Tag Archives: Corrections Corporation of America

Texas still susceptible to private prison boondoggle

Even though Texas has cancelled some prisons and closed at least one private prison, private prison companies continue to push to privatize Texas prison services.

Mike Ward wrote 30 April in the Austin American-Statesman, Lawmakers chafe as push continues to privatize prison health care

“There is a push on to change the system we have, a system that is cost-effective and is a national model, even before we know whether there will be any real savings,” said House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, R-Richardson .

“I think it’s something we should look at, to see what the real facts are, but I don’t think we should be rushing to a decision right now about this,” Madden said. “Most of the Legislature, I believe, think(s) that a decision this big — whether the system should be privatized — is one that we should make, not some board or agency.”

The American-Statesman first reported the privatization efforts in March and that top aides to Gov. Rick Perry have been involved in some of the meetings with vendors and lobbyists.

More from the article: Continue reading →

Georgia first to copy Arizona anti-immigrant bill

Georgia passes anti-immigrant law that benefits private prison companies.

Seth Freed Wessler wrote 15 April 2011, Welcome to the Wild, Wild South: Georgia Passes SB 1070 Copycat Bill

Many worry about the financial costs of the bill. Though these are surely not the greatest concerns for immigrant communities who would be most impacted if Georgia’s bill is enacted, many business groups are anxious. A national boycott of Arizona cost the state an estimated $250 million in lost taxes, tourism and other revenue, according to the Center for American Progress.

Even before the Georgia bill passed, a group of organizations across the country threatened to wage a boycott of the state of Georgia if it enacts the legislation.

Most states that have had this bill introduced have had the good sense to get rid of it. Continue reading →

FBI investigating CCA “Gladiator School”

Rebecca Boone wrote for AP, 30 November 2010 that Video release prompts FBI prison investigation: Critics claim the privately run Idaho Correctional Center uses inmate-on-inmate violence

Jessie L. Bonner / AP file


Former inmate Hanni Elabed is shown during a July 26 interview in Boise, Idaho. Elabed suffered brain damage and persistent short-term memory loss after he was beaten by another inmate while multiple guards watched at the Idaho prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America.

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 is 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.

On Tuesday, hours after the AP published the video, the top federal prosecutor in Idaho told the AP that the FBI has been investigating whether guards violated the civil rights of inmates at the prison, which is run by the Corrections Corporation of America.

What is the inmates’ nickname for this CCA-run prison? Gladiator school.

There is a lot more in the article.

-jsq

Local NAACP votes to oppose private prison in Lowndes County

Leigh Touchton commented yesterday about a meeting Tuesday 19 April. She is president of the Valdosta-Lowndes NAACP. -jsq
Valdosta NAACP branch voted last night to oppose the private prison approved by VLCIA. We don’t need more prisons, and they do not improve economic standards in any community in which they have been located. There is a safety burden upon the community, there are human rights abuses, and the focus should be on saving the state money by rehabilitation of non-violent offenders rather than mass incarceration. When America has 5% of the world’s population but incarcerates 25% of the world’s prisoners, this is unacceptable. In North Carolina, private prisons have put local furniture manufacturers out of business because they cannot compete with the prison’s slave labor. These are not sustainable and it’s no mystery why most of the large Christian denominations in America oppose them.

-Leigh Touchton

Here’s Brad Lofton’s explanation of the private prison. Here are statements on private prisons by three Christian denominations. And the state of Israel has outlawed private prisons. More information about CCA and private prisons here.

-jsq

Prison conditions lawsuit against CCA revived

Sheila Burke writes for AP that Appeals court revives lawsuit over dirty TN inmate:
A federal appeals court is allowing a lawsuit to go forward that claims that an inmate at a privately run Nashville jail was denied mental health treatment and did not shower or leave his cell for nine months.

Mary Braswell sued Corrections Corporation of America in 2008, accusing the prison operator of treating her grandson inhumanely and violating his constitutional rights.

She claimed that Frank Horton was mentally ill and deteriorated severely while he was locked up for a non-violent probation violation.

But hey, CCA’s stock is up!

-jsq

Jails Reap Millions Off U.S. Illegal Alien Crackdown

Betty Liu reports for Bloomberg that Jails Reap Millions Off U.S. Illegal Alien Crackdown:
The big winner in the crackdown on the illegal immiggration has been the private prison industry. As Bloomberg Business Week reports in its latest issue, companies such as Corrections Corporation of America are making millions. In fact, CCA makes more money from detaining immigrants than it does from any single U.S. state.
She goes on to mention CCA’s stock price has gone up by a factor of ten since 9/11.


Bloomberg’s Betty Liu reports, 18 March 2011. (Source: Bloomberg)

The source of the money CCA and its investors and executives are making? Our tax dollars!

With all the additional jail time, misdemeanors, and felonies in new state laws such as Arizona’s, states could catch up with the feds in paying CCA through the nose!

-jsq

Private prisons and AZ-style anti-immigrant bills in Georgia

While a private prison is top of the news, you’d probably never know what it has to do with this if you didn’t have the Internet, 8,000 Rally against Georgia Anti-Immigrant Bills, by Gloria Tatum in Georgia Progressive News:
Over 8,000 activists rallied outside the State Capitol on Thursday, March 24, 2011, to show their outrage and disgust over Georgia’s Arizona-type immigration bills.

As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, legislation, HB 87, has already passed the State House. A similar bill, SB 40, has also passed the State Senate.

While the vast majority of protesters at the Capitol were Hispanic, opposition to the bills came from a wide spectrum of constituents including immigrants, students, religious groups, peace groups, veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, Asian groups, GLBTQI activists, labor, artists, musicians, business owners, elected officials, and others.

What’s this got to do with private prisons? Continue reading →

Georgia press complicit in promoting private prisons

The Augusta Chronicle puts it in the lede for the whole state, Georgia showing signs of recovery: Tax numbers give reasons for hope, Associated Press, Monday, March 14, 2011:
Hotels are hiring desk clerks and housekeepers in anticipation of a spring tourist boom in Savannah, while even a rural Georgia city devastated by manufacturing losses is putting some people back to work as construction begins on a $57 million private prison.
Where is that? Continue reading →

Private Prisons failing in Texas, leaving locals in lurch

John Burnett writes for NPR that Private Prison Promises Leave Texas Towns In Trouble:
It seemed like a good idea at the time when the west Texas farming town of Littlefield borrowed $10 million and built the Bill Clayton Detention Center in a cotton field south of town in 2000. The charmless steel-and-cement-block buildings ringed with razor wire would provide jobs to keep young people from moving to Lubbock or Dallas.

For eight years, the prison was a good employer. Idaho and Wyoming paid for prisoners to serve time there. But two years ago, Idaho pulled out all of its contract inmates because of a budget crunch at home. There was also a scandal surrounding the suicide of an inmate.

Shortly afterward, the for-profit operator, GEO Group, gave notice that it was leaving, too. One hundred prison jobs disappeared. The facility has been empty ever since.

The pullquote: Continue reading →

Georgia is CCA’s model partner

“Primary site?” Really?

The initial writeup in the VDT quoted CCA as being all coy about if a need arose from the state they would be ready to deploy the private prison in Lowndes County:

“This is (for) a future need that we don’t even know what it’ll be yet,” Frank Betancourt, CCA’s vice president of real estate development said. “There’s no ground breaking to announce. When the need (for a facility) does arrive, we can be the first ones to offer (our services).”
Yet if you look on CCA’s own website under partnering:
CCA has been a great partner with us for nearly a decade now. Coffee Correctional Facility and Wheeler Correctional Facility certainly meet the standards of the Georgia Department of Corrections. I particularly appreciate CCA maintaining exemplary accreditation status with both the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare. I look forward to a continued long relationship with them.”
—Commissioner James E. Donald, Georgia Department of Corrections
And over in Decatur County people actually asked about this, and were told Continue reading →