News

The U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice held its 22nd session in late April 2013. A significant item on the Commission’s agenda was the development of revised Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (SMRs). Originally adopted in 1955, SMRs are rules that regulate the bare minimum standards for the treatment of

In 2011, the State of Illinois signed a 10-year, $1.36 billion contract with Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit company, to provide medical services to Illinois prisoners. Since the contract went into effect there have been numerous complaints concerning the level of medical care that prisoners are receiving – or rather not receiving. In fact, more

On August 4, 2011, a prison guard at Fort Dodge Correctional Facility in Des Moines, Iowa, a medium-security state prison that houses more than 1,300 prisoners, found sensitive employee records in a file drawer in the prison’s Barber Shop, a location converted from an administration office several months prior. The records, forms related to the

We are currently in the process of researching correspondence programs that are accessible to state and federal prisoners. These correspondence education programs are going to be included in a book focused on prison education being published by Middle Street Publishing. If you are affiliated with or know of any correspondence education programs which can be

By Prison Legal News

After the state of New Hampshire hired a consulting group last year to help evaluate bid proposals for the “construction, operation and potential privatization” of the state’s entire prison system, it was determined that all of the bids “had deficiencies from an operational standpoint,” according to a report issued by New Hampshire’s Department of Corrections (DOC) and Department of Administrative Services (DAS). The report further found that the proposals were “non-compliant with meeting the Department of Corrections’ legal obligations.”

By April 2012, New Hampshire officials had received bids from four companies to build and/or operate a facility to house male prisoners and a “hybrid” prison that would hold both male and female offenders. The bidders included Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), GEO Group, Management & Training Corp. (MTC) and the relatively unknown NH Hunt Justice Group LLC – a partnership between LaSalle Corrections, Hunt Companies and several other firms.

To evaluate the detailed and voluminous bid proposals, state officials organized three evaluation teams made up of staff from the DOC and DAS. Additionally, in July 2012 the state paid $171,000 to hire an “independent consultant” – MGT of America, Inc. – to assist with the review by evaluating the “operational and financial aspects of the vendors’ responses.”

Careful observers noted a glaring conflict of interest with respect to MGT: One of the MGT consultants evaluating the prison privatization bid proposals was George Vose, who previously served as Senior Vice President for Operations of Community Education Centers (CEC), a private prison firm that runs 17 jails and 34 halfway houses. Vose currently serves on CEC’s Board of Directors.

By John E. Dannenberg

A three-judge federal court tightened the noose around the neck of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in April 2013 when it issued a lengthy order denying a motion by state officials to delay or modify the court’s prison population reduction order that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2011. See: Brown v. Plata, 131 S.Ct. 1910 (2011) [PLN, July 2011, p.1]. The court also denied the CDCR’s request to end the federal receivership over the state’s prison mental health care. The sockdolager came when the court threatened the CDCR and California Governor Jerry Brown with contempt if they did not follow the court’s directives after decades of litigation.

On April 5, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence K. Karlton issued a 68-page order in Coleman v. Brown, U.S.D.C. (E.D. Cal.), Case No. CIV S 90-520 LKK/JFM (PC) – the 23-year-old case that resulted in a special master being appointed by the court to oversee mental health care in CDCR facilities – denying the defendants’ motion to “terminate all relief in this action, vacate the Court’s judgment and orders and dismiss the case.”

Judge Karlton first noted that the state is currently under an order to reduce its prison population to 137.5% of design capacity by the end of 2013. He said he could not entertain a motion to terminate the relief ordered by the three-judge court or to vacate the population reduction order. Nor could he modify the prison population reduction order, as the defendants asked, because the state had not reached the required population cap. Judge Karlton therefore turned to the defendants’ motion to terminate mental health care oversight.

Despite adding more treatment facilities and staff, the court noted that the CDCR was still deficient in providing care for some 32,000 mentally ill prisoners. Against the state’s protestation that it had spent more than $1 billion on new facilities and devoted $400 million a year to treatment for mentally ill prisoners, court-appointed experts reported that the CDCR continues to have major problems – including a suicide rate that worsened in 2012 to 24 per 100,000 population, far exceeding the national state prison average of 16 suicides per 100,000 population. [See: PLN, April 2013, p.22].

By Alex Friedmann

The New York state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYDOCCS) has settled a federal lawsuit filed by Prison Legal News that challenged the censorship of PLN’s monthly publication, books and correspondence at New York prisons statewide.

PLN claimed in its complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on October 11, 2011, that the NYDOCCS had an “unconstitutional policy of prohibiting inmates from receiving any and all books, magazines, letters and postcards distributed by Plaintiff, including letters from Plaintiff’s attorney…,” which “deprives Plaintiff, as well as its subscribers, of important First Amendment rights and serves no neutral, legitimate penological purpose.”

PLN argued that beginning in 2009, the NYDOCCS had placed its publication on a list of “disapproved vendors” because PLN accepts payments for subscription and book orders in the form of postage stamps, and publishes advertisements for alternative prison phone services, both of which are against NYDOCCS policy. PLN editor Paul Wright called these justifications “pretextual.” [See: PLN, Nov. 2011, p.12].

PLN filed suit as a last resort after repeatedly contacting the NYDOCCS and requesting that state prison officials stop their unconstitutional censorship of PLN’s publications and books. Those requests were ignored or denied.

On January 27, 2012, less than four months after PLN’s lawsuit was filed, the NYDOCCS issued a memo to all state prison superintendents. The memo stated that while PLN and other publications accept stamps as payment and include ads for services that violate NYDOCCS policy, “Rather than barring the introduction of these publications altogether or attempting to redact or remove all such objectionable advertisements from each publication, correctional facilities are to include, along with each publication,” a notice warning prisoners that they are subject to disciplinary action if they violate NYDOCCS rules related to postage stamps and phone services.