One company has become the biggest provider of jail health care. Sheriffs are worried: “If you’re the only dance in town, you can pretty much call your own shots.”
Story by Marsha McLeod, The Atlantic
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – In the span of 24 days in May 2017, two men died in Forsyth County’s jail. Both were fathers. Both were black. The first man, Deshawn Lamont Coley, had written request after request begging for his asthma inhaler – accurately predicting that his sporadic access to it was putting his life at risk. The second, Stephen Antwan Patterson, was found without a pulse about a week after he was booked with a blood-pressure reading that would likely have led any free person to the emergency room. The deaths came at an uncomfortable time for Forsyth County: Patterson died just four weeks before the Board of Commissioners sat down to decide whether to renew a contract with the private health-care company that had cared for the two men, then called Correct Care Solutions and now Wellpath, or sign with someone else.
What might have been a routine board meeting turned tense. “Correct Care Solutions makes the sheriff’s office look bad, makes ...
by Kevin Bliss
Onondaga County, New York agreed to a $440,000 settlement in a wrongful death claim filed by attorney Richard Priest on behalf of Rebeka Kwiatkowski after her daughter, Chanel Lakatocz, died at the Onondaga County Justice Center (OCJC) from opioid and alcohol withdrawal.
Lakatocz was arrested on August ...
by Scott Grammer
On September 18, 2018, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) filed suit in Arizona against Corizon Health, Inc. and Corizon LLC. The purpose of the litigation was “to correct Corizon’s nationwide unlawful employment policies and practices that discriminate on the basis of disability and to provide appropriate ...
by Matt Clarke
Many prisoners transported by Prisoner Transportation Services of America, LLC (PTS) report being denied restroom breaks, food, liquids and essential prescription medications such as insulin, occasionally with fatal results. Others say they were physically or sexually abused by PTS staff. At least five prisoners have died while ...
by Paul Wright
This month’s cover story reports onWellpath, formerly known as Correct Care Solutions, a hedge fund-owned private prison health care company. PLN has long reported on prison medical care in general and privatized care in particular, with what is now a lengthy history of medical neglect, deaths, maimings ...
by Dale Chappell
A dozen prosecutors and other criminal justice workers got a real life look at what it’s like to re-enter society after being in prison – and every one of them failed to get everything done as required by their “probation officers.”
The Reentry Simulation took place at ...
by Matt Clarke
On October 29, 2019, a former probationary Nevada prison guard entered a plea of nolo contendre to a felony charge of attempted performance of an act or neglect of duty in willful or wanton disregard of safety of persons or property resulting in death. The charge was ...
by Matt Clarke
When a 33-year-old man was cited for littering for tossing trash and beer cans on a South Los Angeles sidewalk in 2013, an interpreter helped him plead no contest, and he was fined just $100 because the court recognized his inability to pay more. In lieu of ...
by Douglas Ankney
In an unpublished decision, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, held that Salem County is entitled to neither defense nor indemnification by the state in a class-action lawsuit brought by former jail detainees who allege the county intentionally required them to expose their breasts and ...
by David M. Reutter
At least 19 employees from eight different prisons operated by the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDOC) have been convicted or face charges of smuggling drugs, liquor, jewelry or cell phones into the facilities where they worked. [See: PLN, July 2019, p.29]. At the same ...
by David M. Reutter
In an effort to reduce its 18 percent guard vacancy rate, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS) has eliminated the requirement that all applicants go through psychological testing.
“We are trying to make it easier for the applicants to get through the hiring process,” ...
by Ed Lyon
A new program that began in 2018 in Alameda County, California aims to assist former prisoners with housing needs. The Homecoming Project matches newly released prisoners with hosts who are subsidized in what founder Alex Busansky describes as an Airbnb-style solution to the acute need to house ...
Nighttime is the worst possible time to release prisoners. So why do so many jails do it?
by Madison Pauly, Mother Jones
The last bus of the day pulls away from the parking lot outside the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, at 8:43 p.m. Twenty minutes later, a young woman pulls up the hood of her dark jacket, pushes open the jail lobby’s heavy door, and steps out into the night, looking for a cigarette.
Leah, as I’ll call her, is not the only just-released prisoner trying to score a smoke. “Who’s got a fucking cigarette?” yells a man bursting through the door behind her. Near the bus stop, Leah finds a butt burned almost all the way to the filter. Clutching it, she approaches me for a lighter. I don’t have one; I offer her my cell phone instead. Leah, whose voice is shaking, wants to call her mom. She’s planning to take the train home. It’s a 35-minute trek, in the dark, to the station.
When her call goes to voicemail, Leah becomes distraught. “I don’t want to walk this path, but I will,” she says into the phone. “I love you, and I’ll see you ...
by Ed Lyon
California governor Gavin Newsom entered office in early 2019 vowing to end the use of private prisons – including those in which federal immigration authorities detain asylum seekers – because for-profit prisons “lead to over-incarceration” and “do not reflect our values.” For many years, California sent prisoners ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 30, 2019, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Representatives Mark Pocan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent letters to five private equity firms – BlueMountain Capital Management, H.I.G. Capital, American Securities, Apax Partners and Platinum Equity.
The firms own companies that provide support services ...
by David M. Reutter
Nashville’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) has removed for-profit prison company CoreCivic from its membership rolls. The October 8, 2019 decision to return the company’s membership fee came after a vocal outcry from the local LGBT community.
“The voices at our meeting last night were very ...
by David M. Reutter
Over 2,000 photos taken by staff at Alabama’s St. Clair Correctional Facility paint a graphic picture of violence in the prison that was previously described only in words. But after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) received the leaked images in early 2019 – from someone ...
by David M. Reutter
In October 2019, the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) announced plans to lease a privately-owned prison in Floyd County that has sat idle since 2012. State Justice Secretary John Tilley, who oversees the KDOC, hopes the prison’s 650 beds will make a “serious dent” in overcrowding ...
by Douglas Ankney
On March 15, 2019, the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC) implemented a change to its disciplinary procedures for prisoners. Policy No. 803 now mandates that prisoners requiring hospital treatment for substance abuse must repay the cost of “all medical related expenses,” including ambulance transport, as well as ...
by David M. Reutter
As previously reported in PLN, a 2017 investigation found the 1,326-bed Augusta State Medical Prison (ASMP), operated by Georgia Correctional Health Care (GCHC) under a $190 million annual contract for the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC), had “a myriad of unsafe and unsanitary conditions.” State ...
by Ed Lyon
A New York City resident, identified as Jane Doe in a lawsuit, gave birth on February 8, 2018 at 6:14 a.m. Although ordinarily not an unusual event, the circumstances leading up to and subsequent to this birth were anything but routine.
Doe was arrested on February 7, ...
by Ed Lyon
While an estimated 40 percent of all prisoners have a diagnosed mental health condition, the number of prisoners suffering from a serious mental illness reached 14 percent of the general prison population by 2018. Mentally ill prisoners are much more likely to commit suicide.
The three largest ...
by Matt Clarke
On May 17, 2019, the federal government settled a lawsuit brought by a man formerly incarcerated by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), who had been placed in a segregation cell with another prisoner who previously threatened him, even though they were supposed to be kept apart.
This ...
by Kevin Bliss
David Weston, Jr., 55, was one of several Anchorage officials with authority over juvenile offenders who have been charged with possession of child pornography.
A sting operation in 2017 had an undercover FBI agent post an advertisement on Craigslist looking for a babysitter for his 10-year-old daughter ...
by David M. Reutter
The state government in Missouri owes counties more than $33 million for housing and transporting state prisoners during fiscal year 2019. Although state law places no cap on the number of prisoners sent to county jails, the legislature has also not made allowance in the state ...
by The Human Rights Coalition
In August 2019, a federal magistrate judge recommended granting a preliminary injunction against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) to require prison officials to allow prisoners to purchase and wear Nation of Islam (NOI) prayer caps, known as fezzes.
While incarcerated at SCI-Rockview in Bellefonte, ...
by Kevin Bliss
U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly J. Mueller stated in an October 2019 evidentiary hearing that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) knowingly presented misleading information to the court to appear more compliant with a prior ruling that found its mental health program was insufficient and ...
by Dale Chappell
Soon, federal prisoners will not be able to receive any paper correspondence but will have to read letters on “kiosks” in housing units. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials say the move is needed in order to stop the flow of drugs coming in through the mail, including ...
by Scott Grammer
Kevin Nill, 40, was serving 18 months at the Lebanon Correctional Institution for attempted domestic violence involving an adult family member. On April 23, 2018, prison staff thought it would be a good idea to put 33-year-old Jack Welninski in the same cell as Nill. Welninski, serving ...
by Matt Clarke
Alfred Dewayne Brown spent over a dozen years in prison, including nine on death row, before suppressed exculpatory evidence emerged that supported his alibi and proved he did not murder Houston Police Department Officer Charles Clark.
Brown had been convicted of killing Clark during a botched robbery ...
by Kevin Bliss
Watchdog organizations are becoming concerned with medical costs and collections due to practices such as balanced billing and debt collections court, where thousands of dollars of unexpected medical expenses overwhelm patients, and those who fail to pay must submit to periodic court hearings or find themselves facing ...
by Scott Grammer
In August 2019, businessman Bryan Shaver worked as a volunteer prison minister at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. On the 23rd of that month, he was told that the water in Parchman Unit 29 had been turned off and prisoners were relieving themselves on the floor ...
Loaded on
Feb. 4, 2020
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2020, page 44
Gritsforbreakfast, a Texas criminal justice blog known for its fearless reporting, recently analyzed Texas parole and prison population statistics between 2006 and 2018. It noted that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (Board) has adjusted parole rates to keep the prison system full, but not overcrowded. The blog concluded ...
by David M. Reutter
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court’s failure to make findings as to the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s (PLRA) “needs-narrowness-intrusiveness criteria” mooted all injunctive enforcement actions that occurred 90 days after the court entered a preliminary injunction.
The ruling came in an ...
by Ed Lyon
The GEO Group is one of the largest private prison companies in the United States. Its primary reason for existence is to generate profit by warehousing people for the states and federal government. One of GEO’s many prisons is the 1,575-bed Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. ...
by David M. Reutter
"We finna show y’all some real shit, man, on how we live here that y’all ain’t seen.”
With that introduction, a Florida prisoner begins a video that is being proclaimed the first documentary on prison conditions produced by a prisoner. Shot on a series of contraband ...
by Ed Lyon
On May 19, 2017, Sgt. Thomas Freeham forcefully shoved Tonya Varney into a cell at a jail in Montgomery County, Ohio; Varney was reluctant to enter the cell because it appeared to have urine on the floor.
She was taken to the Miami Valley Hospital later that ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 3, 2019, the Supreme Court of Utah held that a district court erred when it applied an incorrect standard in dismissing a man’s lawsuit alleging his state constitutional rights were violated when he was held in a county jail for 17 days without being brought ...
by David M. Reutter
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held on September 18, 2019 that the “prison mailbox rule” applies to detainees held in a civil commitment center.
The ruling resulted from an appeal by Rayvon Boatman, a detainee at the Florida Civil Commitment Center (FCCC), which holds civilly ...
by Ed Lyon
Ty Evans is an Indiana state prisoner. He is also an accomplished freelance writer who regularly submits articles about prison life that are often printed in different publications.
In August 2018, Evans was given the job of being a “suicide companion” for depressed prisoners. He signed a ...
by Ed Lyon
Hoopeston, Illinois citizen Richard J. Gonzalez was convicted of a non-violent felony for theft of $3,000 from an ATM machine. He was detained at the Ford County jail on May 15, 2012, pending a transfer to prison to begin serving a four-year sentence.
On May 18, Gonzalez ...
by Kevin Bliss
In a wrongful death lawsuit filed by attorney Lori Rifkin on behalf of the family of Erika Rocha, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) agreed to pay $1.5 million to Rocha’s sisters, Geraldine and Freida, and her stepmother, Linda Reza.
The complaint claimed that Rocha’s ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 19, 2019, a federal jury in Richmond, Virginia awarded former prisoner John Kinlaw $708,671 in compensatory damages plus $625,000 in punitive damages after finding in his favor on claims of medical malpractice and negligence against Armor Correctional Health Services (Armor) and its employee, Dr. Charles ...
by Ed Lyon
Several long-time employees of the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) filed age discrimination and retaliation complaints against that agency with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Senior Warden Anthony Romero was 38 years old when he reviewed three candidates for promotion to a vacant major position; ...
by Douglas Ankney
On June 5, 2019, the State of Maryland agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle a lawsuit brought by current and former blind prisoners housed at the Roxbury Correctional Institution (RCI). The terms of the settlement also require the state to provide blind prisoners with assistance to ...
by David M. Reutter
Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County Prison (LCP) has paid $45,000 to settle a civil rights action alleging a guard used excessive force on a prisoner.
Multiple guards approached prisoner Marquice Gatewood on December 9, 2017, and told him that he would be taken to “medical” and then to ...
by Dale Chappell
Contra Costa County has settled a lawsuit filed in federal court by Suneel Kumar, agreeing to pay him $90,000 after guards at the county jail allowed another prisoner to attack him while he was performing his job duties within the facility, and failed to intervene before he ...
by Mark Wilson
An Oregon prison guard’s 37-year career came to an inglorious end when he was caught stealing $10,881 from the Department of Corrections by falsifying his time cards. After a failed attempt to dismiss the prosecution as being racially motivated, the guard pleaded guilty and paid back his ...
by David M. Reutter
A Florida federal district court has awarded $420,683.53 in attorney fees and costs in a class-action suit challenging the use of solitary confinement and lack of educational opportunities for juvenile offenders held at the Palm Beach County Jail.
PLN previously reported the facts and settlement in ...
by Ed Lyon
Shannon Rose Jefferson, a Native American, was a frequent resident at the Whatcom County Jail (WCJ) in Washington State. During the last 16 years of her life, Jefferson was held at the WCJ over 20 times. Jail records covering those prior detentions indicated she had attempted suicide ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 3, 2019, the Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) settled a lawsuit brought by two Muslim prisoners who had been given inadequate food or no food during the fast of Ramadan, were denied religious congregation rights, and were denied the right to hold religious services and ...
by David M. Reutter
After nearly six years of languishing in jail because he could not afford a quarter-million dollar bond, a jury in Jefferson County, Kentucky acquitted Eugene “Red” Mitchell.
The jury’s September 18, 2019 acquittal of Mitchell on charges that he raped, sodomized and murdered Sheila Devine showed ...
by Douglas Ankney
On August 13, 2019, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a $299,000 settlement in a suit brought by a jail nurse who alleged a deputy refused to allow her to treat a prisoner.
In August 2016, Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) Jennifer Westfield was passing out medications ...
by Douglas Ankney
On January 31, 2019, a New York State Court of Claims found the state 50 percent liable for the injuries that prisoner Ralph Whedon sustained when operating a table saw at the Franklin Correctional Facility (FCF).
In August 2015, while Whedon was assigned to the work program ...
by Kevin Bliss
New York City Department of Correction (DOC) Chief of Department Hazel Jennings issued an order to all employees on October 8, 2019 that “prohibited [referring] to persons in ... custody using terms such as i.e. packages, bodies, etc.,” in a move intended to create a more humane ...
by Matt Clarke
A Texas prisoner with a rare and virtually untreatable form of leukemia filed a sexual harassment complaint against a medical provider. Then the morphine he was being given for the pain caused by his terminal cancer was cut off, he alleged in a pro se lawsuit.
Jeremy ...
by Matt Clarke
A Texas prisoner has filed a federalclass-action lawsuit seeking the current standard of care for treatment of hepatitis C.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prisoner Matthew Roppolo, 53, has the hepatitis C virus, a serious illness that can eventually lead to liver failure and death. Despite ...
by Kevin Bliss
In October 2019, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced that it planned to close the Taft Correctional Institution (TCI) by January 31, 2020. The prison in California has had an increasing number of infrastructure problems over the past 15 years. Seismic and geological concerns have affected the ...
by Dale Chappell
The family of a man who was neglected to the point that he died in jail in Carter County, Oklahoma has settled a lawsuit against the county for $3.2 million, plus interest, after new and damaging evidence was uncovered.
Michael Manos was no stranger to staff at ...
Loaded on
Feb. 4, 2020
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2020, page 63
Arizona: Prisoners at ASPC-Douglas, just north of the Mexican border, had to drink bottled water and use portable toilets in early June 2019 after a dry well and a leak caused a water system failure. Cochise County supplies water to the prison, which shares the system with the Bisbee-Douglas ...
