Prisoners At Indiana’s “Speedway Slammer” Settle Conditions Suits for $1.2 Million, Whistleblower Alleges Staff Mistreatment
by Chuck Sharman
In April 2026, just a month after a former guard came forward with allegations of staff mistreatment at Indiana’s Miami Correctional Facility (MCF), the state Department of Correction (DOC) agreed to pay $1.2 million to 31 prisoners who alleged that they were held in depraved conditions at the 3,188-bed lockup.
The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), whose attorneys represented the prisoners in their suits, said that details of the agreements were confidential. But the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana for lead plaintiff Jeremy Blanchard outlined allegations describing how then-Warden William Wyatte held him for weeks on end in a “dark cell”—solitary confinement without any lighting.
Blanchard said that the only window was covered with sheet metal and the only light bulb in his cell was broken during the entire month he remained there in September and October 2020. In fact, the only light at all glowed from the screen of his prison-issued tablet. While out of the cell to shower—a 15-minute break from the darkness every four or five days—he completed a grievance form. In denying it, Dep. Warden George Payne, Jr. replied that a previous prisoner had broken the cell window, and the DOC had “no money” to replace it with anything but the metal sheet.
As Blanchard paced the tiny, darkened space, his body became bruised from repeated collisions with the metal toilet or bunk. The extended sensory deprivation robbed him of his appetite, and he was beset by pounding headaches as his blood sugar, already lowered by hypoglycemia, fell even further. Other prisoners complained that their “dark cells” flooded with sewage backups, drawing swarms of biting insects that they couldn’t even see to swat. No details were provided as to how the $1.2 million settlement was split among the 31 prisoners, nor how much went to their ACLU attorneys. See: Blanchard v. Hyatte, USDC (N.D. Ind.), Case No. 3:21-cv-00160.
The settlement came just a few weeks after an unusually frank report from former guard Sgt. Zandra Parker, who told WIBC in Indianapolis that she and other staffers were left to work without pepper spray, a radio or a duty belt. Parker said that she didn’t even get a uniform for the first 30 days, which she worked in her street clothes. It took a year for the DOC to provide a safety vest, she added. Rapid staff turnover shortened her wait for promotion to sergeant from two years to just six months, but a lack of training left her feeling “thrown to the wolves” with a just dozen unarmed new recruits. She also accused high-ranking prison officials of sexual harassment and said that complaints she filed were intercepted and quashed. She finally quit when the stress put her on suicide watch, she said. Neither MCF nor the DOC responded to requests for comment from WIBC.
Under a 2025 agreement, the state has spent $22 million so far to divert up to 1,000 MCF beds to hold detainees for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, promptly gave MCF a swaggering new nickname: the “Speedway Slammer.” But they’ve also paid about $2 million less than the state has spent, DOC Commissioner Lloyd Arnold told state lawmakers in June 2026. Arnold qualified his testimony with his opinion that the DOC was “already in the black” because ICE was paying $291 per day for each of some 600 detainees currently housed at the prison, reimbursing some fixed operating costs that otherwise wouldn’t have been covered.
Two detainees have died in custody in 2026. Not coincidentally, an Indianapolis Star investigation found, the DOC stopped fining private healthcare contractor Centurion LLC for understaffing, after levying $22 million in such fines between 2022 and 2025. U.S. Rep. Andre Carson (D-Indianapolis) issued a statement on August 26, calling for the DOC to end its agreement with ICE, after acting ICE Director David Venturella admitted that Centurion failed to deliver nearly 20% of detainee medication doses—804 out of 4,046—in April alone. Venturella also said that the lockup was scheduled for its first compliance inspection in mid-September.
Additional sources: Indiana Capital Chronicle, Indianapolis Star, WIBC
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login