Corizon Health Staff on Rikers Island File Federal Labor Complaint Over Dangerous Work Environment

According to the NY Daily News, a group of medical staffers from New York City jail medical contractor Corizon Health Services filed a federal labor complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on April 11th for Corizon’s failure to protect them from inmate assaults.

From the Daily News:

The staffers charge that the nation’s largest jail health care provider repeatedly failed to protect them from dangerous inmates who were never properly restrained or labeled as serious threats, given their prior case histories.

The OSHA complaint cited an assault on a petite nurse who was brutally punched in the head by a 6-foot-tall, 160-pound inmate during a mental health assessment in a prison clinic on April 6.

“He hit me several times on the side of my head, arms and shoulder,” said the unidentified nurse, who suffered multiple bruises on her arm and shoulder.

In September of last year, Corizon was fined $71,000 by OSHA for failing to protect employees from violence, including “one willful violation for failing to develop and implement an effective workplace violence prevention program for its employees.”

Since then, city officials have scrambled to reform practices and policies concerning the conduct of medical staff and correction officers. But the changes appear to be slow-going: a recent report on the new Enhanced Supervision Housing Unit found that many medical staff were sometimes too afraid to work with inmates when they were locked out of their cells. They also encountered difficulty finding appropriate space in the ESHU to conduct their sessions. Along with chronic understaffing, poor recruitment and limited training, factors like these can quickly conspire to obstruct the delivery of medical attention and care to inmates.

It is in this setting that the city asks medical staff to make critical and often life-or-death determinations, such as those pertaining to the placement of inmates in solitary confinement — despite the fact that such demands are, as one recent report found, in fundamental opposition to medical ethics.

The city is said to be considering ending its contract with Corizon, which wouldn’t fix everything but would be a great place to start making some real changes. I’m still wondering: How many more of these incidents will the NYCDOC tolerate before they cancel this contract?

“[D]uring this [time], no mother will work in the detention center, nor will we send our children to school, not will we use any services here, until we are heard and approved: we want our FREEDOM.” Originally published at Colorlines.com.

Undocumented mothers put in solitary after 78 launch hunger strike at private prison

Last week, seventy-eight incarcerated mothers at GEO Group’s Karnes County Detention Center in Texas signed a letter announcing a hunger and work strike and to demand their immediate release. Now Roque Planas at the Huffington Post is reporting that some of those mothers were put in solitary confinement with their children in response to the protest.

Aura Bogado obtained the prisoners’ letter for Colorlines.com, and writes that “most have brought their children from Guatemala and El Salvador—countries with some of the highest femicide rates on the planet.” She continues:

The mothers who’ve signed the letter have all been interviewed by immigration officials and have established a credible fear of persecution or torture if they were to be deported. But they either haven’t been given an opportunity to post bond for release, or the bond amount has been set too high. Their letter, in part, reads:

“[D]uring this [time], no mother will work in the detention center, nor will we send our children to school, not will we use any services here, until we are heard and approved: we want our FREEDOM.”

The strike began Monday with some 40 women and it has no definite end date. At a facility like Karnes, where detainees run a lot of the essential services, a strike can also impact people who aren’t participating.

An immigration officer I spoke with at Karnes who repeatedly declined to give her name laughed when I called on Tuesday. I asked why she was laughing and she answered, “These attorneys convinced them all to do stuff,” and shortly thereafter they hung up on me. Phone calls to GEO Group staff at Karnes have not been returned.

At so-called “family residential detention centers” like Karnes, mothers and children captured crossing the US-Mexico border are incarcerated together. The women are paid $3 per day to help run the facility. Because Karnes County is also home to massive fracking operations and water contamination, many have to drink bottled water — which happens to cost $3.

This demonstration is the latest in what appears to be a growing protest movement by immigrant detainees at private prisons across the country. Last year, hundreds of immigrant detainees staged a 14 hour protest against their mistreatment and conditions at the CCA-operated Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown. The Bureau of Prisons decided not to renew that contract. Those inmates were sent to federal prisons elsewhere in the country.

In February of this year, immigrant prisoners at the MTC-operated “gladiator school” tent city in Raymondville, Texas, began a demonstration in which several of the Kevlar-domed housing units were damaged by fire. That prison has been closed and the inmates have been moved to other federal prisons as well.

In both cases, the communities that hosted these private prison companies suffered greatly. Youngstown, which like many towns throughout America is still recovering from the recession and the offshoring of industry, lost 185 jobs at once. It is expected to lose millions in tax revenues — money meant for education and other essential public works. Over 360 people lost jobs in Raymondville after the protest at Willacy. S&P recently downgraded the Willacy County’s bonds to junk, and taxpayers in both communities will be left to fill the budget gaps. These are some of the very real consequences of prison privatization that people rarely talk about: what happens to the community when things get so bad they suddenly lose their contract?

And as for the prisoners: the response to their demonstrations seem to be a double-edged sword. Will the action at Karnes escalate to the point of Youngstown and Willacy, forcing the government to act and even cancel the contract? More importantly, if that happens, will the prisoners’ demands be met or will they be ‘disappeared’ throughout the country like the others?

Lawsuits highlight multiple inmate deaths under private contractor in Pennsylvania

On March 27th, a jury in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, found that private jail medical contractor PrimeCare Medical Inc. was negligent, but ultimately not responsible for the death of 27-year-old inmate Travis Magditch.

The Magditch family sued PrimeCare and Lehigh County in 2012 after Travis was arrested for allegedly possessing drug paraphernalia and died of an asthma attack at the jail one day later.

The family’s attorney, David Inscho, told jurors this was Travis’ first time behind bars. He stated that he had “called his parents when he got there, begging to be bailed out.” The local police offered to release Travis into his father’s custody, but having seen his son struggle with heroin addiction for two years, he decided against it. Mr. Magditch believed this decision would force Travis to “get help for his drug addiction” and enter rehabilitation.

Travis had a history of suffering from severe shortness of breath due to asthma. The complaint states that he was assessed to have “severely low” lung function when he first entered the jail. Documents show medical staff noted his past with asthma and heroin addiction, including his prescriptions and use of an inhaler. They noted who his doctor was and how to contact the pharmacy to order his medications. But according to the lawsuit, medical staff only placed orders for some of his medications. Most notably, the inhaler was not included.

The morning after his arrest, the lawsuit claims that Travis was seen for sick-call and was assessed to be at level 1 – the highest priority level for medical care. Again, medical staff noted his history with asthma. Nonetheless, he was returned to his cell without a rescue inhaler. Continue reading

Private contractor deliberately ignored medical needs of Kentucky inmate: lawsuit

In a lawsuit filed on February 24th, the mother of Brandon Clint Hacker claims that a “continuing policy, pattern, custom and/or practice of … willfully and deliberately ignoring the medical needs of inmates of the Jail” contributed to the death of her 35-year-old son at Kentucky’s Madison County Detention Center (MCDC).

Charlotte Diana Winkler is suing private inmate medical contractor Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc. (ACH) and their employees: Dr. Nadir H. Al-Shami, Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Layla Troutman and Licensed Practical Nurse Arlene Johnson. She is also suing Madison County, Jailer Doug Thomas, Capt. Tom Jones, Capt. Cory Dunning, Deputy J. J. LaGrange, Capt. Keith Trickler, and Deputy Whitney Bratcher.

ACH is in the midst of a $222,000 contract to provide healthcare at MCDC. According to their website, the Illinois-based contractor oversees inmate medical care in 17 states and works with “adults, juveniles, and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees on behalf of jails, juvenile detention centers, work release centers, methadone clinics, and more.”

Hacker started to feel sick at MCDC a few days after he was arrested for failing to appear at child support hearings, the complaint states. He filled out a medical request form, writing “Very sick, stomach, meds.” Records indicate that one of ACH’s nurses who visited Hacker, LPN Johnson, described him as “sick, shaky, chills, upset stomach.” He had high blood pressure and “active tremors, body aches, sweating.” Johnson noted that day that his symptoms were consistent with “Possible W/D [withdrawal] from heroin.”

For the next two days, the lawsuit says, Hacker went without medical attention because no healthcare workers were stationed at the facility over the weekend. “Mr. Hacker and his cellmates repeatedly requested that he be seen by a doctor or taken to a hospital, to no avail,” it states. By Sunday, Hacker’s pain had become unbearable. He filled out another medical request form, writing: “Blood Pressure. Need to see A.S.A.P. Having trouble breathing. Stomach problems.” Continue reading

Ohio quietly recommends new contract with troubled private food contractor Aramark

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) has recommended the state sign a new two-year contract with the for-profit food vendor, Aramark. The ODRC did not announce the recommendation, which was actually completed last year. The Associated Press got wind of it only after “a records request said the prisons department was satisfied with Aramark’s performance and wanted to renew despite issues with the contract.”

Those “issues” refer to the long list of offenses and contract violations, including food shortages, contaminated food supplies and ‘improper relations’ between employees and inmates, for which Ohio fined Aramark $272,000 last year. Since then, Ohio prison officials say Aramark’s service has improved.

There are scant details on why the ODRC thinks Aramark is fit to continue serving Ohio prisons. According to the Sandusky Register, the evaluation form the AP obtained was little more than a series of check boxes, yes/no answers and standardized questions, “not a detailed analysis.” But one thing the evaluation did show was that state officials were impressed that Aramark’s cost-per-prisoner was similar to that of Indiana and Michigan, where they also have contracts.

The comparison to Michigan, in particular, is interesting because things are not exactly going smoothly there with regards to the state’s contract with Aramark. Continue reading

Federal Government Drops CCA Contract in Ohio, But Remains Committed to Private Prisons

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has decided not to renew Correction Corporation of America’s (CCA) contract to hold around 1,400 low-level federal inmates at the North East Ohio Correctional Center (NEOCC) in Youngstown.

As the deadline for renewal approached, the for-profit prison contractor launched an aggressive PR and letter-writing campaign focused on “the value of CCA” in the community and the jobs that Youngstown could lose without the contract. Prisoners and advocates sought to instead  raise awareness about the facility’s ugly history of violence and mismanagement under CCA, and in August, 240 inmates staged a 14-hour peaceful protest against poor conditions, high commissary prices and abuse and mistreatment by prison guards.

In the end, the BOP decided to let their contract expire on May 31st of this year. CCA spokespeople told reporters they were not briefed on the government’s reasoning. They are seeking meetings with federal officials and are planning to mount an appeal in the coming days.

What is clear, however, is that the BOP has not lost confidence in for-profit incarceration. Most if not all of its prisoners at NEOCC will be transferred to two separate private facilities operated by GEO Group: the Moshannon Valley Correctional Center in Phillipsburg, PA (which, like NEOCC, holds immigrant prisoners) and the Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton, Oklahoma (which was vacant and is now being reactivated thanks, at least in-part, to this contract).

CCA will continue to hold some 580 prisoners for the US Marshals Service at NEOCC.

The federal government appears to be warming up to the idea of improving prison conditions, but it does not appear ready to give up on the private prison experiment. This would require a confrontation with the for-profit incarceration industry that they’ve now helped become deeply rooted in communities across the country. Continue reading

Vermont Inmates Protest Out-of-State Incarceration at Arizona Private Prison

Twenty-eight prisoners from Vermont are being held out-of-state at the for-profit Florence Correctional Center in Arizona. At around noon on August 22nd, 13 of those 28 inmates began protesting.

The prisoners ‘coordinated resistance’ and refused to return to their cells because they were frustrated by their increased isolation and the restrictions imposed on them by Corrections Corp. of America. While details of what transpired are unclear, prisoners allegedly “[smashed] televisions, microwaves and other equipment.”

CCA’s guards responded with force and a “chemical agent.” All 13 inmates were tossed into solitary confinement as punishment, where they’ve been for the past month. There is no indication as to when CCA will let them out. Continue reading