid to run the Graceville Correctional Facility, and will be taking over from Geo Group, the company that currently administers the facility. As with every corporate takeover, there is a transition period. Not surprisingly, CCA is asking all current employees to reapply for their jobs. The question is, why is CCA holding this job fair for current employees across the state line? To be fair, Dothan, Ala. could be the most central location for all current employees to gather. But we rather doubt that. Instead, it appears to be a case of somewhat poor planning and rather inept public relations. The decision to ask all current employees to trek up to Dothan to reapply for their jobs doesn’t bode well for good corporate relations with the community. A better move would have been to use Graceville’s civic center. The company says the civic center was too large for its needs. Is the smaller space in Dothan worth the knock CCA’s image has now taken? While it is a minor mistake, we hope the company will recognize that it was, in fact, a mistake. One of the reasons why there are so many prison facilities in the Panhandle, and in Jackson County, is because folks down in South Florida said “not in my backyard.” We agreed to accept the prisons, and the prisoners, into our community when no one else in the state would. The flip side was that, in return, residents would get first crack at the jobs created. In future, when CCA begins to recruit, they should look here first.

May 2010 Workforce Management
Some human resources executives oversee skilled professionals in tidy high-margin industries, but most manage armies of unskilled workers in messy low-margin businesses riddled with cost pressures, compliance pitfalls and safety concerns. These challenges may be magnified the greatest in the brutal world of the private prison industry. Prisons are a big business in the U.S., which has the largest prison population and the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. More than 2.4 million adults are locked up in U.S. jails and prisons and supervised by 518,200 guards. The U.S. employs more prison guards than computer programmers. Prison privatization is a growing trend, and Corrections Corporation of America decisively dominates the industry. The company, which advertises “just-in-time bed space,” measures its revenues and operating costs in “compensated man-days.” In 2009, revenues hit $1.67 billion, up 5.4 percent from 2008, and earnings jumped 6.1 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2009, revenue per compensated man-day reached $58.16; operating margins stood at 31.3 percent. Profitability hinges on continued mass incarceration; shareholders have not been disappointed. CCA’s top human resources executive is Brian Collins. From his office at headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, Collins leads the 17,250 CCA employees who control 76,400 inmates in 65 prisons spread across 19 states. Eighty-two percent of CCA’s employees are nonexempt, and 56 percent of those are guards who spend every shift locked up with prisoners. Collins tries to spend one week each month touring the prisons, but he admits that he will never witness a true workplace crisis. “If I’m at any facility and an incident erupts, I’ll be the first one shoved out the front door,” he says. Riots at CCA prisons are not uncommon. “It’s a stressful and negative environment,” Collins says. “The correctional officer position is the most difficult job, and we have to focus on safety and security. It’s not an easy business.” Prisoners assault guards; guards sometimes assault prisoners. Staffing requirements shift quickly as contracts come and go. Lawsuits abound. In February 2009, CCA settled a $7 million lawsuit alleging that it did not pay employees for off-the-clock work. In October 2009, CCA settled a $1.3 million sexual harassment lawsuit after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged that female employees at a CCA prison were subjected to sexual harassment that included male managers forcing them to perform sex acts to keep their jobs. Like Collins at CCA, most HR executives are not managing bankers and software engineers, but high-turnover, low-paid nonexempt employees. Production and nonsupervisory workers make up 82 percent of the total U.S. private-industry workforce of 107 million. Staffing is a constant challenge, complex compliance issues demand excruciating attention, and safety is a serious concern. Add the additional pressures found in the private prison industry, and the job becomes extremely difficult. And messy. Structuring HR Collins joined CCA in 2006 from another low-margin company staffed by low-paid employees, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. After 25 years with Wal-Mart, Collins got a cold call from a headhunter who wanted him to interview for vice president of facility operations at CCA. “I wasn’t at all interested in the job, but I had always wanted to see the inside of a prison, so I took the interview and got a tour,” Collins recalls. “After a lot of discussion, I decided the job was a perfect fit.” After three years in operations, Collins became executive vice president and chief human resources officer in September 2009. CCA’s prisons are concentrated across the Southern right-to-work states, where incarceration rates are high and land and labor are cheap. The prisons include minimum-, medium- and maximum-security facilities. Most hold 1,000 to 2,000 inmates and are supervised by a staff of 200 to 300. At CCA headquarters, a human resources staff of 50 sets policy and supports 190 HR employees based in the prisons. Collins’ direct reports include four HR directors with responsibility for specific divisions, plus specialists for benefits, compensation, training and development, employee relations and compliance—or a total of nine direct reports. The four HR directors bear significant responsibility for consistency in policy and compliance. Decision making is centralized in Nashville, but HR managers based in the prisons review every policy before it is finalized. At most prisons, CCA employs an HR manager, an HR generalist, a payroll clerk and a personnel investigator. CCA handles all HR functions in-house with the exception of benefits administration, which is outsourced, and recruiting at three prisons that are located in particularly remote areas. The HR function at headquarters sets wages for each location. Pay rates vary dramatically based on the client. At prisons under federal contracts, which account for 40 percent of the company’s revenue, CCA must pay federal wage determination rates set by regulations for federal contractors of at least $25 per hour for guards and $30 per hour for nurses. CCA’s remaining customers are state and local governments, led by the state of California, which contributes 10.4 percent of the company’s revenue. Collins’ team uses local market rates to set wages for prisons under state and local contracts. Starting pay for guards at these prisons ranges from $7.80 to $18 per hour, with most locations set at the lower end of the range. “Human resources staff in Nashville monitor turnover rates for each facility and unemployment rates for each local market,” Collins says. “If a facility has a problem with recruitment or retention, the local human resources manager consults with the human resources director for the division. The compensation staff at headquarters reviews market surveys, and if they don’t have one for most recent three months, they get a new survey, and then work with the human resources director to determine a solution.” Within the human resources function at headquarters, the compliance department employs three specialists, who are supported by an additional employee from the legal department. CCA runs an annual human resources audit at each prison to monitor operational HR functions in the field. “The annual HR audit looks at 300 to 400 HR pressure points,” Collins reports. “Current issues concern personnel file privacy, I-9 forms and OFCCP [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs] requirements.” Just-in-time staffing Staffing is complicated in an industry where contracts may evaporate, often without much warning. Kentucky is in the process of moving 400 female prisoners from a CCA prison after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by male guards. In January, Arizona announced that it will move 700 prisoners out of a CCA prison in Colorado, ending its practice of housing prisoners out of state and prompting CCA to shut down a facility with a staff of 188. Because CCA locates most of its prisons in low-cost remote areas, labor supply is tricky. In Eloy, Arizona, a town of only 10,000 residents, CCA must staff three prisons with a total of 6,660 inmates, including the massive 3,060-bed La Palma Correctional Center, which houses inmates from California, and the 1,600-bed Red Rock Correctional Center, which houses prisoners from Hawaii and Washington. Recruiting is centralized in Nashville with online applications, but CCA also posts jobs on job boards, advertises through local sources and conducts job fairs. Regional recruiters support prison staff. Most hiring centers on filling guard jobs, but recruiters must also supply candidates for warden posts, nurses, dental assistants, maintenance workers and clerks. High unemployment rates across CCA’s locations have aided recruitment. In Pahrump, Nevada, where CCA is opening a new 1,072-bed prison, unemployment topped 15 percent at the end of 2009. Hundreds of applicants turned out for CCA’s January 2010 information session on the 231 positions at the new prison. CCA planned a two-day job fair in April to fill the jobs. The online job application for prison guard positions warns those who apply that the application takes one hour to complete. Most of the time required is consumed by an integrity test. The job requirements for guards include a high school degree or general equivalency diploma. All employees receive 40 hours of orientation; guards receive an additional 120 hours of training during the first year of employment. Overall turnover is now 28 percent, down from 39 percent in 2007. “The economy has helped reduce turnover,” Collins notes. “We are also very focused on engagement.” In 2009, CCA launched new initiatives to improve engagement, including regular roundtable discussions for employees with wardens. “The human resources directors are responsible for convening focus groups in each facility and creating action plans with wardens based on the outcome,” Collins says. “In addition, we conduct culture assessments that look at all the shifts to understand the DNA of each facility. We sit down with exempt and nonexempt employees. Issues are revealed and we try to change the culture if it’s headed in the wrong direction. If we find positive elements, we try to strengthen and improve them.” Although most of his experience is in operations, Collins held several HR positions at Wal-Mart, and his training there has served him well at CCA. Still, the move was not easy. “For the first six months, I struggled,” Collins says. “I wondered if I had made the right decision or if I should go back to Wal-Mart. I am used to feeling that I belong, but I realized that I would never be a part of the corrections fraternity. But then I realized I could take the skills I had developed at Wal-Mart and match them up line by line with the skills I need at CCA.” Collins still draws from his Wal-Mart experience. “To be successful, you have to understand people and foster open communications,” he says. “Sam Walton once told me, ‘You learn from your people. Ask questions and listen, listen, listen.’ ”

April 29, 2010 AP
A prison violence lawsuit brought by 24 inmates at Idaho’s only private prison against Corrections Corporation of America can move forward in court, despite objections from the company, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said in a ruling handed down Wednesday that he could find no reason to prevent former Idaho Correctional Center inmate Marlin Riggs and his attorneys from modifying their lawsuit to seek class-action status and add additional plaintiffs. Inmates have said the prison is so violent that it’s known as “gladiator school” and that guards deliberately expose prisoners to brutal beatings from other inmates, then deny them adequate medical care in an attempt to cover up the extent of inmates’ injuries. Riggs sued the Nashville, Tenn., company last year. After the case was filed, the ACLU agreed to represent Riggs and filed an amended complaint in March, adding nearly two dozen other inmates and asking for class action status. But Corrections Corporation of America asked the federal court to reject the amended lawsuit, saying Riggs had overstepped the limits set by the court when it agreed to appoint him attorneys to help him on the case. The company also contended that the changes to the lawsuit made it unduly prejudicial, putting CCA at an unfair disadvantage in court. Winmill said that wasn’t the case. In fact, Winmill wrote, amending the case to include other inmates was a more efficient way to deal with the claims rather than bringing 24 or more individual lawsuits. The lawsuit asks that Riggs be awarded $155 million in damages — the entire net profit of the Corrections Corporation of America for 2009. Riggs and the rest of the inmates are also seeking injunctive damages, asking the court to declare that the private prison company, and state prison officials have violated and ignored their duties to protect the inmates from unnecessary and preventable assaults. The inmates also want the judge to order the company to take reasonable steps to ensure that prisoners at ICC will be protected from assaults by other inmates, to increase training, oversight and investigations into assaults, and to take other measures to improve management practices at the prison.

April 28, 2010 Hernando Today County commissioners were left scrambling for explanations after learning Wednesday the private operator of the Hernando County Jail will opt out of its contract with Hernando County in 120 days. However, Sheriff Richard Nugent said he would be willing to take over operations of the jail after Corrections Corporation of America's contract expires and would do it at the same cost to the county, plus any start-up expenses. "This is a gun to the county commission's head to renegotiate the contract because they knew the sheriff wasn't going to run the jail," Nugent said. "We're not going to let the county be held hostage to CCA's tactics." Nugent said he doesn't think the county has a choice. It's either turn operations of the jail over to the Sheriff's Office or renegotiate with CCA. But Nugent said the county would have to make assurances there is money set aside for repairs of that facility. CCA spokesman Steve Owen made it clear the company is willing to sit down with the county and renegotiate a contract and continue its 22-year partnership. But until that happens, the termination notice stands. "We have given them official notice," said Owen. Owen said the continued "climate of uncertainty" swirling about the operations at the jail, along with a loss of revenue, led to the decision. And even though Nugent had withdrawn a proposal to take over jail operations, Owen believes Nugent will reopen his bid once repairs "estimated to be about $2 million or more” are made at the facility. In a memo, CCA spokeswoman Natasha Metcalf said continuing to operate the jail without an additional inmate population "is not a viable option." "While CCA has engaged in discussions with several potential new partners, the county's continued overtures regarding transitioning operations makes marketing of the beds extremely difficult," she wrote. The surprise announcement prompted swift reaction. "I will not be threatened," Commissioner Jim Adkins said. Adkins said he would be willing to negotiate a new contract with CCA "but I'm not paying them any more than I'm paying now, I know that for a fact." If CCA wants to bid for the contract it is welcome, Adkins said. If not, "it will be operated either by the sheriff or we'll bid it out to someone else who wants to do it," he said. County Commissioner David Russell said it is vital the county not resort to knee-jerk reactions. CCA has left the door open to renegotiation of its contract and all indications are that the warden and CCA are willing to move forward as a partner with the county, Russell said. But that could also likely mean an increase to that contract, which may have a bearing on the county's current jail budget of $11 million. The county's contract with CCA allows either party to terminate it with 120 days notice. If CCA leaves, Owen said the company would do all it could to help transition the county to its new operator. He said the continued safety and security of the inmates and 170 employees at the facility remain top priorities. On Tuesday, the county's budget director announced the county's shortfall for 2011 is due in part to allocating $1 million next year in estimated repairs to the Hernando County Jail and $445,683 in immediate repairs. County Commission Chairman John Druzbick said he is encouraged CCA has apparently left the door open for continued negotiations. But he is puzzled why the company did not approach the county beforehand to try to work out any concerns. Druzbick said he met with a CCA representative Wednesday morning and was handed the company's notice of contract termination about 10:30. Druzbick said he did not see it coming, especially since at one time CCA told him the company was considering putting up all the money to repair the jail on condition it would raise the per diem rate of $53 per inmate and negotiate a longer term contract. Druzbick said County Administrator David Hamilton has said he would like to get a request for proposals on the jail contract and that CCA would have the opportunity to bid. But commissioners did not agree or disagree to that, Druzbick said. County Commissioner Jeff Stabins laid the blame for CCA's decision to end its contract on Hamilton. "I blame David Hamilton because none of this would have been happening if he had kept his eye on the ball," Stabins said. "The ball was the dredge, which is hopelessly stalled, and the budget crisis. Now we have a third crisis to deal with, primarily because of David."

April 28, 2010 St Petersburg Times
Corrections Corporation of America, which has run the Hernando County jail for 22 years, gave notice to Hernando officials Wednesday morning that it will walk away from the facility in 120 days. In a letter delivered to commission Chairman John Druzbick, CCA notes that the jail needs inmates from outside the county to be financially viable and that the county's interest in seeking competitive bids for jail operations is hampering their efforts. "While CCA has engaged in discussions with several potential new partners, the county's continued overtures regarding transitioning operations makes marketing of the beds extremely difficult,'' wrote CCA official Natasha Metcalf. "Under these circumstances, CCA has no realistic option for improving the facility's fiscal outlook.'' The company leaves the door open for discussions if new contract terms can be found that are "beneficial to both parties,'' but that would likely mean increasing the county's annual jail budget of more than $11 million at a time when county's revenues are declining. "There shouldn't be any knee-jerk reactions,'' Commissioner Dave Russell said after learning of the notice. "There may yet be some opportunity for re-negotiating the contract. That door was left open.'' Commissioner Jim Adkins said he was surprised by the news and "the county always has options.'' The question of what's next is even tougher to answer because, after an extensive study, Sheriff Richard Nugent told the County Commission earlier this month that he was no longer interested in running the jail. After several tours of the facility, Nugent described numerous maintenance and structural issues at the facility and predicted that the jail was in need of $2 million or more in repairs. He showed photographs of rusting doors and hinges, cracks in walls and floors, and water damage from roof leaks. County Administrator David Hamilton has already identified more than $400,000 in the county budget for repairs needed immediately and has recommended another $1 million be set aside in next year's budget. CCA's letter notes that while Nugent pulled his proposal off the table, CCA believes he will still be interested in the facility after repairs are made. Nugent declined to comment Wednesday.

April 22, 2010 LA Times
A company that operates private prisons – and which is hoping to pluck inmates out of California’s overcrowded lockups and into its for-profit prisons – has donated $1,000 each to 10 state lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, in recent days. Private prisons could be a hot-button issue during this summer’s budget talks. In January, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a constitutional amendment to require the state to spend more on universities than keeping inmates behind bars. Privatizing prisons is one way to do that, the governor has said. Schwarzenegger, whose ballot measure efforts last year received $100,000 from the Corrections Corp. of America, has been supportive of sending inmates to private prisons. More than 8,000 state inmates are already housed in the company’s out-of-state lockups, with the governor’s proposed budget funding more than 10,000 private prison beds, according to the Department of Finance. The Tennessee-based company spent more than $175,000 on campaign contributions in 2009. It gave $15,000 to the California Republican Party and $7,500 to the California Democratic Party. Every state legislator – and there are four of them – running to be California’s next attorney general has received at least $1,000 from the prisons operator. Among the recent recipients of $1,000 in Corrections Corp. of America largess: • Assembly: Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana), Anna Caballero (D-Salinas) and Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego). • State Senate: Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles), Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), Gloria Negrete-McLeod (D-Chino) and Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark). Two of the attorney general hopefuls, Assemblymen Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) and Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara), also received $1,000 donations.

April 13, 2010 Dow Jones Newswire
The state of Florida said Tuesday it plans to award three prison contracts to Corrections Corp. of America (CXW), two of which previously were held by rival Geo Group Inc. (GEO). According to a memo reviewed by Dow Jones from Florida's Department of Management Services, it intends to award three out of four available prison contracts to Corrections Corp. Two of the contracts--Graceville Correction Facility and Moore Haven Correctional Facility--were previously held by Geo. In addition, Corrections Corp. lost one of its previously held contracts--Gadsden Correctional Facility--to Management & Training Corp., but it kept its contract for Bay Correctional Facility. Some analysts and industry insiders had expected Corrections Corp. to win all four contracts. The three contracts Corrections Corp. received were unanimous decisions by the panel. The committee was split on the fourth contract, which received bids only from Corrections Corp. and Management & Training. The contracts are for a period of three years and include four years of potential renewals. The department memo revealed the state will save almost $750,000 by offering Management & Training a piece of the pie, as opposed to offering all four contracts to Corrections Corp. The total value of the four three-year contracts is more than $250 million. A representative from Geo Group wasn't immediately available to comment, while Corrections Corp. declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Florida's management services department wasn't immediately available to comment on the contents of the memo.

April 11, 2010 Arizona Republic
Businesses and business groups are lining up on both sides of the proposed statewide 1-cent-per-dollar sales-tax increase. Some say it will hurt them by reducing consumer spending and hiking costs. Others say the tax is needed to support the overall state economy. Businesses generally oppose tax increases on themselves or their customers, but a number of high-profile groups are supporting Proposition 100 in the May 18 election because they consider it necessary to improve the state's fiscal picture and prospects for economic development. "You generally don't see business organizations supporting tax increases," said Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "But I think in this case, the near-term budget situation is deemed serious enough that some sort of temporary revenue enhancement was needed to prevent further (budget) cuts." As the election approaches, both factions can point to reports that support their points of view on the proposed tax increase. A study commissioned by the Goldwater Institute and conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute in Boston says passage of Proposition 100 would cost the state about 14,400 private-sector jobs because it would reduce the consumer spending that supports retail jobs. A conflicting study by the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona says passage would save more than 13,000 jobs and preserve more than $442 million in federal matching funds because much of the estimated $918 million in increased revenues the state would receive would be spent on products and services provided by private companies. Hamer said the Arizona chamber supports the tax as part of a comprehensive package that includes the state Jobs Recovery Act, which would give tax breaks to businesses in hopes of encouraging them to increase hiring. The chamber and Greater Phoenix Leadership, a business coalition, have each contributed $50,000 to the Yes on 100 Committee, according to the Secretary of State's Office. Arizona Public Service Co., Magellan Health Services, Scottsdale Healthcare and Tucson Medical Center have each given $25,000. Other companies making large contributions include Honeywell International PAC, which gave $15,000, and Sundt Companies Inc., Resolution Copper Mining and Corrections Corp. of America, each $10,000.

March 31, 2010 Marketwire
CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) (NYSE: CXW), America's leader in partnership corrections, announced today that Steve Groom, who currently serves as CCA's Deputy General Counsel, has been selected to succeed Gus Puryear as CCA's General Counsel. Puryear, who joined CCA in January 2001, has provided notice of his intent to resign to accept a position with another company following a brief transition period. Commenting on the transition, Damon Hininger, the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer said, "On behalf of the Board of Directors and management, we thank Gus for his contributions and service to our company over the last ten years, even as we look forward to Steve's leadership of the general counsel's office. Gus joined CCA when the Company was undergoing a tremendous amount of change and we are fortunate he has developed an exceptional in-house legal team, which will allow Steve to continue to operate our legal department effectively." Hininger continued, "Steve Groom, one of Gus' first hires, has been a valued member of our in-house legal team since he joined CCA in March 2001. His knowledge of our business combined with his experience and outstanding qualifications make him a clear choice to succeed Gus." Groom, 58, has more than 30 years of business and legal experience. Before joining CCA, Steve was a partner in the law firm of Stites & Harbison and served in managing attorney and general counsel roles with SunTrust Bank, Inc., both in Nashville. He earned his law degree from the University of Memphis, where he was a member of the Law Review, and a bachelor's degree from Lipscomb University in Nashville. He has served on the adjunct faculty of Lipscomb University's MBA program, teaching Corporate Governance and The Legal & Regulatory Environment of Business. He also serves on the Board of Visitors of Lipscomb University's College of Business and the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Conflict Management.

March 30, 2010 Boise Weekly
Just days after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the operators of Idaho's largest prison, the Idaho Correctional Center, an Idaho Falls man who was savagely beaten and suffered what could be permanent brain damage there notified the state that he would sue for at least $25 million. According to a tort claim filed March 16 with the Idaho Secretary of State, guards at the privately run ICC allowed Hanni Elabed to be severely beaten, "as a form of retribution connected with his refusal to participate in drug distribution at the ICC ..." Elabed's attorney, Ben Schwartzman, said that Elabed was asked to distribute drugs in the prison, refused and reported the incident. "It was at this point that he was essentially offered to the gangs as a snitch and allowed to be beaten," Schwartzman said. ICC officials did not return calls seeking comment. Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke said he could not address the pending lawsuit. "We're always concerned about the conditions of confinement in any of our facilities be they state facilities or contract facilities," Reinke said. Elabed's beating is detailed in the ACLU suit, though he is not named. The ACLU filed a federal claim on March 11 on behalf of six named inmates, claiming that conditions at ICC are so violent as to violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The suit seeks class-action status for all ICC inmates and punitive damages of $155 million--the 2009 net income of Corrections Corporation of America, which operates ICC--on behalf of one inmate. According to the ACLU lawsuit, four guards and a counselor watched as another prisoner smashed Elabed's head into a wall more than 10 times, stomped on his head more than 20 times, walked away to get a drink of water and returned to beat him until he was convulsing on the floor. The incident was filmed and the Ada County Sheriff's Office has reviewed the tape. Elabed, who was arrested in 2008 for holding up a pharmacy with a BB gun to obtain Oxycontin, to which he was addicted, pled guilty to burglary charges and was sentenced to two years in prison. He is now on medical parole in the care of his family in Idaho Falls. "He can talk, he can perform some daily activities of life, with help, in some instances on his own," Schwartzman said. Ada County detectives are also investigating a series of assaults at ICC that occurred on March 10 and resulted in at least one inmate being transported to the hospital.

March 24, 2010 AP
Corrections Corp. of America, the nation's largest prison operator, spent $250,000 lobbying the federal government in the fourth-quarter, according to a recent disclosure report. That's up 8.7 percent from $230,000 in the same period a year earlier, but down 3.8 percent from $260,000 in the third quarter of 2009. The company lobbied the Senate, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Office of Management & Budget and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the final three months of the year. Corrections Corp. lobbied on issues related to the private prison industry including budget appropriations, immigration detention facilities and communication systems. Corrections Corp. of America is based in Nashville, Tenn.

March 12, 2010 AP
A federal lawsuit claims that Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America is running an Idaho prison that is so violent it is known as "gladiator school" by inmates. The American Civil Liberties Union says CCA should have to pay all of its 2009 net profits — $155 million — in punitive damages. Idaho prison officials also were named in the suit filed by the ACLU on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boise. The suit adds to the considerable controversies CCA has faced since its founding in 1983. Last year, it was sued by a Metro officer who was shot by an escapee from a CCA facility; berated for leaving a mentally ill inmate in his Metro jail cell without a bath for 9 months; and sued by 23 female inmates who claim they were raped at a Kentucky prison. In 2006 CCA settled a suit over the death of a Nashville woman who was left in solitary confinement with massive head injuries. Charges against four guards accused of beating the woman were dropped. Opponents argue that CCA, the nation's largest private prison operator, uses its political influence to stifle those who say prisons should not be in private hands. It recently lost an attempt to keep all its prison records private when the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that CCA acts as a public entity in operating public prisons. The latest lawsuit claims that Idaho's only private prison is extraordinarily violent, with guards deliberately exposing inmates to brutal beatings from other prisoners as a management tool. The group contends the prison then denies injured inmates medical care to save money and hide the extent of injuries. Steve Owen, Corrections Corporation of America's director of public affairs, said the company would respond to the lawsuit through court filings. He said state officials have unfettered access to the prison and provide strong oversight at the facility, including daily on-site monitoring. "For the past decade, CCA has safely and securely managed the Idaho Corrections Center on behalf of our government partner, the Idaho Department of Corrections," Owen said in a prepared statement. "Our hardworking, professional staff and management team are held accountable to high standards by our government partner, to include those of the American Correctional Association — the highest professional standards in the country for correctional management." Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke said he had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment. Stephen Pevar, senior attorney for the ACLU, said he has sued at least 100 jails and prisons, but none came close to the level of violence at Idaho Correctional Center. "Our country should be ashamed to send human beings to that facility," he said. Suit asks for $155M The ACLU is asking for class-action status and $155 million in punitive damages — the entire net profit reported by the company in 2009. The ACLU said the money should go to lead plaintiff Marlin Riggs, who sustained permanent facial deformities and other medical problems after he was savagely beaten in his cell. Guards use violence to control prisoner behavior, forcing inmates to "snitch" on other inmates under the threat of moving them to the most violent sections of the prison, ACLU-Idaho Executive Director Monica Hopkins said. Hopkins said inmates will be beaten by fellow inmates if they become known as snitches. If they refuse to give up names, the guards will have them beaten anyway, she said. "It doesn't do us any good as a society to put people in there where they have to turn to other gangs and become gang members to protect themselves," Hopkins said. "The thing is, there's a constitutional duty to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners." The lawsuit also refers to an investigation by The Associated Press based on public records requests that found the level of violence at the prison was three times higher than at other Idaho prisons, and that Idaho Department of Correction officials believed violence was also dramatically underreported by Corrections Corporation of America and inmates. At the time of that report, Steven Conry, CCA's vice president of facility operations, maintained the prison was safe and well-run.

March 11, 2010 WJHG
Hernando County commissioners are considering dropping Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and turning their jail over to the county sheriff. They've been consulting Bay County officials about a similar transition that took place here in the fall of 2008. According to published reports, CCA criticized Bay County for terminating their contract, telling Hernando County officials they could have saved Bay County $3 million this year if they had still been running the facility. But, Bay County commissioners are now reminding everyone that it was CCA that terminated the contract, claiming they couldn't abide by the financial terms of that agreement. They also say sheriff Frank McKeithen has done a better job of running the jail, and has done it cheaper than CCA. Bay County commissioner Mike Thomas said, "In 2009, the sheriff's budget, entire budget, with insurance, building payments, power, everything, was $1.3 million cheaper than it was in 2008 under CCA's operation." Thomas says the county commission hasn't received nearly as many jail complaints since McKeithen took over from CCA.

March 4, 2010 AP
A magazine that advocates for the rights of prisoners has won another round in the legal battle with private prison giant Corrections Corporation of America. The Tennessee Supreme Court has declined to hear CCA's appeal of a lower court's ruling that it must turn over some documents on lawsuits and complaints against the company. Alex Friedmann, a former prisoner who is now an editor at Prison Legal News, asked for the information in 2007 and sued Nashville-based CCA after the company refused to turn it over. The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled last year that CCA must comply with the state's open records law because it performs the equivalent function of a government agency by running state prisons. The ruling only applies to Tennessee prisons, not federal prisons or facilities in other states that the company runs.

March 4, 2010 Prison Legal News
On March 1, the Tennessee Supreme Court, in a two-sentence order, declined to hear an appeal in a public records case involving Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit private prison firm. The case was originally filed in May 2008 by Alex Friedmann, Associate Editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), a non-profit monthly publication that reports on criminal justice issues. CCA had denied Friedmann’s request for documents related to lawsuits filed against the company and for reports or audits that found contract violations by CCA, among other records. The Chancery Court of Davidson County ruled in Friedmann’s favor on July 29, 2008 and CCA was ordered to produce the requested documents. On appeal, CCA strenuously claimed that it was not subject to the Public Records Act because it was not the “functional equivalent of a state agency.” However, the Court of Appeals rejected that argument. “With all due respect to CCA, this Court is at a loss as to how operating a prison could be considered anything less than a governmental function,” the appellate court observed in a September 16, 2009 ruling. The Court of Appeals held that CCA was subject to the Public Records Act, and was required to disclose the documents requested by Friedmann for all but one of the company’s facilities in Tennessee. CCA appealed the appellate decision to the state Supreme Court and Friedmann cross-appealed on the issue of attorney fees. In declining to hear the appeals on March 1, the Supreme Court left intact the appellate court’s previous ruling. The case will now be remanded to the Chancery Court for further proceedings, to determine which records CCA will be required to make public. “This decision by the Tennessee Supreme Court brings us one step closer to ensuring that CCA is held accountable to the public to the same extent as the government agencies it contracts with, which will bring much-needed transparency to CCA’s private prison operations in Tennessee,” Friedmann said. He noted that CCA’s contracts are funded with taxpayer dollars, and members of the public thus have a right to know how their money is being spent – particularly in regard to the operation of prisons, which is a fundamental government function. Friedmann, who was formerly incarcerated at a CCA facility in the mid-1990s, opposes prison privatization. “Allowing a private company to incarcerate people, and generate profit from their incarceration, is morally wrong and a social injustice,” he stated. A number of organizations had filed amicus briefs in support of Friedmann’s appeal when the case was before the Court of Appeals. Those organizations included the Tennessee ACLU, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the American Society for Newspaper Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, and the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG) had asked to file an amicus brief in support of Friedmann’s appeal to the state Supreme Court. The case is Friedmann v. CCA, Tenn. Supreme Court, Case No. M2008-01998-SC-R11-CV. Friedmann and PLN are ably represented by attorney Andrew Clarke of the Memphis law firm of Borod and Kramer, PLC.

February 21, 2010 Tennessean
The national economy may be weak, but the business of lobbying the federal government continues to boom. And Tennessee businesses, universities, cities and other groups did their part in 2009, spending $44.4 million on lobbying, according to an analysis of disclosure reports filed with Congress. Nationally, the number of registered lobbyists declined last year for the first time in at least a decade, but the amount spent continued to grow, nearing $3.5 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That's up 37 percent from five years ago. Among Tennessee-based institutions, Memphis-based FedEx spent the most, $18.8 million, placing it among the top 15 spenders nationally. Among those 15, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranked first, reporting $144.5 million in lobbying expenses. Much of the spending by FedEx, as with other large companies, was for the company's in-house lobbying operation. FedEx also paid 15 outside firms. The company lobbied on transportation, the stimulus legislation and labor issues, among others. Nissan North America, based in Smyrna, was next, spending $6.6 million on lobbying last year. The automaker listed fuel economy, energy issues and the Cash for Clunkers program as targets. The next-highest spender was International Paper, also based in Memphis, which reported about $3.4 million in lobbying expenses. Other big spenders were Nashville's Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company, which spent about $2 million, and Eastman Chemical, headquartered in Kingsport, which reported $1.7 million in lobbying expenses.

February 15, 2010 Greenwood Commonwealth
Joseph Leon Jackson Jr., a former inmate at Delta Correctional Facility who escaped from custody in June during a visit to a Greenwood optician’s office, and his alleged accomplice will face trial on Sept. 20 in Nashville, Tenn. Jackson and his cousin, Courtney Logan, were accused of shooting a Nashville police officer during a traffic stop. The two are facing charges of attempted murder and evading arrest for the June 25 shooting of Sgt. Mark Chesnut. Both pleaded not guilty in November and declared they were indigent. A judge appointed defense attorneys to represent them. Chesnut, 44, has returned to light duty with the police department since the shooting. Police say Chesnut stopped the men on Interstate 40 near Bellevue, Tenn., hours after Logan helped Jackon escape. Chestnut was shot five times while checking the suspects’ driver’s licenses. Jackson, 30, and Logan, 25, were caught a short time later after Chestnut backed his car away from the shooters and radioed descriptions of the men and the car they were driving. Chesnut has also filed a civil suit against Corrections Corporation of America, which operates the Delta Correctional Facility, alleging the company failed to follow its own security policies and was responsible for the shooting. CCA has denied liability in the shooting. Chestnut is seeking $14 million and his wife, Michelle Chestnut is seeking $2.5 million.

January 26, 2010 The Vindicator
Corrections Corp. of America, which operates the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center on Hubbard Road, has sued the city, saying the city’s recently enacted $1 per-prisoner per-day tax on private prisons violates the U.S. and Ohio constitutions and the city charter. A deputy city law director, however, said the prisoner accommodation tax ordinance city council passed last year is valid. The Nashville-based CCA filed the lawsuit Friday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, where the case is assigned to Judge R. Scott Krichbaum. No court hearing has been scheduled. The new tax, which took effect Dec. 1, “discriminates against interstate commerce” in violation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said. Because all inmates at NOCC are prisoners or detainees of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons or the U.S. Marshal’s Service, and CCA is acting as “an instrumentality of the federal government,” the fee also violates the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine in the supremacy clause of the Constitution, the suit says. The tax violates the equal-protection clauses of the U.S. and Ohio constitutions because “the fee serves no legitimate public purpose, and there is no rational basis for the discrimination between CCA and any other entity housing prisoners within the city,” the suit says. The tax also violates the city charter because council improperly enacted it as an emergency measure and “because it is an occupational tax, which has not been submitted to the electorate,” the corporation’s complaint says. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the corporation by Atty. Timothy J. Bojanowski of Phoenix, asks the court to declare the tax unconstitutional and void it, prohibit the city from collecting it, and bar the city from punishing the corporation for not paying it. Last month, CCA sent the city a letter saying the corporation objected to the tax and wasn’t going to pay it, the lawsuit says. “This is entirely within our rights as a city to do this. It does not violate the interstate commerce clause. ... There is no intent to penalize interstate commerce,” said Anthony Farris, deputy city law director. The ordinance was projected to generate slightly more than $500,000 annually for the city’s general fund, which pays the city’s general expenses, including those of police and fire protection, Farris said. “We believe we are entitled to these proceeds,” Farris said, adding that the city hasn’t yet received any revenue under this ordinance. In June 2009, council passed an emergency ordinance imposing the tax for prisoners convicted of crimes occurring outside Mahoning County, after the city unsuccessfully tried to negotiate such a payment from CCA, Farris said. In response to the corporation’s objections, council amended the ordinance in November to encompass all convicted prisoners housed within the city by a private institution regardless of where their crimes occurred, Farris said. “We analyzed it again, and we wanted to make sure we were absolutely correct so that we would prevail in this litigation should it occur. ... We wanted to make sure that we were absolutely 100 percent right, which we are,” Farris explained. “Their business brings prisoners — criminals — into the area. That’s something that has to be addressed by all aspects of government. There are law-enforcement issues with that. One has to maintain a state of readiness when you have a large amount of criminals in your area, and we feel that that justifies this fee,” Farris concluded.

January 22, 2010 Tennessean
A jury will decide the fate of two men accused of shooting a Metro police officer during a traffic stop last summer. The trial of Joseph Jackson Jr. and Courtney Logan has been scheduled for Sept. 20, Judge Seth Norman said. The pair did not appear in court on Thursday for the short hearing. "Typically when all the attorneys are going to do is set a date, both sides have already decided they're going to trial," Davidson County District Attorney spokeswoman Susan Niland said. "The hearing only takes about 30 seconds at the most." Jackson and Logan are accused of attempted murder and evading arrest in connection with the June 25 shooting of Metro police Sgt. Mark Chesnut. The men entered pleas of not guilty to the charges in November. Both declared that they were indigent, and a judge appointed defense attorneys to represent them. Chesnut, 44, is still recovering and has returned to light duty with the Metro police department. On the day of the shooting police say Chesnut stopped the men on Interstate 40 near Bellevue just hours after Logan helped Jackson, his cousin, escape from a prison in Mississippi run by the Corrections Corporation of America. While Chesnut was checking their licenses, according to police, Jackson walked up to the car and shot Chesnut, who suffered life-threatening injuries. Chesnut was shot five times. Jackson, 30, and Logan, 25, were caught a short time later after Chesnut backed his car away from the shooters and radioed in descriptions of the men and the car they were driving. Chesnut, a 22-year police veteran, has since filed a civil suit against CCA, alleging the company failed to follow its own security policies and was responsible for the shooting. Chesnut is seeking $14 million and his wife, Michelle Chesnut, is seeking $2.5 million.

December 18, 2009 Nashville Business Journal
When Damon Hininger took over as president and CEO of Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America in October, it capped a 17-year journey from his first job with the company as a correctional officer in his hometown of Leavenworth, Kan. Hininger now presides over a corporation that many believe could make a similarly meteoric rise out the recession — and one that continually confronts skepticism and critics’ philosophical opposition to what the company does. CCA (NYSE: CXW) is the nation’s largest private prison company and the fifth-largest prison manager in the country behind the federal government and three states. The company has nearly 87,000 prison beds in the United States. Its closest competitor, The GEO Group (NYSE: GEO), has 53,000 beds in the United States and 60,000 worldwide. CCA’s revenue was $1.6 billion in 2008, up $500 million since 2004. Corrections Corp. manages 65 facilities in 19 states and the District of Columbia, 44 of which the company also owns. Managed facilities in Tennessee include the Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility in Nashville and five other prisons. In a recent interview with the Nashville Business Journal, Hininger said the company offers its customers the best of both worlds: the oversight and accountability of government, and the innovation and cost effectiveness of business. Critics, however, worry about the dangers of introducing a profit motive into the penal system, fearing it may lead to cost-saving measures that put inmates and the public at risk. Most people see prisons when they think about CCA. Bill Ackman saw a high-quality real estate business with credit-worthy tenants (governments), low maintenance costs and competitive advantages. His investment firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, has recently purchased 10.9 million shares of the company, a 9.5 percent ownership stake, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In a recent presentation at the Value Investing Congress, Ackman noted several things he likes about the company including its national footprint, balance sheet and ability to both capture incremental growth in prisoner populations and also relieve existing overcrowding in federal and state prisons. T.C. Robillard, an analyst with Signal Hill Capital Group in Baltimore, is similarly impressed with the company. “They’ve got a real solid balance sheet and a strong management team,” he said, noting that only 8 percent of the nation’s prisons are privately managed. “There’s clearly a lot of runway in terms of growth …” But while Ackman sees CCA as a bargain investment, Robillard believes the company’s value is appropriately built into its share price of about $25. He has a hold rating on the company and believes competitors GEO and Cornell Cos. are better investments. Anticipating growth CCA has adopted a strategy of increasing its bed capacity faster than it adds inmates, so that it can quickly meet customers’ needs. “We have learned … that when a state agency or federal government wants to make a purchase, they make a decision at the very last minute with overpopulation and budget constraints,” he said. “They want the beds as soon as possible.” CCA more than doubled its capacity of beds through the third quarter of this year. While its average population grew 4.5 percent, its average available beds jumped 9.2 percent. CCA has weathered the recession well — revenue is at $1.2 billion through the third quarter of this year, up about $70 million — but Hininger said the prison business is impacted by states’ budget deficits. To confront budget woes, some states, including Tennessee, have looked at releasing prisoners early. This month, CCA announced it will close a Minnesota facility because the two states that house prisoners there have been reducing their populations. Still, Hininger believes the company’s mid- to long-term prospects are favorable. “You will have some states where, even with tough budgets, they will have to expand due to overcrowding,” Hininger said. “And states have little money to build new facilities themselves.” Hininger said CCA can build a prison in a fraction of the time and for half the cost of government by taking advantage of market conditions. For example, he said the company recently built a prison for its largest state customer, California, in Arizona to take advantage of lower construction, labor and real estate prices in that state. Profit concerns Hearing incarceration discussed in such cut-and-dry business terms grates on the ears of those who fear the profit motive could lead to negative consequences in the penal system. “Freedom is a core right of the American people and only government should have the right to take it away,” said Amy Fettig, staff counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project in Washington. Fettig said private prison companies achieve lower costs through cutbacks in training, rehabilitation services, medical care and compensation. CCA denies such allegations. Louise Grant, CCA’s vice president of marketing and communication, and Hininger argued that it is precisely because they are under such a microscope that their facilities are safe. “We have more incentive to operate even more safely and securely because there is such a demand for accountability by the government partners,” said Grant, who said a government “contract monitor” works in each CCA facility. Overall research on the quality and cost of private versus public prisons is inconclusive and often biased. Studies in support of private prisons include those funded by Corrections Corp. or authored by pro-privatization think tanks. Critical reports often come from sources such as Nashvillian Alex Friedmann, a convicted felon and former prisoner in a CCA prison, associate editor of Prison Legal News and vice president of the Private Corrections Institute. Some critics contend there is a fundamental problem with prisons being run by for-profit entities that have no financial interest in seeing prisoners rehabilitated. Hininger acknowledges that the company is paid on a per-inmate basis, but forcefully denies allegations that it lobbies for stricter sentencing, against early release or tries to influence prisoner populations. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, CCA has spent $770,000 lobbying at the federal level this year and has spent as much as $3.4 million in one year, 2005. Grant said “anybody who provides services to government uses lobbyists” and that CCA is no exception. She said the company may use lobbyists to fight bans on While most of the negative publicity about private prisons has been focused on immigration prisons in the Southwest, CCA also has been dragged into the spotlight locally, most notably when inmate Estelle Richardson died in CCA’s Nashville facility in 2004. The death was ruled a homicide, but charges against four CCA officers were ultimately dropped.

December 11, 2009 TPM Muckraker
A party planning side business run by three current and former congressional staffers raked in over $20,000 last year from lobbyists holding events to honor Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) -- whose own communications director is co-founder of the firm. The apparent arrangement between Thompson and the business, Chic Productions, at once allows private interests to get closer to the congressman's office and gives the staffers a way to dip a straw into the river of outside money flowing through Capitol Hill. Chic Productions offers "high style events with simple elegance" and advertises its previous work executing "congressional events and fundraising parties." One of Chic's principals was quoted in 2007 saying congressional events make up roughly 90 percent of the firm's business. The three women who run Chic are: Dena Graziano, Thompson's communications director since 2006; Michone Johnson, chief counsel for the House Judiciary Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee; and Michelle Persaud, formerly of the House Judiciary Committee, now corporate counsel at T-Mobile. Graziano's bio on Chic's Web site says she has "straddled the fine line between politics and entertainment as an event and communications strategist to some of the nation's most well known personalities." Johnson's boasts that, "As a lawyer, Michone has honed her planning skills by executing everything from intense negotiations and member briefings to happy hours birthday parties, and staff retirement parties." A Chic floral display with the congressional seal at '07 Thompson eventThe extent of the business Chic has done for Thompson remains unclear because lobbyist disclosure statements that reveal the arrangement have only recently been required, and comprehensive data is available only for 2008. But besides the lobbyist receptions, Chic has put on at least six other Thompson-linked events. Lobbyists spend millions of dollars each year wining and dining lawmakers at receptions held in their honor. The events serve many purposes, among them gaining valuable access to members of Congress and staffers, and building good will in a relaxed social format. But actually paying staffers to organize events to honor their bosses is a new twist on the old practice. As chair of the Committee on Homeland Security, Thompson is among the most powerful Democrats in the House. He has been under an ethical cloud since last week when the Washington Post reported on allegations by Homeland Security Committee staffers that he held a hearing on credit cards to squeeze donations out of industry lobbyists. One committee staffer said she was fired for raising objections to "inappropriate lobbyist requests." Thompson denies the allegations, which are under investigation by the House ethics panel. Thompson at Chic "Chairman Reception" in 2007In a six-week period in late 2008, four companies paid Chic $22,500 to plan events to honor Thompson, according to lobbying disclosures reviewed by TPMmuckraker. The companies were private prison contractor Corrections Corporation of America ($10,000), lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs ($5,000), Pepsico ($5,000), and software giant Oracle ($2,500).

December 9, 2009 Tennessean
The Corrections Corporation of America has responded to allegations that Sgt. Mark Chesnut's shooting was because of its negligence, saying that it wasn't reasonable to foresee that their escaped prisoner would shoot him. What happened to Chesnut, the private prison giant said in its response to the lawsuit, is part of the risk inherent to being a police officer. Chesnut filed suit in October, alleging that Nashville-based CCA's negligence contributed to him being shot multiple times. Joseph Jackson Jr., who was serving a life sentence at a CCA-operated prison in Greenwood, Miss., and his cousin Courtney Logan have been charged with attempted murder in the shooting. David Raybin, Nashville attorney representing Chesnut, declined to comment on the response. CCA spokesman Steve Owen also declined to comment. Jackson had escaped from prison hours earlier — with the help of Logan — after Logan showed up armed to Jackson's off-site doctor's appointment, police say. Chesnut alleged in the suit, filed by Raybin, that Jackson was told in advance about the appointment and had access to cell phones to arrange the escape. CCA denied in the court filings that Jackson was told in advance about his doctor's appointment by a prison nurse or that he had access to a cell phone. They also denied that the armed guard went for her cell phone instead of her gun, though they admitted that the gun and phone were taken from her by Jackson and Logan. The company overall denied that its actions caused Chesnut's shooting and said the liability rests more with the two men charged. Chesnut, who is still recovering, has returned to work on light duty.

December 4, 2009 Marketwire
Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE: CXW) ("CCA"), the nation's largest provider of corrections management services to government agencies, announced today its intention to cease operations at the CCA-owned and operated Prairie Correctional Facility located in Appleton, Minnesota. The 1,600-bed facility will officially cease operations on or about February 1, 2010. During 2009, the Prairie facility has housed offenders from the states of Minnesota and Washington. However, due to excess capacity in the states' systems, both states have been reducing the populations held at Prairie. The facility currently houses about 200 offenders from the state of Minnesota. The state of Washington has removed all of its offenders from the Prairie facility, but maintains a population of approximately 125 inmates in two CCA-owned facilities in Arizona. The closure of the Prairie facility is not expected to have a material impact on CCA's financial results.

November 24, 2009 Los Angeles Daily Journal
The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation inked a deal in October to ship 2,336 additional inmates to out-of-state facilities run by a private prison company, bringing the total number of California prisoners held by the firm since 2006 to roughly 10,500. The contract extension, worth $54.4 million a year, came six months after the company, Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America, donated $100,000 to Budget Reform Now, a group spearheaded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that sought to pass six budget-related propositions, none having anything to do with private prisons. Because of an emergency proclamation regarding prison overcrowding issued by Schwarzenegger in 2006, the contract extension does not require legislative approval, though lawmakers can still kill it if they don't approve the spending when they re-convene in January. Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the contract extension was not related to the donation. "The Governor had nothing to do with it," she wrote in an e-mail. She said the corrections department alone made the decision. Corrections officials have said they increased the number of inmates exported to private prisons because of crowding in California's 33 prisons. A three-judge panel in August ordered officials to reduce the prison population by about 40,000. The agency was closed Friday under a cost-saving furlough and spokesmen did not return messages and e-mails for comment regarding the donation but had said earlier in the week that it was a necessary step to reduce crowding. Corrections Corp. also denied the donation was tied to the contract extension, which brings the total value of its California contract to more than $224 million a year. "We are politically active and make contributions to Democrats and Republicans alike all over the country, as do all companies of our size and reach," said Louise Grant, vice president of communications at Corrections Corp. Corrections Corp. donated $234,500 in 2007-08, and $38,900 so far this year, to several members of the California Legislature and the state Democratic and Republican parties, according to its filings with the Secretary of State. The firm has also reported spending about $45,000 for each of the last three quarters on lobbyists in California. "It's certainly no accident that this company made this contribution and then got awarded the contract extension," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies. "But I'm convinced there was no quid pro quo here." Rather, Stern said handing out donations merely gives corporations more and easier access to politicians. California pays Corrections Corp. $63 a day to house 7,911 inmates in its facilities in Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi. At about the time of the donation, the company reported that it had instituted a hiring freeze and was considering freezing executive salaries and other cost-cutting measures. It had postponed a plan to build a prison in Tennessee. A number of expected contracts were on hold; others never came through. In August, Alaska announced that it would go with a competitor. Minnesota is also pulling back inmates, the company has reported. According to its SEC filings, many of Correction Corp.'s facilities had 100 or more empty beds on Nov. 1, bringing the number of vacancies above 8,800. In December, 765 Alaskan inmates will be removed from the company's Red Rock Correctional Center in Arizona, according to the filings. With the contract expansion, California inmates will be filling those beds, plus others in other facilities. In addition to the daily rate, the contract calls for the state to reimburse medical expenses in excess of $2,500. Neither the original contract with Corrections Corp., nor a subsequent extension that increased the number of inmates to a maximum of about 8,000, have been vetted by the Legislature. Schwarzenegger's 2006 emergency order allows the corrections department to circumvent legislative approval. That first contract was one of two awarded by the state to house up to 2,260 inmates in private facilities. The other contractor was GEO Group Inc., of Florida, which had managed some low-level California prisons on a contract since 1995. Geo Group - formerly Wackenhut - had made $68,000 in campaign contributions to various Schwarzenegger political committees in fiscal year 2005-06, before the contract was awarded. After a major riot and fire occurred at the private prison where the California inmates were slated to go, California rescinded its contract with GEO Group. The company still manages a low-security prison in Adalanto and three in McFarland. One of the McFarland facilities will close in two months, according to corrections officials.

November 10, 2009 WSMV
The two men accused of trying to kill a Metro police officer during a traffic stop received public defenders at a Tuesday arraignment. Courtney Logan and Joseph Jackson were in court, where attorneys entered not guilty pleas in their defense. Investigators said Logan helped Jackson escape police custody in Mississippi in June. When Sgt. Mark Chesnut pulled the pair over for a traffic violation in west Nashville, Logan is accused of grabbed a gun and shooting Chesnut several times. Logan and Jackson both face charges of attempted first-degree murder. Chesnut filed a lawsuit Oct. 30 against Corrections Corporation of America for $14 million. CCA operates the prison that held Jackson before his escape in June. According to the lawsuit, Jackson was given two weeks advance notice of the appointment and was able to access a cell phone to plan the escape with Logan. The weapon used to shoot Chesnut was taken from one of the CCA guards who accompanied Jackson to the appointment. Chesnut's attorney said the entire incident wouldn't have occurred if CCA hadn't been negligent with its policies.

November 10, 2009 NewsChannel 5
The two men accused of critically injuring a Metro police officer during a traffic stop have been scheduled to answer to the charges in court Tuesday. Joseph Jackson and Courtney Logan will be arraigned Tuesday on attempted first degree murder charges. Police said Jackson, an escaped inmate from Mississippi, shot Sgt. Mark Chesnut several times in June 2009 while the officer was sitting in his patrol car on Interstate 40 near Bellevue. Chestnut had just stopped the pair for a seatbelt violation. Chesnut has since returned to work following his recovery. Chesnut also filed a $14 million lawsuit against the Corrections Corporation of America, claiming they are responsible for his injuries because Jackson escaped from custody under the supervision of their guards at a doctor's appointment.

October 30, 2009 Tennessean
Sgt. Mark Chesnut, the Metro police officer shot by an escaped prisoner in June has filed suit against the Corrections Corporation of America, alleging the company is responsible for the failures that led to the escape and subsequent shooting. Chesnut was critically injured on June 25 when he was shot five times during a traffic stop. Police later arrested Joseph Jackson, Jr., who escaped from prison in Mississippi earlier that day, and his cousin Courtney Logan, accused of helping Jackson escape, for the shooting. Chesnut is still recovering from the injuries. CCA spokesman Steve Owen said the company has not been served with the suit and is not in a position to comment. According to the lawsuit, filed late Friday by Nashville attorney David Raybin, the company was negligent in following its own policies to prevent and respond to an escape. Chesnut is seeking $14 million from the Nashville-based private corrections giant, and his wife, Michelle Chesnut, is seeking an additional $2.5 million. “They give (Jackson) advanced warning, the means to escape, they give him a gun and he’s out in a few hours shooting a police officer,” Raybin said. “To me, it’s foreseeable that any police officer who stopped these guys was in mortal danger.” Jackson had two weeks notice that he was going to an off-site doctor’s appointment and didn’t prevent him access from cell phones that he used to plan his escape, the lawsuit said. The advance notification was against the policies of CCA, which operated the Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood, Miss., where Jackson was held. Police said that Logan entered the doctor’s office during the scheduled time to help Jackson escape. Logan fired several shots into the ceiling, and ordered everyone to get down. The lawsuit adds new details about the escape, saying that Jackson, who was in prison for violent offenses and serving a life sentence, was escorted by an armed female guard and two unarmed male guards. When Logan pulled the gun, according to the lawsuit, the armed guard reached not for her gun but for her cell phone. Jackson took the gun and the phone, and the two fled toward Nashville. Just a few hours later, they were pulled over by Chesnut. “For the few extra dollars it might have cost this for-profit institution to have a house call, Sgt. Chesnut wouldn’t have eight bullets in him,” Raybin said. Chesnut was running Logan’s driver’s license when Jackson walked back to talk to the officer. He walked away, but came back and drew the gun he took from the CCA guard, shooting Chesnut five times. Two bullets lodged in his bulletproof vest, but he was struck by the other three. Despite the injury, Chesnut threw the car into reverse when the gunman returned and radioed in the shooting, giving a description of the suspects and the car to officers that were looking for them within minutes. They were arrested within hours by Metro police and taken into custody without incident. “He radioed in not only to report own injury, but in hope that other officers could stop these guys,” Raybin said. “It’s about as heroic a thing as I’ve ever seen.” CCA was under heavy criticism for security in February 2008, when Terrell Watson escaped from the Metro Detention Facility in Nashville. When Watson was discovered missing, jail employees notified authorities and put the jail on lockdown, and an exhaustive search inside the prison and around the grounds went on for two days. They didn’t file an escape warrant that would let other police agencies know he was an escaped prisoner for two days. The internal procedure to handle a possible escape dictates only that police should be notified, CCA officials said at the time.

October 18, 2009 Honolulu Advertiser
A female inmate who was housed at the Otter Creek Women's Prison in Kentucky has filed a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii and the company that operates the prison, alleging she was sexually assaulted by a guard while incarcerated. Pania Kalama, 35, alleges in her Circuit Court lawsuit that the state and Corrections Corporation of America knew about improper behavior by corrections staff at Otter Creek, but took no actions to ensure the safety of inmates. Kalama said she was sexually assaulted on June 13 by corrections officer Charlie Prater, according to the lawsuit. Last month, Prater, 54, was indicted in Kentucky on a charge of first-degree rape. Hawaii corrections officials sent 165 women inmates to Otter Creek, a private prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America. State officials removed the inmates from the facility following allegations of sexual assaults of inmates by staff. The lawsuit, which was filed by attorney Myles Breiner, seeks an undetermined amount in damages.

October 14, 2009 The Denver Post
A private prison operator will pay $1.3 million to settle complaints from 21 female employees who claimed they suffered harassment from male supervisors and colleagues ranging from sexually explicit comments to rape. A female officer complained a male co-worker sexually harassed her and that after she complained, she was reassigned to an isolated location of the medium-security Crowley County Correctional Facility where she was raped by the man she complained about, according to the federal lawsuit. The suit, filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, also accused a chief of security at the prison of forcing a female correctional officer to have sex with him so she could keep her job. Female employees also accused their male counterparts of openly viewing pornography and making demeaning sexual jokes about them. The EEOC sued Corrections Corporation of America and Dominion Correctional Services on behalf of the female employees in 2006. Although a settlement was reached, the defendants did not admit liability. Dominion is no longer operating prisons and the company could not be reached for comment. "CCA settled the claim to avoid the time, expense, and uncertainties of continued litigation and trial," said a statement issued by that company. CCA assumed control of the prison in January 2003 from Dominion and claims that a "substantial number" of the more serious allegations occurred under Dominion's operation. "Of the 21 individuals alleging discriminatory conduct, eight were never CCA employees, but were employed solely by Dominion," the statement said. "Moreover, although seven of the 21 individuals were employed by both CCA and Dominion, the majority of their claims also related to events that allegedly occurred before CCA began operating the facility." EEOC attorney Rita Byrnes Kittle said some of the employees accused of sexual harassment over the years have resigned, but some are still working at the prison. Guadalupe Gonzales, the 39-year-old former employee accused of rape in 2002, was convicted in 2005 of felony sexual assault. He was sentenced to four years of probation and is registered as a sex offender. As part of the settlement agreement, Dominion cannot operate a prison in Colorado for three years. CCA must have sexual harassment training conducted by an outside expert for the next three years and have a toll-free number available for employees to call to report sexual harassment. Some of the women who lost their jobs because of the harassment will get them back and will also get letters of apology. The settlement comes four months after a federal judge imposed a $1.3 million judgment against a former Colorado correctional officer who sexually abused a female inmate at the state women's complex in Denver.

September 3, 2009 Arizona Daily Sun
A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses the Corrections Corporation of America and an Arizona prison of denying inmates some books. Prison Legal News, a nonprofit criminal-justice publication, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Nashville, Tenn., company and various officials at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. The Seattle-based publication also publishes, sells and distributes books to about 7,000 prisoners around the world. The nonprofit accuses prison officials of prohibiting at least six Saguaro prisoners from receiving books in the last two years. Calls to Saguaro warden Todd Thomas and Corrections Corporation of America were not returned Wednesday. When refusing Prison Legal books to inmates, prison officials gave them notices saying that the company was not an approved vendor and that their books would "create a serious danger to the security of the facility," according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit says that the prison only allowed inmates to get their books from Barnes & Noble, and when that company didn't have a certain publication, they could use amazon.com. Prison Legal gives inmates books for free if they can't afford them. The lawsuit says Corrections Corporation of America and prison officials are violating Prison Legal's First and 14th Amendment rights. The publisher wants the prison to be ordered to pay unspecified damages and allow inmates to get Prison Legal books.

August 31, 2009 Kansas City Star
The largest U.S. private prison firm, in settling a national class-action lawsuit, has agreed to payments worth up to $7 million in back pay and attorney fees for more than 30,000 guards and other employees. The agreement by the company, Corrections Corporation of America, was approved in February and promptly sealed. But it was unsealed last week in Kansas by U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum. The guards and other workers had claimed they were regularly required to work off the clock, in violation of federal labor laws. Eligible employees will reportedly receive about $100 for each year they worked for the company, from December 2005 through February 2009. The case grew from a single complaint from employee Keith Barnwell at the company’s Leavenworth facility. As part of the settlement, the company denied any wrongdoing. Lungstrum’s decision to unseal the settlement came on a motion from Prison Legal News, a Seattle-based monthly newsletter that reports on criminal justice issues. Prison Legal News had argued that the settlement agreement was a public document, in part because the company’s contracts for prison space involve tax dollars. Corrections Corporation of America lawyers argued against unsealing the document, saying that it was not newsworthy and that the settlement relied for success on the terms of the agreement being sealed. The company also argued that the newsletter was simply trying to disparage it by showing that the company violated labor law. Lungstrum ultimately ruled that the company’s argument “is not significant enough to outweigh the strong presumption in favor of public access to judicial records.” The attorney for the employees, Brendan J. Donelon of Kansas City, had no comment on the decision to unseal the agreement, but he said he was satisfied with the results of the lawsuit. A separate case is pending against the company covering employees the company had allegedly misclassified as managers and who should have received overtime, Donelon added.

August 28, 2009 PLN Press Release
Today, the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas unsealed a settlement agreement in a national class-action lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison firm. On July 27, 2009, Prison Legal News (PLN), a monthly publication that reports on criminal justice-related issues, had filed a motion to intervene in the suit for the purpose of unsealing the settlement. The suit, brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), alleged that for years CCA had required some of its employees to perform work duties "without compensating them for all such hours worked as required by the FLSA." The parties reached a settlement that was approved by the court on February 12, 2009; however, the settlement was sealed and did not become publicly known until June. PLN argued that as a matter of public policy, documents filed in federal court should remain open to the public. This is particularly true for CCA, since almost all of CCA’s income is derived from taxpayer funds through government contracts. The court agreed that the settlement and related documents should be unsealed. U.S. District Court Judge John W. Lungstrum wrote that the confidentiality of the settlement was insufficient "to outweigh the strong presumption in favor of public access to judicial records," and that "no evidence whatsoever" had been presented to show that unsealing the settlement agreement "would cause significant damage or prejudice to the parties. ..." The unsealed documents reveal that the maximum gross settlement amount payable by CCA is $7 million, which includes up to $2.33 million in fees for the plaintiffs’ attorneys who brought the FLSA suit. The actual amount of the settlement and attorney fees will depend on the total number of class members who opt-in to the settlement. CCA was responsible for providing a list of the potential class members, consisting of current and former CCA employees, so they could be notified of the settlement. The potential class numbers over 30,600 nationwide. PLN is aware of at least one former CCA employee who did not receive notice of the settlement but who was later determined to be eligible by the claims administrator. The deadline for submitting claims was July 27, 2009. The settlement provides that current CCA employees who opt-in to the settlement must agree, among other requirements, that they will "report any alleged instruction or suggestion by CCA or any CCA employee to work ‘off the clock’ or to otherwise under- or over-report the amount of working time." CCA expressly denied any liability or wrongdoing, and wrote that the company had agreed to settle the case to avoid "the costs and disruption of ongoing litigation." The class action suit against CCA is Barnwell, et al. v. Corrections Corp. of America, U.S.D.C. (D. Kan.), Case No. 2:08-CV-02151-JWL-DJW. PLN was ably represented in its motion to intervene by Stephen D. Bonney, Chief Counsel and Legal Director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. Other than its motion to intervene, PLN has no part in this lawsuit.

August 7, 2009 Tennessean
Prisons run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America perform a government function and must follow public records laws, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled. The prison giant appealed the ruling issued last year by Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman, who ruled that the corporation was the functional equivalent of government and that its administrators must turn over all records requested by prison reform advocate Alex Friedmann. Friedmann, the associate editor of the monthly publication Prison Legal News, sued for access to several types of records, including CCA's government contracts, legal settlements and cases where CCA was sanctioned or fined. "With all due respect to CCA, this court is at a loss as to how operating a prison could be considered anything less than a governmental function," Judge D. Michael Swiney wrote in the opinion. But the court also reversed Bonnyman's order that the company produce all the records, though, saying that the Private Prison Contracting Act limits the records the country's largest private prison corporation must make public. CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in an e-mail that the company is still "reviewing the decision to determine its full impact." Friedmann said he is pleased with the ruling, although it's mixed. "The main issue we did prevail on, and that CCA argued very hard at, was whether CCA was the functional equivalent of a state agency," Friedmann said. "Their argument against that was blatantly frivolous." He said he has not consulted yet with his attorney but plans to submit another public records request to the company in light of the ruling. They are considering whether to challenge parts of the decision.

July 20, 2009 Knoxville News Sentinel
John Ferguson, CEO and board chairman of Corrections Corporation of America, has donated to all four major Republican candidates for governor and to all four major Democratic candidates as well, a review of candidate disclosures shows. But Ferguson, who served as state finance commissioner under former Republican Gov. Don Sundquist, did apparently have a favorite in each party. He donated $2,500 each to Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, a Republican, and Mike McWherter, a Democratic candidate who is son of former Gov. Ned McWherter. That is the maximum allowed for an individual's contribution to a primary campaign under state law. To all other major candidates, the Ferguson donations were for $1,000 each. The Democrats receiving $1,000 contributions were Nashville businessman Ward Cammack, state Sen. Roy Herron of Dresden and former state House Majority Leader Kim McMillan of Clarksville. The Republicans receiving $1,000 were District Attorney General Bill Gibbons of Memphis, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp of Chattanooga. CCA contracts with governments to house prison inmates for a negotiated fee. The company is headquartered in Nashville and operates five facilities in the state, including two that house state inmates. At one point earlier this year, Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration proposed to terminate the state contract for CCA operation of the Whiteville Correctional Facility in West Tennessee, but subsequently accepted a one-year extension. Ferguson could not be reached for comment.

July 17, 2009 Times Free-Press
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey's gubernatorial fundraising got a big lift from trade groups and businesses that often have issues come before the General Assembly or do business with the state, midyear campaign disclosure shows. Filings show political action committees alone coughed up an estimated $140,000 to the campaign of Lt. Gov. Ramsey, according to a Chattanooga Times Free Press analysis of his campaign-finance report filed late Wednesday night with the state Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance. Other readily identifiable interests, such as company owners or executives, gave at least $30,000, bringing the total linked to special interests contributing to the lieutenant governor to about $170,000, according to the report, which covered Jan. 15 through June 30. That comes to 12.7 percent of the $1.3 million that Lt. Gov. Ramsey reported in his disclosure. The lieutenant governor, who is the Senate's speaker, disclosed expenditures of $70,308.24, leaving him with $1.26 million on hand. He also had $41,944 in unpaid obligations for other expenditures such as $11,268 in postage for mailings. The lieutenant governor, who as a legislator was barred by a legal ban on in-session fundraising until June 1, recently announced he raised an "eye-popping" $1.3 million in 30 days from June 1 through June 30. Mr. Todd said contributions from interests before the legislature do not sway Sen. Ramsey. As speaker, Sen. Ramsey appoints committees and controls the flow of legislation. "Lt. Gov. Ramsey has been the most important and effective advocate for business and industry and commerce in our state, which is what we need," Mr. Todd said, calling it "no surprise that people who advocate pro-growth policies would support him." Among donors was the National Healthcare Corp. PAC, a nursing home chain, which in the last legislative session battled unsuccessfully to cap damage awards filed by patients or their families against nursing homes. The company's PAC gave $7,500, according to his disclosure. The Tennessee Health Care Association, which represents the nursing home industry, contributed another $3,500. "Ron Ramsey's position on issues like lawsuit reform ... are pretty long-standing and predate any discussion of limiting lawsuit abuse," Mr. Todd said. Top executives with Corrections Corporation of America, which operates one state prison and twice sought to privatize the entire state prison system, gave $9,500 to Lt. Gov. Ramsey, the disclosure shows. The company made no PAC contributions. The money CCA executives gave to Lt. Gov. Ramsey far exceeded the $5,000 they gave to Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, a Republican running for governor, as well as U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn. ($3,500), and Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons ($1,500), another Republican. State Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, received $500 from CCA President John Ferguson, according to his disclosure.