Texas Prison Bid'ness

I just returned from Georgetown, where the Williamson County Commissioners Court today amended the T. Don Hutto contract, but did not terminate the county's part of the contract. The new contract will involve a $250,000 legal defense fund in case of lawsuit. CCA will also pay the county $5,000 a month to hire a monitor for the facility.

The public comment section was limited to 10 today, with 9 speaking against Hutto including Scott Medlock from Texas Civil Rights Project, Rev. Mary Ferris, a Presbyterian missionary from Williamson County, Taylor residents Jose Orta and Neal Kopit, Williamson County residents Mary Ellen Kersch, Sherry Dana, and Jane Van Praag, Jay Johnson-Castro from Del Rio, and Dr. Asma Salam from Dallas. The lone voice in favor of the facility was the CCA Warden Evelyn Hernandez.

Nevertheless, it took the commissioners just a few minutes to vote to continue the contract, and no commissioners gave any rationale for their decision. According to the Austin American Statesman:

County commissioners voted unanimously to continue their contract with Corrections Corp. of America, which operates the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. Earlier this month, commissioners took steps to end the contract with CCA by October 2008. While the facility has been controversial, commissioners said they were worried about the county's potential liability stemming from its relationship with the center.

CCA subsequently offered free legal protection and $250,000 for the county should it ever face litigation. Commissioners said Tuesday that CCA's offer assuaged their fears.

The contract will now expire at its original date, Jan. 31, 2009. Commissioners said they'll discuss the possibility of extending the contract closer to its expiration date.

We'll have more on the Hutto issue as it develops.

The Austin Chronicle recently weighed in on the Coke County scandal that plagued the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) last month. Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa (D-McAllen) continues to hold GEO Group accountable for the horrible conditions uncovered at the private youth lockup.

"I'm not surprised at what we found at Coke," said Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, author of last session's TYC-reforming Senate Bill 103. "GEO Group has a long history of problems and litigations, not only in Texas but around the country."

It is clear from the way that horrid conditions at Coke County came to light a great deal needs to be done in terms of improving oversight of private prisons throughout Texas.

According to officials involved at all levels, three investigations were conducted at Coke County over several weeks. Those investigations were conducted by three separate agencies that included the Harris County TYC Review Monitor, the Independent Ombudsman Office, and TYC's Internal Audit Division.

The Harris County Juvenile Probation Board established a TYC Review Monitor position when the TYC scandals were widely publicized in media outlets earlier this year. Using statutory authority that requires agencies to share information, the TYC monitor travels to youth prisons around the state to insure that Harris County youth are confined in safe and humane conditions.

The Independent Ombudsman office was created as a part of the omnibus reform package passed during the 80th Legislature -- SB 103. The Ombudsman reports to the Conservator. The office is staffed by Will Harrell, the former Executive Director of the ACLU of Texas. At a recent hearing, Harrell stated that the lines of authority for his office were not clear, but that when he completes investigations of youth lockups he sends the reports to the Governor's office and the Conservator. However, it is clear that how the Ombudsman works with TYC officials to improve conditions issues must still be worked out. According to Jim Hurley, TYC Spokesperson:

Hurley applauded his [Harrell] report's content, he was concerned that he did not receive a copy until after his office's own investigation was complete. "If I'm the ombudsman, and I'm out there, I'm not going to go away, write a report, and then not send it to the one person who can actually make changes."

At a recent TYC oversight hearing convened by the House Corrections Committee, Harrell stated he would start sending reports to TYC's Acting Executive Director - Dimitria Pope.

Another layer of oversight includes TYC's own Quality Assurance Monitors who are supposed to insure compliance with private contractors. Yet, it was these monitors -- four hired to oversee Coke County -- who were found to have serious conflict of interests that covered up the squalid conditions at the facility.

According to Hurley, the most worrying fact is that the on-site quality-assurance monitors had given the facility a clean bill of health. In his report, Harrell singled them out for criticism, writing, "With so many Q/A's assigned to this single facility, more than my staff for the entire state, why do these problems persist?"

Pope has promised at recent legislative hearings, that a review of the agency's contract monitoring system is underway. As this new information surfaces we will keep you informed.

T. Don Hutto will be on the Williamson County agenda (PDF) for next Tuesday's meeting. The county will be discussing the following items related to Hutto:

13. Discuss and take appropriate action on contractual relationships expressed in both the Inter-Governmental Service Agreement between the United States Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Williamson County, Texas and in the operation Agreement between Williamson County, Texas and Corrections Corporation of American concerning the T. Don Hutto Facility.

14. Discuss and take appropriate action on granting the United States Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authority to communicate directly with Corrections Corporation of American on specific matters relating to the T. Don Hutto Residential Facility.

Public comments will be taken at the beginning of the meeting, starting at 9:30. In order to get a seat or a place on the public comment list, you probably want to show early. (Last time the item was discussed CCA bussed in a group of 40 employees at least an hour early to take up all the room's seats.)

The room should have more Hutto protesters this time around as Hutto Walk III is scheduled to end at the meeting. Check out Eye on Williamson for videos from the last time Williamson County took up the Hutto issue.

This morning's San Antonio Express News has an excellent story from reporter Hernán Rozemberg about the lack of mental health care in Texas private detention centers.

According to the article, cases of untreated mental illnesses are rampant in detention centers in south Texas. The story uses two separate cases from GEO Group's Pearsall detention center to make the case:

One was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The other was manic-depressive. But as far as the federal immigration detention system is concerned, the pair say, their illnesses were checked at the door.

The cases of two immigrants in South Texas reflect the systematic medical maltreatment detainees face across the country as the government rushes people in and out to save a buck by skipping treatment, said Javier Maldonado, a San Antonio immigration lawyer.

Maldonado is representing Miroslava Rodríguez Grava and Isaías Vásquez Cisneros, Mexican immigrants held at the South Texas Detention Complex, a 1,904-bed federal immigration prison in Pearsall.

The article also reveals that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an agency of the Organization of American States, will investigate conditions at detention centers in the U.S. this December, including CCA's infamous T. Don Hutto family detention center in Taylor.

According to the story:

The attention extends beyond U.S. borders. Florentín Meléndez, president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said he received U.S. approval this month to visit immigration prisons, including the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility near Austin, starting in December.

"It's really worrisome to see all these reports," Meléndez said by phone from El Salvador. "We're interested in making sure people are being treated well — they're human beings before they're illegals."

Hopefully, ICE won't turn away this international inspector as it did last spring with U.N. Rapporteur Jorge Bustamante last spring.