November 2008

On November 13th, I testified to the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee at its interim charge hearing looking into how private prisons are complying with state law.  You can watch the entirity of the hearings online here. 

Like last year's committee hearings in the wake of the Coke County detention center fall-out, the most memorable moments were the testimony by Shirley Noble, mother to Idaho inmate Scot Noble Payne, who committed suicide at the GEO Group's Dickens County lock-up in Spur, Texas. 

Ms. Noble was joined by the sister and son of Randall McCullough, an Idaho inmate Randall McCullough who committed suicide at GEO's Bill Clayton lock-up in Littlefield, Texas. McCullough had been held in solitary confinement for over a year as administrative punishment for a fight that was not criminally prosecuted.  Their testimonies certainly put a powerful human voice to the debate over private prisons.

I focused my testimony on concrete, common sense proposals that the legislature could make to improve oversight and accountability in Texas' vast system of private prisons, jails, and detention center.  The recommendations included:

1) Developing a system of annual reporting for all TDCJ and TYC-contracted facilities.  Ideally overseen by an independent monitoring or data collection agency, providing consistent annual or bi-annual reporting of data in private prison and comparable public facilities.  These reports should include staffing levels, staff retention and turnover rates, assaults, grievances, cost savings, medical care data, deaths, uses of force, sexual assaults, major incidents, lawsuits against the facility, guard to prisoner ratio, escapes and escape attempts, enrollment in drug treatment programs, enrollment and achievement levels in education programs, disciplinary cases, weapons possession, possession of drugs, possession of contraband, staff assaults, offender assaults, and recidivism rates out of private and public facilities.

It is especially important that this data is made public given allegations that some private prison corporations are providing records to state agencies that are inconsistent with internal records.  Another legislative solution is that private prisons corporations should be subject to open records requests.  

2. Barring the importation of out-of-state prisoners to Texas private prisons and in county-operated jails.  Texas has its own problems in jails and prisons; it does not need to be importing prisoners.  The true horror stories coming out of GEO’s prisons from Idaho prisoners – including the testimony which we will hear today of family members who have died in these facilities – speaks to the fact that these facilities have major operational problems, and limited state resources should not have to be expended overseeing such facilities.  It’s a state embarrassment to have national media decrying private prisons in Texas holding prisoners on behalf of other states.  

According to data from the Jail Standards Commission, after Idaho completes the transfer of its prisoners out of the Littlefield unit, a move predicated on reported operational under-performance and in the wake of the suicide of Randall McCullough, there will be only 88 out-of-state prisoners in Texas jails and private prisons –  40 New Mexico prisoners at the Dickens Unit, 39 at the Bailey County jail, and 8 at the Parmer County jail.

3.  Exploring the idea of a company-wide investigation and potential contract suspension period for companies routinely found to be out-of-compliance and with records of abuse and mismanagement.  When a company is routinely found to violate inmate’s civil rights, operates unsafe and unsanitary facilities, and not accurately report statistics, a systematic review of that company’s state contracts should be ordered.  If repeated problems occur, the state should explore suspending contracts with the company. 

We'll keep you posted on how these ideas are incorporated in the coming legislative session. 

This is the third post in a three-piece series from Texas Prison Bid'ness based on research pertaining to Corrections Corporation of America's Mineral Wells Pre-Parole Transfer Facility conducted by Grassroots Leadership. The Mineral Wells facility is a contract-facility under the jurisdiction of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. For more information, please contact Nick Hudson using our contact form. Read Part I and Part II.

I wrote on reports of sexual assaults and sexual contact at Mineral Wells two weeks ago, and I described the use of force reports from the facility between January of 2006 and July of 2008 last Tuesday. In this post, the final in our three-part series on Mineral Wells, I report on the riot that occurred at the facility in August of 2007 and follow it up with a bit of editorializing and conclusion.

The Disturbance at Mineral Wells in August, 2007

Kathleen originally reported that Mineral Wells was on lockdown after a major disturbance involving hundreds of prisoners at the facility in August of 2007. According to KVUE's initial reporting on the incident on August 14th:

The problem started when hundreds of inmates refused to leave the recreation yard at about 9:15 p.m. About two dozen of them protested a rule requiring them to wear shirts in the recreation yard on a steamy summer night.

Those inmates set small fires in trash cans, broke windows and threw rocks and trash at jailers.

A spokeswoman says two employees of the Mineral Wells Pre-Parole Transfer Facility were treated on site for minor injuries during the disturbance.

There were no reports of injuries to inmates.

About 400 inmates refused to leave the recreation yard and return to their cells.

The spokesman said it took about three-and-a-half hours and the use of "approved, non-lethal chemical agents" to bring the situation under control.

Some two dozen inmates identified as playing a role in the uprising will be charged with inciting a riot.

They will be relocated to other corrections facilities.

About 30 officers from Mineral Wells and surrounding agencies set up a perimeter outside the prison's gates to secure the area.

There are some inconsistencies between first accounts of the incident by CCA spokespeople and details recorded in the official use of force report (linked at the bottom of this post).

For example, CCA officials told reporters that the disturbance lasted three-and-a-half hours and began at 9:15 pm, but it now seems that the incident may have lasted for six hours-- about twice as long as originally reported. According the use of force report, the disturbance ended at 3:15 am on August 14th, not 12:45 am.

I found the following portion of the use of force report most striking:

"There were 36 offenders involved in the mass disturbance and 20 staff members from the facility and surrounding CCA Units responding to the emergency."

We already knew that officers from the Mineral Wells prison and surrounding agencies responded to the disturbance from original reporting. We did not know that CCA borrowed officers from surrounding CCA prisons to bring the situation under control.

CCA prisons are already understaffed -- like the rest of prisons in Texas -- and the fact that CCA borrowed officers from surrounding facilities to quell the violence at Mineral Wells raises sobering public safety concerns. It seems that (a) by inadequately staffing its facilities in the first place, and (b) by shuffling guards from other understaffed CCA facilities to Mineral Wells the night of the riot, CCA put the officers at each staff-depleted unit at risk. To be sure, there are state-wide problems with staff shortages. But private prisons hire fewer guards, pay their guards less, and have higher turnover rates than public prisons.

Nicole testified last legislative session against a bill that would incrementally expand private prison capacity:

"..[There are] inexperienced officers working in private prisons who do not know how to manage prisoners; their lack of experience leads to violence. It also leads the private sector to promote personnel much more quickly than the public sector, so the largely inexperienced staff is supervised by insufficiently experienced managers. For example -- in a facility managed by CCA in Liberty County, Texas -- two correctional officers were fired for violating agency policies that facilitated the escape of three inmates that overpowered a prison guard."

The result of these policies can keep reappearing at Mineral Wells. Continued from the KVUE artice:

Capt. Mike McAllester of the Mineral Wells Police Department said this has happened before. "This is one of several in the last few years, but most recently we had one last summer."

In contrast to local police, TDCJ's spokesman, Michelle Lyons, seemed a bit perplexed by the occurrence of a riot at the minimum-security pre-parole transfer facility when she spoke with the Star-Telegram. "We don't often have these types of incidents at minimum-security facilities," she said, "These inmates are placed there because they have clean disciplinary records, and they are generally cooperative."

We shouldn't have these types of incidents at minimum-security facilities. If our follow-up with Mineral Wells confirms a reader report of another riot at the facility this July, though, it will be the third mass disturbance at the facility since 2005.

Summary and Conclusion

We decided to do a report on Mineral Wells after receiving a steady stream of news reports and reader tips describing unsafe conditions at the facility.

These were among the more sensational news stories from te facility over the last few years (hat tip to PCI for a good archive of these stories):

• Two 21-year-old prisoners escaped and were missing for six hours before being spotted by helicopter less than five miles from the prison. WFAA TV, May of 2007

• "Search teams scanned the Mineral Wells area Friday after an inmate escaped from a privately run pre-parole transfer center near Lake Mineral Wells State Park" AP, August of 2006

• In 17 prisoners were injured during a riot. The local sheriff’s department was called in when prison staff could not quell the disturbance AP, August of 2005

And these are a couple of the reader comments that prompted our inquiry:

"..[My nephew] now requires counseling weekly from the nightmare of 2 years at CCA Mineral Wells Prison...You have to basically pay for protection or get out of there by picking a fight." (Texas Prison Bid'ness Reader, 9/5/08)

"My husband is at [Mineral Wells]... Just prior to this transfer he was approved to go to school in Huntsville. The next thing he new he was transferred to this hell hole. The lockdown and riot was a nightmare! My husband said it was the worst experience of his life, he said, 'I felt like I was going to die.' They have nothing productive to do at this facility."

The documents we received from Mineral Wells cannot tell the whole story of CCA's Mineral Wells Pre-Parole Transfer Facility, but it's clear from what I've documented that the prison has some serious problems.

As I wrote in the first post of this series:

The documents we received indicate that, between January 1, 2006 and July 23, 2008, the CCA-managed prison reported one sexual assault allegation, opened eight criminal cases involving sexual contact between guards or facility personnel and prisoners, recorded thirty-one major uses of force by officers at the facility, and detailed one large disturbance in August of 2007 involving 36 prisoners and 20 staff members that lasted almost four hours and ended only after CCA staff used chemical agents.

A deeper reading of the information we received pointed to a pervasive problem with contraband at Mineral Wells. Force was used eight times on prisoners in cases where contraband was explicitly mentioned.

I'm particularly troubled that in 2008, the Warden at the facility struck and injured a prisoner for spitting on him. I can't think of a professional setting where that type of behavior is tolerated.

Four uses of force were documented in 2006, but seventeen were recorded in 2007, and ten were recorded by between January 1st, 2008 and the filing of our request in July. The increased reporting reflects better record-keeping or worse conditions at the facility.

As Grits Reported, a recent series of phone call from a death-row inmate in possession of a contraband cell-phone to an elected official led to an emergency meeting of the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, and a system-wide lockdown of TDCJ.

The riots at Mineral Wells haven't drawn the level of scrutiny those recent phone calls to Texas legislators have. Perhaps distant riots don't hit as close to home as a phone call, or maybe big problems at Mineral Wells are perceived as normal rather than extraordinary. Whatever the case, I hope our friends at the Capital begin to wonder how CCA lost control of the same minimum-security facility three times in four years. I bet they'd find all kinds of answers.

As we posted last week, the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee will be holding interim hearings on private prisons tomorrow, Thursday, November 13th, starting at 10am. Here are the details:

COMMITTEE: Criminal Justice
TIME & DATE: 10:00 AM, Thursday, November 13, 2008
PLACE: E1.016 (Hearing Room)
CHAIR: Senator John Whitmire

Interim Charge 1: Determine how private prisons are complying with state laws and how cost, safety, living conditions and rehabilitative services at private prisons compare with state-run facilities. Include an assessment of the staff turnover rates and compensation of private contractors when compared with state-operated facilities, and of the contract bidding processes used by the Texas Youth Commission and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Word from the Senate Criminal Justice Committee is that invited testimony will come from TDCJ Director Brad Livingston and new TYC Director Cherie Townsend. Anyone is welcome to testify during the public testimony portion of the meetings. I'll be testifying and have been told that family members of individuals who have died in private prisons will also be testifying.

We also received an interesting comment on our previous post from Austin Chronicle reporter Patricia Ruland about the SAF-P contract treatment centers. In part, it reads:

Anyone who'd like to comment on the state's Sub­stance Abuse Felony Punishment Facil­i­ties may testify Thursday, Nov. 13, 10am, before the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice during interim charge hearings concerning "new and expanded [rehabilitation] programs." SAFPFs, operated by the private Gateway Corp., along with the Texas Department of Criminal Jus­tice, ideally rehabilitate offenders in lieu of their doing "hard time."

However, in scores of narratives provided to Austin attorney Derek How­ard since January, inmates charge that SAFPFs are, in reality, state-funded torture. Specifically, they decry the harsh, global punishment of "tighthouse," when inmates must silently sit still, up to 16 hours a day, sometimes for months. The Chronicle reported on the issue this past spring ("Rehabilitation or Torture?" May 23), and Larance Coleman, of Sen. John Whitmire's office, responded by saying the Criminal Justice Commit­tee would "focus on Safe-P programming" during the hearings. But as it turns out, alleged SAFPF abuses will come up only if the public brings them up.

"We won't be looking at that specifically, but feel free and come and talk about it," said committee legislative aide Tara James on Tues­day. Meanwhile, Coleman declined further comment until the conclusion of an investigation by the Office of Inspector General.

Two other interim charges will be discussed tomorrow. They are:

Interim Charge 4: Monitor the implementation of the new and expanded programs provided to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) within the Fiscal Year 2008 and 2009 budget, and identify their impact on the criminal justice populations. Study security issues within TDCJ, including staffing issues, use of lock down procedures, the control and containment of infectious diseases and the introduction and control of contraband within the institutions. Review the use of career ladders for employees of TDCJ and issues surrounding the retention of professional corrections staff. Study the issues of independent oversight of TDCJ, including the use and effectiveness of the TDCJ ombudsman system. Provide recommendations for the reduction or elimination of barriers to an effective corrections system.

Interim Charge 9: Review the processes for re-entry of criminal offenders into communities. Identify barriers to the successful return to law-abiding behavior, including the absence of employment opportunities created by restriction on obtaining certain state occupational licenses.Provide recommendations for improvements to our current statutes governing this matter.