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Group 4 warns Port Phillip staff

Group 4 has sent its staff at Port Phillip Prison, near Melbourne, a letter warning them that they could be sued for leaking information considered harmful to management.  The letter was sent just weeks before the Victoria Government announced it would be reviewing procedures following a series of deaths in custody at Port Phillip and in a publicly run prison (see PPRI #15-23). Staff are urged to “indemnify us [the company] against any loss or damage” caused by secret information being released.

The Community and Public Sector Union, which represents Port Phillip staff, regards the letter as an  attempt to intimidate. It has recommended that its members to do not sign any such undertaking. Employment contracts already contain confidentiality clauses.

Group 4 director Mr Tony Wood told The Weekend Australian that the intention of the letter was “merely to prevent the unauthorised leaking of information.  It is not to prevent staff assisting with legitimate inquiries.”  He added that management had been angered by a series of leaks from the prison. Any staff found to be spreading “malicious” information would face disciplinary action and possible instant dismissal.

Mr Wood said that Group 4 “would provide evidence to any impartial, objective review into the policies and procedures applied in the prison system for the care of prisoners.”

The review, which will take several months to complete, has been criticised by the Opposition corrections spokesperson, Mr Andre Haermeyer. He argues that there should be an open inquiry with power to subpoena witnesses and grant immunity.

 

 

UNITED NATIONS

Annual reports commissioned

    The UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (see PPRI #10 and 20) agreed in August that an annual report on prison privatisation should be prepared for its consideration.  Although there is no budget (other than internal administrative resources) for gathering information, the Cuban representative, Mr Miguel Alfonso Martinez, is to “submit to the Working Group [on the administration of justice] an annual update on the privatisation of prisons...”

    The Sub-Commission’s decision falls short of the original request for a full inquiry but it ensures that the issue remains in focus.

    Mr Martinez first raised the issue for investigation by the UN over ten years ago. A feasibility study into further research was commissioned and a report  was considered in 1993. But since then, attempts to have this work developed have been stymied.

    The criteria for Mr Martinez’s report will include:

n the legality in international human rights law of privatisation of prisons or contracted out management;

n  if such privatisation is permissible, the extent to, and conditions upon, which particular functions can be sub-delegated to private contractors;

n whether a set of UN standards should be developed;

n what detailed safeguards should be specified in any standards as being minimal and/or advisable;

n what is the most appropriate way of ensuring monitoring by UN human rights bodies.

    The first report must be finalised in May 1999 for consideration the following August.

    To send information to Mr Martinez or for more details, contact: Mr Jean-Paul Rivière, Human Rights Officer, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Palais de Nations, CH-1211, Geneva 10, Switzerland. Tel: ++ 41 22 917 4116. Fax: ++ 41 22 917 4116. Email: jpriviere.hchr@unog.ch

In the US, murder, violence, escapes, and staff abuse have cast a pall over for-profit prisons, says Jamie Fellner, associate counsel for Human Rights Watch in Washington.  She argues that, as criminal justice systems lie at the core of government power, they should be guided by public values and community goals of justice and human rights.

Private prison enthusiasts have insisted the private sector can operate safe and humane prisons - and can do so more efficiently and cheaply than the public sector.  Seduced by such promises, desperate to house burgeoning prison populations, eager for jobs and encouraged by well-financed lobbying efforts, 35 states have accepted private prisons as a corrections option.  Approximately 100,000 adults are currently confined in 142 for-profit secure adult correctional facilities across the country. In a country with the second highest rate of incarceration in the world, the potential for private prison growth has seemed unlimited.

Recent events, however, are prompting growing concern about what critics have called “dungeons for dollars.”  In less than a year there have been two murders and thirteen stabbings at one private prison in Youngstown, Ohio, housing inmates from the District of Columbia.  Six violent inmates, including four murderers, escaped this July, stunning the town which had been assured the facility held only medium security inmates.

In Texas, the state with the most privately operated jails, prisoners allege mistreatment ranging from beatings and the abusive use of stun guns and pepper spray to stingy meals, lousy sanitation, exorbitant commissary prices and non-existent educational programmes. 

In July, four guards from one such jail were indicted on federal criminal charges for an assault in which inmates were kicked, bitten by police dogs and gassed.  Dangerous conditions at another privately run Texas jail prompted the federal Department of Justice to conclude in June that the facility  violated inmates’ constitutional rights with respect to security and safety. For example, half of the guards had not completed the basic training course. Only 18 per cent had received use of force training. And these were guards supervising violent felons.

The most appalling cases of abuse have occurred at privately operated facilities for troubled youth:

n Young boys held in a South Carolina detention facility managed by the country’s largest corrections company were hogtied: wrists handcuffed behind the back, ankles shackled and then handcuffs and shackles chained or tied together. The youths also complain staff sprayed them with pepper gas and used larger inmates as “enforcers” who would threaten and beat up younger boys;

n The staff of a private facility in Texas run by the country’s second largest corrections company had intercourse with, fondled and ogled young girls in their care. Educational and counselling services were also lacking.

n Sex between boys and staff, physical abuse and the suicide of a 13 year old caused the state to pull the licence this year of a privately run youth facility in Colorado;

n The company whose staff abused immigration detainees in New Jersey in 1995, operates a youth facility in Florida in which boys have been locked in empty cells for days for minor rules infractions, physically abused by staff and beaten up by older youth with staff encouragement. A visiting judge was so appalled by what he saw, he ordered that some youths should be removed.

n Staff at a facility in Louisiana have whipped, beaten, hit, slapped, stomped, choked, and scratched juveniles, and sprayed mace on them for refusing to shave or for staying in bed too long. In July 1998, state officials took over management of the facility.

All prisons, public or privately operated, have the potential for violence and abuse.  But the risk may be aggravated when punishment is for profit, when a corporate eye on the bottom line prompts cost-cutting measures that jeopardise inmate and community safety.  In the above cases, abuses developed because staff were too few, poorly trained and inadequately supervised.

Abuse in for-profit facilities is also the result of lax government supervision. States retain full legal responsibility for inmates and for ensuring their rights are protected whether they place them in public or privately run prisons.  They cannot simply hand off excess prisoners to private operators, heave a sigh of relief and turn away.

But that is just what some states have done. They have failed to enact laws setting proper standards and regulatory mechanisms for private prisons. State corrections agencies have signed weak contracts, undertaken insufficient monitoring and tolerated prolonged substandard conditions.  As Colorado officials acknowledged, they lowered their expectations and went too long “not being tough enough” on the operator of an abusive youth prison because they needed its beds.

        Even if all private prisons were safe, secure and humane - as many no doubt are - the question remains whether they are a good idea. Should governments place implementation of criminal sentences with private companies?  Are not prisons a public function that should remain in public hands?

Unlike the delivery of utilities or garbage collection, for example, the confinement of individuals involves fundamental human rights. Prison staff make daily discretionary decisions that control every moment of an inmate’s life - from where s/he can go, who s/he can talk to and what s/he can do, to whether and how s/he should be punished for breaking prison rules. Should those decisions be made by employees serving stockholders?

Criminal justice systems lie at the core of government power. They should be guided by public values and community goals of justice and human rights.  Private prisons are thus as troubling from the perspective of ethics and good governance as privatised courts or police would be.  Justice and punishment should not be for sale.

 

CCA sued for $110m

     The widow of Bryson Chisley, a  prisoner murdered  at CCA’s Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Ohio on 11 March 1998, is suing the company for $110m (see PPRI #18, 19 and 23).

Ms India Chisley alleges that CCA staff were not adequately trained and did not protect her husband. The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, also claims that the District wrongly sent maximum security prisoners to CCA’s medium security prison. Mr Chisley, a medium security prisoner was killed by a maximum security prisoner.

n A legal attempt by CCA to stop lawyer Alphonse Gerhardstein and a client at Northeast Ohio Correctional Center from publicly criticising the prison was turned down by a federal judge in August. Mr Gerhardstein is representing prisoners in a class action lawsuit against the company. CCA claimed that public comments undermined their right to a fair trial.

 

Tennessee appoints advisors

    The State of Tennessee will not consider privatisation in the next legislative year (see PPRI #11,16 and 20). Instead, it will appoint a Prison Privatisation Advisory Council to determine whether there could be savings and to resolve public safety concerns.  The Governor, however, has stated that he is still committed to privatisation.

    Corrections Corporation of America  originally backed a Bill to privatise the whole of the State’s system. Since then, concerns over some of  CCA’s operations, and the fact that comparative costs between public and privately run prisons in Tennessee are similar, have helped fuel an anti-privatisation campaign by the Tennessee State Employees Association.

 

Civigenics loses contract  

    Civigenics Inc of Massachusetts is to have its contract to run a 100 bed prison for Teller County, Colorado, terminated on 15 February 1999.

    Two suicides, an escape and general dissatisfaction with the company’s operation over the last two years have  led county officials to end the contract, despite having signed a five year contract extension last May.

 

Trouble at Lea County

    The associate warden and two lieutenants  have resigned from Wackenhut’s Lea County Correctional Facility at Hobbs, New Mexico.

    This follows an internal investigation into an incident in which a prisoner was assaulted.

    The State has also sent some 20 correctional officers and administrators into the prison where there were three stabbing incidents within five days at the end of August 1998. The State officials are to oversee the training of Wackenhut staff. Areas of concern include record keeping, performing shakedowns in cells and dealing with gangs.

    The prison currently holds around 570 prisoners but will eventually hold 1,200 on completion.

 

More corporate concentration

    Correctional Services Corporation (CSC, see PPRI # 3,14 and 21) is to acquire Youth Services International Inc (YSI). CSC’s 1997 revenues were $58.6m while YSI’s were $108.1m. The combined company would make CSC dominant in private juvenile detention services in the US.

 

Ways of the web

    One of the pre-conference workshops at September’s Third Annual Privatizing Correctional Facilities event in New York, (see PPRI #6,12 and 21) was on ‘The Internet, Its Role in Corrections and Privatisation’.

    The topics included: how to locate facility construction reports, privatisation statistics and Wall Street updates; learning to use discussion forums, chat rooms and bulletin boards to network with key industry managers worldwide; evaluating the future of privatisation and the internet including real time online bidding and procurement, virtual spec houses and online international corrections conferences; and how to promote projects and services to thousands of corrections administrators, industry executives and investors.

    PPRI’s very first attempt at logging on discovered a chat room for investors in Corrections Corporation of America and CCA Prison Realty Trust.

    Note this from one contributor: “I am looking forward to becoming a part of PZN [Stock Exchange code for CCA’s Prison Realty Trust]. As a shareholder I have learned that owning the prison is far less controversial (in the public’s eye) than managing it. The way I see it, we pay pennies for the land, build the prison, and charge premium rates for room and board. Economic decline increases occupancy and demand for facilities. If you have to own a REIT, prison REITS frankly just appear ideal.” Join in the chat at http://biz.yahoo.com/n/c/cca.html

 

What do we really know?

    In an (as yet) unpublished paper by two researchers in the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Office of Research and Evaluation, the authors argue that attempts so far to compare private and public prisons have been too simplistic and the wrong questions have been asked.

    In calling for “nothing short of a comprehensive theory of prison performance” the authors assert that “for the most part, proponents of privatisation make global, unsubstantiated, speculative claims which are rarely addressed with concrete evidence”.

    Even though they fall into the same trap by suggesting that privatisation in the UK and Australia has “... improved the overall operations of the prison systems in these countries,” this paper is a useful basis for  further discussion on comparisons and the “philosophical or political notions about the proper role of government”.

Private Adult Prisons: What Do We Really Know and Why Don’t We Know More?  by Scott Camp and Gerald Gaes, Office of Research and Evaluation, 400 Building, Room 3025, 320 First Street, NW, Washington DC 20523. Tel: ++1 202 307 3871, Fax: ++1 202 307 5888. Email:scamp@bop.gov

 

 

AUSTRALIA  

Wackenhut’s latest contract

    Wackenhut’s subsidiary Australasian Correctional Management Pty (ACM) has won a contract worth US$1.7m per year to manage the 80 bed Melbourne Custody Centre for the Victoria Police Department. The company expects to start running the centre during the first quarter of 1999.

 

Another hanging

    Prisoner Paula Richardson was found hanging from a shower curtain  at Corrections Corporation of Australia’s Metropolitan Women’s Prison on 11 September 1998. She was the first prisoner to commit suicide and the second to die since the prison opened in 1996.

    The Federation of Community Legal Centres and other organisations have called on the Victoria government to include the prison in the recently launched inquiry into deaths in custody (see PPRI #23).

    Applications under the Freedom of Information Act for reports on the numbers of attempted suicides and other incidents of self harm that have occurred at CCA’s prison have been denied on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.

 

Death at Junee

    A convicted sex offender was beaten to death on 17 September 1998, less than a week after he was transferred to Junee Correctional Centre in New South Wales. He had previously spent several months in custody at publicly run facilities. Another Junee prisoner has been charged with the death. Junee is run by Australasian Correctional Management (Wackenhut).

 

Lockheed again

    High-tech weapons systems companies have made another move into criminal justice services.  LMT Australia, jointly owned by American firm Lockheed Martin IMS (see PPRI # 7) and Victorian-based Tenix Defence Systems, is to take over the State Government’s fine collections service. The company will also replace police in the operation of  roadside speed and red light cameras and deal with toll evaders on a new highway network. According to the Government, “only administrative and information technology functions are being outsourced - such as traffic camera operation, printing and mailing, receipting, correspondence, telephone enquiries and address verification.”

 

 

UNITED KINGDOM  

Prison doesn’t work but...

    The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee has reported that the huge rise in prison population during the last five years is unsustainable and that credible alternatives to custody should be used where appropriate. It concluded that: “Prison will always be necessary for the most dangerous and/or persistent criminals, but it must be closely targeted on them, with other offenders given non-custodial sentences which are effective and in which sentencers and the public have confidence.

The Committee made over 40 recommendations to enhance the effectiveness and credibility of community sentences. But it did not call for a halt to existing plans for new private prisons. Alternatives to Prison Sentences, Home Affairs Committee, Third Report, HC Paper 486, Session 1997-98, London, The Stationery Office.

n Four electronic tagging contracts for the Government’s Home Detention Curfew Scheme are to be awarded to Securicor, Premier Prison Services Ltd (Wackenhut and Serco) and General Security Services Corporation.

Under the scheme, at the end of their sentence selected short term prisoners will spend up to two months in the community but subject to an electronically monitored curfew.