Idaho prison officials say they had to have thousands of dollars' worth of medications shipped overnight to the state's largest prison after the former operator, Corrections Corporation of America, left the facility without a promised eight-day supply of inmate drugs....
The state took over the 2,080-bed prison after CCA acknowledged understaffing the facility by thousands of hours in violation of its $29 million contract with the state. The company's admission came after a report by The Associated Press raised questions about the facility's staffing....
Back on March 7 of this year, Lefty Coaster did a KOS:
FBI takes over investigation of CCA's operation of Idaho State Pen. nicknamed 'Gladiator School"
Alarming reports of under-staffing and violence have been documented since 2011, but Republican Governor Butch Otter and his administration did their best to ignore the problem hoping it would go away as public pressure to take action continued to mount, until just last month when they finally launched a state investigation of CCA....
If this is how the largest private prison operator in the country conducts its business and fulfills its contracts, it casts a pall over the whole concept of paying private for profit corporations to operate state correctional institutions, or care for inmate populations the courts have placed under the states' custody.
More background from LC"s post and more:
BOISE, Idaho — The FBI has launched a criminal investigation into private prison company Corrections Corporation of America which ran what Idaho inmates called "Gladiator School" because of a violent reputation they say understaffing helped create.
The Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA has operated Idaho's largest prison for more than a decade, but last year, CCA officials acknowledged it had understaffed the Idaho Correctional Center by thousands of hours in violation of the state contract. CCA also said employees falsified reports to cover up the vacancies. The announcement came after an Associated Press investigation showed CCA sometimes listed guards as working 48 hours straight to meet minimum staffing requirements.
Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! The Heritage Foundation loves it:
Cost comparisons between private and government operation of prisons show frequent cost savings under private management. While the national average cost to hold a prisoner in a government run prison is $40 per inmate a day, many privately run prisons charge the government significantly lower fees. U.S. Corrections Corporation, which operates the Marion Adjustment Center in St. Mary, Kentucky, charges Kentucky a daily fee of $25 per inmate. In 1986, this private firm saved Kentucky an estimated $400,000. Similarly, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) charged Bay County in Florida $29.81 per them per inmate to operate the Bay County Jail. Before Privatization of the facility, the daily cost was $38 per inmate. In 1985, CCA's first year to operate the jail, the corporation saved the county approximately $700,000.
The Heritage goes on to give some CCA background:
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), based in Nashville, Tennessee, and founded in 1983, is the largest private corrections organization in the country. A spinoff of Hospital Corporation of America, CCA designs, constructs, finances, and manages both secure and non-secure facilities. In addition to operating two juvenile centers and a county prison in Hamilton County, Tennessee, CCA also contracts with Florida, New Mexico, and Texas.
In 1985, CCA proposed to operate the entire Tennessee state correctional system for 99 years. Governor Lamar Alexander supported the idea. It was blocked, however, by
lobbying by some state officials and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. Nevertheless, CCA continues to be the nation's leading innovator of private prison operations and is expanding its marketing activities in Iowa, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.
OMG! Idaho has so many bad people in the state that it can't even imprison all of them:
Recently, the Newton County Correctional Center (NCCC), a private prison in Newton, Texas run by the Boca Raton, Florida-based Geo Group, has experienced several incidents involving the out-of-state Idaho prisoners housed there. These incidents included a non-violent protest involving 85 prisoners, an escape, and the resignation of a deputy warden. Additionally, allegations of prisoner abuse were substantiated; Idaho prisoners have since been removed from the facility.
Idaho incarcerates 449 of its prisoners in out-of-state private prisons. Of those, 30 are incarcerated at a CCA prison in Minnesota and 419 are held at NCCC, one of 53 prisons nationwide operated by Geo Group, formerly known as Wackenhut....
When they arrived at NCCC, Idaho prisoners discovered hotter temperatures and an austere prison life .... Another unaccustomed cultural difference was guard brutality. On April 7, 2006, six Idaho prisoners complained of abuse by guards. In a letter to his sister, one prisoner stated that he had been placed in isolation, handcuffed, beaten and pepper sprayed. The complaints resulted in disciplinary actions against three Geo guards including one demotion, a suspension and the firing of a supervisor. It also prompted an already scheduled visit by IDOC officials to the for-profit prison site.
Well, Hell! That's whackjob Texas for ya! For a quick little roundup of Texas business abuse, check out
Texas Prison Bid'ness.
Additionally, of course, Dick Cheney has been a part of the abuse:
A grand jury in south Texas indicted Mr Cheney and Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General, on state charges that they blocked an investigation into the mistreatment of prisoners.
The indictment cites a "money trail" relating to Mr Cheney's financial stake in prison-related businesses, including the Vanguard Group, which has an interest in privately-run federal jails in the region.