July 2012

Last week, The Sentencing Project*, released new report titled Dollars and Detainees: The Growth of For-Profit Detention.  The report documents how immigration enforcement and changes in policy have led to a 59% increase in the number of detainees being held by the federal government between 2002 and 2011.

Specifically, the report examines how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) have increasingly relied on private companies to detain these individuals, as well as the complex network of facilities that house federal detainees, and the failings of private detention. The report’s major findings include:

• Between 2002 and 2011 the number of privately held ICE detainees increased by 208%, while the number of USMS detainees held in private facilities grew by 355%;
• In 2011, 45% of ICE detainees and 30% of USMS detainees were held by private companies;
• Federal detainees are held in a complex network of facilities in which information on where individuals are being held, and by whom is often unavailable or incomplete; and
• The private detention industry is dominated by the same companies that are regularly criticized for their management of private prisons.

The full report, Dollars and Detainees: The Growth of For-Profit Detention, includes a list of the privately-operated facilities actively employed by ICE and USMS, as well as detailed graphs and data on the growth of private detention, and the lobbying activities of Corrections Corporation of America.  

*The author of this blog post works as the Director of Advocacy for The Sentencing Project.

Her baby, named Gracie, died after only four days she was born.  Miller's mother spoke to CBS 11:

"...  Burr says her daughter tells a chilling story of what happened during the early morning hours when she began to bleed and cramp inside the jail and had trouble walking.  “They took her down to the medical unit on a stretcher. When she got there, there was a doctor on the screen,” Burr said.

But Miller told her mother that the doctor, who was available through a teleconference, never had a chance to see her.

“The lady that was down there in the medical unit in charge told the doctor they did not need him for this patient and they just turned this off … She was crying, complaining that she was feeling pressure, pain, bleeding and something was bad wrong [sic]. They needed to do something,” Burr told CBS 11. ...What happened next, according to Burr, has changed all of their lives forever. And, she says, it was something no one at the jail was prepared to handle at that time.

After Miller went to the bathroom, “the baby came out and went into the toilet and she started screaming,” Burr said."  (Ginger Allen, CBS 11, "Premature Baby Born At Dawson Jail without Medically Trained Personnel," July 10)

The story doesn't end there.  Miller is handcuffed in pictures during she and her baby's stay at the hospital.  After 4 day old Gracie died, Miller was put into solitary confinement at Dawson State Jail:

"Once at the jail, Miller was placed in solitary confinement for two days, her mother, overwhelmed with emotions, said.

“This is still a woman with the afterbirth and bleeding and stitches where she’d had a tubal … and they locked her in there for two days … and then they took her to see a psychiatrist and said, ‘Well, you’ve been on suicide watch,’ “ Burr said."

CCA and TDCJ are staying predictably mum about the case.  This is certainly not the first problem at Dawson.  In May, it was reported that the death of Pam Weatherby at Corrections Corporation of America's Dawson State Jail in 2010 was the seventh death at the facility since 2004. Weatherby was serving a one year sentence for drug possession when her health conditions - she was a brittle diabetic - rapidly deteriorated.

Last month, CBS 11 reported that an additional family of a young incarcerated woman at the facility is blaming jail administrators for her death.  According to the report, 30 year-old Ashleigh Shae Parks died with six months remaining on her 18 month drug possession sentence.

Dawson has been subject to calls for closure over the years, and we wonder if this string of horror stories may increase those calls.