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PRIVATE CORRECTIONS INDUSTRY

NEWS BULLETIN
Vol. 1 - No.2

Reporting on Prison Privatization and Related Issues

July 1998

FBI Makes Arrest in Brazoria Co. Investigation
Videotaped abuse of inmates at
a privately-operated Brazoria Co.,
Texas detention center led the state
of Missouri to cancel its $6 million
contract with Capital Correctional
Resources, Inc. (CCRI) and withdraw 415 inmates from the facility.
The September 18, 1996 "training
video," widely televised last year,
showed prisoners being shocked
with stun guns, attacked by guard
dogs, kicked, and forced to crawl
on the ground.
CCRI was later bought out by
CiviGenics, Inc., a Massachusettsbased company that operates private detention centers in 13 other
states. Last March the Brazoria Co.
Commissioners voted unanimously
to discontinue their contract with
CiviGenics and to retwn the jail

to public management
In its first arrest following an
investigation into the videotaped
brutality, the FBI announced that
Wilton David Wallace, a former
Brazoria County jail officer, had
been indicted on federal civil rights
charges. Wallace, SO, was arrested at
his Angleton, Texas home and later
released on $25,000 bond. He was
charged with slamming an inmate's
face into a wall. Don Clark, special
agent in charge of the Houston FBI
office, said more indiCbnents are
possible.
In addition to the criminal investigation Missouri inmates have
filed suit against Texas authorities,
CCRI and Brazoria County. A federal magistrate in Galveston has
ordered company officials into his

courtroom to answer accusations
that they concealed evidence of
abuse. During a court hearing last
May, fonner jail warden Bobby
Crawford testified about the existence of videotapes of other incidents at the detention center. He
said the videos were sent to CCRI
headquarters shortly after Missouri
canceled its contract with the
company; however, the tapes have
not yet been produced by CCRI
despite discovery requests by the
inmates' attorneys.
Stated U.S. Magistrate John
Froeschner, "They're stonewalling.
I really think CCRI is hiding documents or has destroyed them." 0
Source: The Dallas Morning News,
June 9, 1998.

Suicide at CCA-Operated Facility in Tennessee
Reginald Edmonds, -39, an inmate at CCA's Hardeman County
Correctional Facility in Whiteville,
Tennessee, committed suicide on
June 11. He was found in his cell

at approximately 2:00 a.m., lying
on his bed with an electrical cord
around his neck. It was not reported
how much time had elapsed before
his death was discovered by prison

staff. Upon agreement of his family
Edmonds' body was released to the
Shelby County Medical Examiner's
office for an autopsy. Source: The
Only Voice (TN), July 1998.

© 1998 - p.e.!. News Bulletin, 3193-A Parthenon Avenue, Nashville, TN 37203

p.e.I. News Bulletin

Other Private Corrections
Industry Resources
The Corrections and Criminal Justice
Coalition (CCJC), which represents
unionized government corrections
employees, strongly opposes ~prison
privatization. Address: 7700 Leesburg Pike #421, Falls Church, VA
22043; web site: www.ccjc.com.
The Prison Privatisation Report
International, a publication of the
non-profit Prison Refonn Trust, is
published ten times a year. Highly
recommended! Subscription rates are
£25 for individuals, £50 for public
or non-profit agencies and £100 for
corporations or businesses. Address:
Prison Reform Trust, 15 Northburgh
Street, London ECIV OAR. Phone:
++44-171-251-5070; e-mail: prisonrefonn@prisonreform.demon.co.uk.

CONFERENCE
A national conference and strategy
session on the "Prison mdustrial
Complex," which includes the forprofit corrections industly, will be
held at U.C. Berkeley from Sept. 25 to
27, 1998. There is no registration fee
for individuals though donations,
which are tax deductible, are appreciated. Representatives from universities or other major institutions are
requested to pay $75.00. Contact:
Critical Resistance. P.O. Box 339,
Berkeley, CA 94701 (510) 6432094; e-mail: critresist@aol.com; web
site: www.igc.org/justice/critical.

2

July 1998

Corruption Continues at INS Facility
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) continues to
experience problems at a privately operated detention center in
Elizabeth, New Jersey. m June '95
detainees rioted at the facility,
which was then run by Esmore
Correctional Services.
The detainees, mostly asylumseekers who had not been charged
with any crime, had complained of
severe abuse and human rights violations by the under-trained and
poorly paid Esmore staff. The company lost its contract to operate
the facility, changed its name to
Corrections Services Corporation,
and relocated to Florida.
The INS facility reopened in
1997 under the management of
CCA, and was soon lauded as a
national model for private detention
centers. But now the fonner assistant warden at the facility, Steve
Townsend, has filed suit claiming
he was fired by CCA after informing the INS that detainees were
forcibly sedated and improperly
restrained. Townsend stated that
both his supervisor and CCA corporate told him to "illegally cover
up and conceal such actions."
Initially the INS denied that
detainees had been involuntarily
sedated, but later admitted the allegations were true after reviewing medical records from the facility. The agency then decided the
failure to report the sedations and
improper restraints was part of a
larger pattern of mismanagement
and non-compliance. Both the INS
and CCA blamed the warden, who

was removed from his position and
transferred to Tennessee.
The INS operates nine of its
own detention centers and contracts with seven private facilities,
including four managed by CCA. m
addition the agency rents bed space
at hundreds of state and local jails
nationwide. CCA has announced
plans to build a $60 million 1,000bed detention center in California
to cash in on the expanding market
for imprisoning illegal immigrants.
According to Penny Venetis,
the administrative director of the
Constitutional Litigation Clinic at
Rutgers Law School, corporations
that operate private detention facilities are mainly concerned with
maximizing profits. "Privatization
gives government agencies excuses,"
she said. "They hide behind the
private contractor." Venetis is representing 19 detainees in a lawsuit
against the INS and fonner Esmore
Correctional Services. 0
Source: Weekly News Update on
the Americas, June 1998.

In the News
Alabama-based "Just Care, mc."
intends to open the nation's first
private prison hospital in Columbia,
South Carolina, which will house
prisoners from the Carolinas and
Georgia. The 326-bed facility will
cost $15 million to build Source:
U.S.A. Today, June 10, 1998.

·p.e.I. News Bulletin

July 1998

3

Contract Change for Oregon Convicts
The Oregon DOC plans to transfer 40 women prisoners from state
facilities to a private rent-a-jail in
New Mexico. Seventy-five female
inmates already housed at the CCAoperated Central Arizona Detention
Center in Florence have been moved
to a private prison in Gallup, New
Mexico managed by the Corrections
Services Corp. (CSC).
The contract change from CCA
to CSC comes less than a year after
a sex scandal at the Florence facility
in which women prisoners claimed
that CCA guards forced and coerced
them into baving sex. At least one

officer was fired and other CCA
employees disciplined following an
investigation into the incident. and
several of the female inmates were
returned to Oregon.
State corrections officials said
CCA 's desire for increased profits,
not the sex scandal, led to the switch
in prison contractors. "They could
get more money from somebody
else," stated Oregon DOC spokesperson Perrin Damon.
The state paid CCA $55 a day
for each inmate, housed in doublebunked cells. But the U.S. Marshals
Service and the state of Alaska were

willing to pay the company $65 a
day per prisoner in triple-bunked
cells. ··So their profit margin is
going to be a whole heck of a lot
bigger," said Damon.
Oregon has experienced other
problems when transferring convicts to rent-a-jails in other jurisdictions. In 1996, 240 Oregon inmates were returned to the state
from a CCA-operated facility in
Houston, Texas after two sex offenders escaped. 0
Source: The Statesman Journal
(OR), JWle 25, 1998.

Prison Privatization in the Peach State
Georgia is adding three private
facilities to its corrections system,
beginning in mid-August with a
750-bed prison in Charlton COWlty
operated by Cornell Corrections.
Inc. By the end of November two
750-bed mediwn-security CCA
facilities are expected to open in
Coffee and Wheeler coWlties. Both
ComelI and CCA plan to expand
the prisons next year by adding
"speculative" beds to hold a total of
1,600 inmates at each location.

Georgia will pay ComelI between $37.09 and $45.13 per inmate per day; CCA signed separate
contracts and will receive between
$44.95 and $48.10 per inmate per
day. Mike Murdock, a state official
who is overseeing the prison privatization project. said "It should be
at least a year before we know if
it's worth it."
The private prison contracts
require the companies to provide
medical care, clothing, food, edu-

cation and treatment programs, and
full-time inmate work assignments.
Georgia has done business with
Cornell before, when the state hired
the company to run a juvenile girls
camp in Pelham. Georgia canceled
the contract after two months because Cornell was not able to staff
the 120-bed facility at the desired
level for the desired cost. 0
Source: The LaGrange Daily News
(GA), July 6, 1998.

Recommended Reading
"Wanted: A Model Law for Regulating Privatization," by Richard Crane. Correctional Law Reporter™, April-May
1998. Contact: Correctional Law Reporter™, Civic Research Institute, P.O. Box 585, Kingston, NJ 08528
"Private Prisons, Public Doubts," The Christian Science Monitor. July 21, 1998. Prison privatization in California,
including construction of on-spec facilities. Contact: CSM, 1 Norway St., Boston, MA 02115 (617) 450-2000

.,

p.e.!. News Bulletin

4

.~

July 1998

OK Withdraws Inmates
from Texas Jail

CCA Officials Block
State Inspection

CCA Seeks Sexual History
of Rape Victim

Oklahoma officials removed 28
prisoners from the Mansfield Law
Enforcement Center, a for-profit
publicly-operated facility located
25 miles southeast of Fort Worth,
amid an internal investigation of
the prison. The remaining 240
Oklahoma inmates at the rent-a-jail
will be returned to their home state
in groups of 70 starting July 15.
Oklahoma corrections officials
announced they plan to remove all
1,000 of their inmates from various
Texas jails by the end of the year,
they wiu be incarcerated locally in
privately-run prisons being opened
in Sayre, Lawton and McLoud.
Oklahoma authorities said they
were concerned about the rent-ajail's policy that allowed inmates to
work for private industries in return
for a portion of their pay. Roomand-board deductions went to the
contractor, the Mansfield Property
Finance Authority, which also received per diem payments from the
state.
"We've got concerns, basically
because we were not aware what
was going on with that," said David
Miller, an Oklahoma Corrections
Dept. Director. "Since we are paying the per diem, we should be advised of everything that' s going on."
Oklahoma previously removed
560 prisoners from the Limestone
Co. Detention Center due to the
facility's liberal use-of-force policy;
also, 175 Oklahoma prisoners were
withdrawn from the Newton Co.
Detention Center following inmate
uprisings. 0

On April 30, 1998, two Ohio
lawmakers, Sen. Rhine McLin and
Rep. Mark L. Mallory, and two
state corrections officers arrived at
CCA's problem-plagued Northeast
Ohio Corr. Center in, .youngstown
for an unannounced inspection.
First they were denied access
to the facility by prison staff. CCA
officials then offered separate tours
for the legislators, who were on
the state's Correctional Institution
Inspection Committee, and the two
officers, who were members of a
union that represents state prison
employees. Mclin, chairwoman of
the inspection committee, declined
the segregated tours.
According to an Ohio statute
enacted earlier this year, private
prisons are subject to inspection by
committee members at any time.
A public relations finn hired
by CCA distributed an apology to
the statehouse press corps, terming
the denial of the inspection a "misunderstanding." Jimmy Turner, the
warden of the Youngstown prison,
acknowledged that CCA staff had
acted in violation of state law; he
said he was absent from the facility
that day and his subordinates had
"proceeded in the way they thought
best."
Said Sen. McLin, "They had
the nerve to call this a misunderstanding. There was nothing misunderstood - they wouldn't let
me in. They think their [corporate]
policies supersede Ohio law." 0

A federal district court in New
Mexico has ruled that CCA defendants are not entitled to intrusive
information regarding a prison rape
victim's sexual history.
The plaintiff in the case, Tanya
Giron, had filed suit claiming that
she was forcibly raped by CCA
correctional officer Danny Torrez.
During discovery CCA' s attorney,
Mark S. Jaffe, requested that Giron
list all persons she had had sex with
both before and after the alleged
rape, and that she describe the type,
manner, date, and location of all
such sexual encounters.
A magistrate judge limited the
applicable time frame for the requested information but upheld the
request and ordered Giron to respond. She objected and appealed.
In overruling the magistrate's
decision the district court found
that CCA' s discovery request was
"overly broad and intrusive," and
restricted the request to sexual encounters that had caused Giron injury, pain or suffering.
The court stated that the defendants had not established how
conscnsual, non-violent sexual encounters were relevant to the plaintiffs claim of forcible rape. 0

Source: Abilene Reporter News
(TX), June 28, 1998.

Sources: The Chronicle-Telegram
(OH), May 10, 1998; The Jackson
Sun (TN), July 19, 1998; The
Columbus Dispatch (undated).

Source: Prison Legal News, July
1998.

WANTED
Articles, clippings and news reports
regarding the private corrections industry - please include the source
and date of all materials submitted.
Send items to: P.C.I.N.B., 3193-A
Parthenon Ave.,Nashville, TN 37203

July 1998

5

P.C.I. News Bulletin

'VI, OK Inmates Fight

'Visconsin P.-isoners, Others Protest Transfers
Wisconsin has moved 1,600 of
its approximately 16,500 adult inmates to privately-operated prisons
in Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma,
and plans to send more in the ncar
future. Prisoners slated for transfers to far-off rent-a-jails, howevcr,
arc not kecn on the idea.
On Jlmc 28 scveral hundred
inmates at the Fox Lake Correctional
Institution refused to report for an
evening count to protest the out-ofstate mo\·es. Most of the prisoners
complied with an initial order to go
back to their housing units. but over
one hundred remained on the yard.
They returned to their cells after two
more orders and a show of force by
prison staff.
Wisconsin oflicials acknowledged there is widespread anxiety
among inmntcs regardmg transfcrs
to other jurisdictions: prisoners who
already have been moved to rent-ajails complain of poor conditions and
a lack of rehabilitative programs.
Family members of Wisconsin
inmates held a news conference in
July to protest the transfers. They
complained that moving prisoners to
distant facilities deprives them of a
key clement of their rehabilitation
- visits and close connections with
their families. Travel expenses and
excessive long-distance phone rates
make it difficult to communicate with
inmates incarcerated as far away as
Texas, they said.
Statc officials claim the transfers are necessary due to overcrowding. "We have to do something:'
remarked Wisconsin DOC spokesman Bill Clausius. "There is no
choice in the matter and unfortunately the family concerns arc going
to be secondary."

Some Wisconsin la\\nlakers
expressed concerns about transferring inmates to privately-operated
prisons. "We arc throwing money
dO\\n a rat hole," said state Rep.
Spencer Coggs. "All we're doing is
fceding a multibillion dollar private
prison industry that's shilling for
customcrs. "
Rep. Scott Walker, chainnan
of the legislative Committee on Corrections Facilities, has announced
hc plans to ask for funding to send
3.000 more Wisconsin prisoners to
out-of-statc facilities, including 200
female inmates scheduled for transfer to Virginia.
Critics of the transfers say the
state eventually will pay more in
tcnl1S of failed rehabilitation, increased recidivism. expensive lawsuits and rising tension among inmates. But a domestic solution may
be close at hand: Dominion Management Services of Oklahoma intends to build a privately-operated
prison in Stanley, Wisconsin. 0

On June 29 the Wisconsin DOC
began transferring inmates to the
North Fork Correctional Facility in
Sayre, Oklahoma, a private prison
operated by eCA. Less than a month
later, on July 28, tempers flared between Wisconsin and Oklahoma inmates incarcerated at the facility.
Bill Clausius, a spokesman for
the Wisconsin DOC, said between
50 and 75 prisoners from both states
were involved in a riot on the recreation yard. Thirteen inmates, including six from Wisconsin, were
treated for injuries: the riot ended
after CCA guards used tear gas.
Wisconsin inmates transferred
to the CCA prison have complained
about understaffing and safety concerns, inadequate medical care, poor
food, a shortage of clothing, and
isolation from their families.
According to an inmate present
at the North Fork facility during
the riot, a Wisconsin prisoner was
knocked unconscious and another
was beaten with a baseball bal. 0

Sources: The Capital Times (WI),
June 29, 30, 1998; The Milwaukee
Shepherd I:):press, July 23, 1998.

Sources: The Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel, August I, 1998; inmate
correspondence.

Information on the Internet
RqJOrlS about pri\'atc prisons can

be downloaded from the following 'Net addrcsses:

http://\mw.abcnews.com!sections/uslprisonlprison_voungstown.html(problems
at CCA' s YoungstO\\ll, Ohio facility).
c:- http://w\n... abcnews.com!sectionslus!prisonlprison_business.html(financial infommtion re pri\'ate prison companies).
t·
http://\\,nr.abcncws.com!sections/u..<;/prisonlprison_movcmcnt.html(transferring
inmate:; to out-or-state pri\'ate prisons).
:-- httpJ/\nm.abcncws.com!scctions!uslprisonlprisonyroblems.html (a eriticallook
at the private corrections industry).

t-