By Prison Legal News
ON April 11, 2013, the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) announced that Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest for-profit prison firm, had acknowledged that employees at the CCA-operated Idaho Correctional Center (ICC) falsified staffing records from at least May through November 2012. As a result, the state paid the company for almost 4,800 staffing hours for vacant positions during that time period.
According to a review of ICC shift logs obtained by the Associated Press, some CCA employees were falsely listed as having worked 24, 36 and even 48 continuous hours.
In January 2013, attorneys for prisoners housed at the ICC filed an amended complaint in federal court that alleged CCA officials had falsified staffing records to conceal chronic understaffing. The prisoners claimed that fewer employees were on duty at the time of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults than the number reflected on shift logs. The lawsuit also contends that CCA staff collaborated with ICC gang members in order to maintain control at the facility. See: Castillon v. CCA, U.S.D.C. (D. Idaho), Case No. 1:12-cv-00559-EJL.
“[E]mployees were being placed on the shift schedule who were not present within the building or who were actually working in other areas and in some cases were no longer employees of CCA,” stated T.J. Angstman, one of the attorneys representing the prisoners. “This was being done to fraudulently show the State of Idaho that ICC was fully staffed when in fact it was not and to hide culpability for the injuries suffered by the plaintiffs.”
