HAVE YOU OR A LOVED ONE BEEN HARMED IN A PRIVATE PRISON?
The private prison industry caught the national media spotlight almost two years ago when six prisoners from Washington, D.C., (five of them murderers) escaped from a Corrections Corporation of America prison in Youngstown, Ohio. It came to light that two prisoners had been murdered and at least 20 more were stabbed during the first year of operations at that facility.

Litigation alleging dangerous operational practices and physical abuse of prisoners is on the increase. In a far-reaching legal strategy one seasoned civil rights attorney is bringing lawsuits on behalf of prisoners held in CCA facilities in three states alleging that the largest private prison firm in the world is using "a violent, abusive, disciplinary/fear system" of excessive force against prisoners as an intentional, conspiratorial effort to maintain prison order without providing a sufficient number of adequately trained, experienced staff. In short, he is alleging that terror tactics are being used to control staffing costs and maximize profits.

In the United States, the concept of prison privatization was first proposed early in the 1980s. By the middle of that decade a number of firms were established, eager to take over prison and jail facilities and to build new prisons to tap into the needs of states that were struggling with rapidly expanding prison populations and deteriorating conditions in their existing facilities.

In a recent assessment of the national experience with privatization, a team of researchers led by Douglas McDonald at Abt Associates has concluded on the topic of cost savings that, "The few existing studies and other available data do not provide strong evidence of any general pattern." Research recently completed by this author comparing private and public facilities in Minnesota was specifically designed to explore the impact of cost savings and profit taking on the quality of prison services and programs. The findings present strong evidence that the widely publicized disasters in Ohio, Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana are emblematic of a pattern of basic structural problems: staffing deficiencies, insufficient program services, faulty prisoner classification and security systems.

Private Prison & Prisoner Abuse News:

• Black Market In Tobacco Makes Prisons More Violent
  New California Media, CA - Apr 13, 2007
  Abbott is serving a long prison sentence at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, California. His book, “I Cried, You Didn’t Listen,” about growing up in ...
• Guards fired illegally, judge says
  Monterey County Herald, CA - Apr 6, 2007
  A judge has ruled that two of eight correctional officers fired from Salinas Valley State Prison in the wake of revelations about the Green Wall -- a rogue ...
• Newark family files suit in inmate's death
  Inside Bay Area, CA - Feb 27, 2007
  By Angela Woodall, STAFF WRITER. NEWARK — The family of a Newark man who died last year at Santa Rita county jail has filed a $10 million claim, ...
• Prison Demographics Bode Well for Geo Group's Stock
  Smartmoney.com - Feb 26, 2007
  One caveat: The prison industry has gone through a period of boom and bust before. In the 1990s the private sector was building beds very quickly, inmate ...
• What's going on in jail? Report details allegations made against guards
  Beaver County Times, PA - Feb 17, 2007
  The report notes that Sestile did not see any of the alleged incidents of inmate abuse that he reported to investigators. That, along with a lack of ...
• Report: State prison population up 21 percent by 2011
  Honolulu Advertiser, HI - Feb 15, 2007
  Arizona ranked second in the nation for prisoner growth, with its prison population expected to rise from 35965 this year to 48381 in 2011, the report found ...
• William Fisher: US Immigrants In Detention
  Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand - Feb 12, 2007
  Infractions included routine abuse of basic prisoner rights, mental and physical abuse, denial of health care and medical treatment, prison overcrowding, ...
• Will community prisons help or hurt women?
  San Diego CityBEAT, CA - Feb 12, 2007
  More than half of women prisoners, the report says, suffered abuse at some point in their lives, as compared to 16 percent of male prisoners. ...
• Bulging prison bill going up
  East Valley Tribune, AZ - Feb 7, 2007
  One idea being pushed by some Republican lawmakers is to build more private prisons. Some believe that could help reduce the costs. ...
• Few like Agnews prison scheme
  Bradenton Herald, FL - Feb 7, 2007
  Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed solving the inmate overcrowding crisis in the short term by transferring some prisoners to private prisons in other...
• Miss. may house Calif. inmates
  Jackson Clarion Ledger, MS - Feb 7, 2007
  ...to Mississippi)," said Louise Grant, a vice president with Correctional Corporation of America, which operates three private prisons in Mississippi. ...
• This Alien Life: Privatized Prisons for Immigrants
  CorpWatch.org, CA - Feb 5, 2007
  Infractions included routine abuse of basic prisoner rights, mental and physical abuse, denial of health care and medical treatment, prison overcrowding, ...
• Ripoff Privatizations-- And Why They Keep Happening
  TPMCafe, NY - Feb 5, 2007
  Charlie Crist ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate two companies running private prisons for the state after audits found the ...
• Governor orders investigation into prison contracts
  St. Petersburg Times, FL - Jan 31, 2007
  ... Group of Boca Raton and Corrections Corporation of America of Nashville, Tenn., were signed by the now-defunct Correctional Privatization Commission. ...
• Legislators split on private state prisons
  East Valley Tribune, AZ - Jan 29, 2007
  That, he said, opens the door to prisoner abuse. Regardless of who wins the contract, the state still faces an overcrowding situation. ...
• Privatization?
  - October, 1997
  ... Privatized prisons best show the minimal difference between a government-run agency, and one that has been turned over to a for-profit corporation. In these new privately-owned jails, prisoners are still abused, beaten, and raped, guards still run the smallest details of prisoners, lives, and people continue to be locked up without their consent. Private prisons are the antithesis of private decision-making and private agreement, since the "customer, in this case the prisoner, is not allowed to have any autonomous life, makes few personal decisions, and can not freely choose to stop doing business with the new company and leave. Additionally, for-profit prisons are totally dependent on the state to provide them with new "customers by arresting and convicting people who have violated the laws created by various levels of government. Without government action there would be no prisoners, and therefore no prisons, public or private. ...