Family of MCC Chicago Prisoner Settles Wrongful Death Claim for $700,000
by Derek Gilna
Federal prisoner Habib Solebo entered the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Chicago, Illinois with a myriad of health problems despite his young age of 23, the most serious of which was a form of seizure disorder that ...
Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act Introduced with Broad Bipartisan Support
by Derek Gilna
According to its bipartisan sponsors, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123), introduced in the U.S. Senate on October 1, 2015, will have a major impact on the mandatory minimum sentencing regimen that has filled federal ...
Study Details States’ Abuses of Out-Of-State Prisoner Transfers to For-Profit Prisons
by Derek Gilna
The corrections industry maintains that one of its priorities is to help detainees maintain ties with their family and communities to assist them in reintegrating back into society after their release. However, a new study, by the non-partisan Grassroots Leadership Organization, has shown that the practice of interstate transfers to for-profit facilities is contrary to that goal. Currently over 10,500 state prisoners are confined from 450 to 3,000 miles from their home in for-profit institutions, according to the study, showing that making money trumps rehabilitation.
According to the report, “the interstate transfer of prisoners to for-profit private prisons across the U.S. impedes prisoner rehabilitation, diminishes prisoners’ ties to family and community, serves the interests of an industry that views prisoners as commodities, and perpetuates our nation’s mass incarceration crisis, compromising rather than enhancing the public good and public safety.” The study further notes that as incarceration has increased in the United States over the past few decades, the “for-profit prison industry (is) a significant, yet hidden, apparatus that perpetuates mass incarceration.”
Such out-of-state transfers of state prisoners are only one facet of the insidious influence of ...
GAO Report Faults BOP’s Lack of Budget Transparency
by Derek Gilna
A December 2013 General Accounting Office (GAO) report, faulting the lack of transparency in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) budget, shows that the agency spent $6.9 billion in the past year, and that over 95% of that budget was for “salaries and expenses” and less than 5% was for site planning, acquisition, repair of existing facilities, and construction of new facilities. Salaries and expenses have steadily increased since 2008, a result of the burgeoning prison population at the federal level.
Like other federal agencies, the BOP must prepare an annual congressional budget justification for its parent agency, the Department of Justice (DOJ), who then bundles the BOP requests into the larger agency budget. According to the GAO, which responds to requests from Congress, the agency “was asked to review BOP’s budget justifications.”
As part of that review, the GAO “assesses the extent to which opportunities exist to enhance the transparency of information in BOP’s budget justifications for congressional stakeholders and decision makers.” In short, the investigative agency is critical of BOP’s accounting practices for its failure to detail each specific program it administers, preventing intelligent oversight of the ...
Budget Constraints Force Ohio County to Move Female Prisoners
by Derek Gilna
The Lorain County, Ohio women’s detention center has fallen victim to the failed attempt of county officials to raise the sales tax to continue funding the separate facility. According to Lorain County Sheriff Bill Stammitti, the roughly 54 females will now be housed in a separate wing of the main county jail facility to conserve resources.
The budget for the jail is a little more than $12 million, and $4.9 million is allotted for road deputies. The Sheriff was not given the funds necessary to keep the separate women’s facility open without jeopardizing the rest of his operations, he said, adding “As long as you leave my deputy force in place, I can make do at the jail.”
The separate facility was made available on a yearly contractual basis with the city of Elyria, and Stammitti requested that the County Board give notice to the city of their intent not to renew the contract when it expires.
Stammitti noted that it was nice to have the separate facility, but that it often complicated medical care in emergencies. At the main jail, he noted, there is generally a nurse ...
Third Circuit Decision an “Enormous” Victory for the Wrongfully-Detained Undocumented
by Derek Gilna
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the case of Galarza v. Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, which ruled that local jails need only treat detainer requests by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) as non-binding “requests,” has cast doubt on ICE’s previously unchallenged ability to require local law enforcement agencies to hold undocumented individuals who were otherwise eligible to be released. That decision let stand a complaint for monetary damages filed on behalf of Ernesto Galarza, a U.S. citizen born in New Jersey being held on drug charges, by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against Lehigh County.
Galarza, who had posted bail for the state charge and was eligible for release, was held an additional three days by the county as a result of an ICE detainer request; Galarza filed a Section 1983 request seeking damages for his wrongful detention. The district court dismissed his complaint, saying that the county was required to honor the detainer request, but the Court of Appeals rejected that decision and permitted the lawsuit to continue. Galarza lost a part-time job and wages as a result of the wrongful ...
New Hampshire Legislative Report Criticizes Prisoner Work Release Controls
by Derek Gilna
State legislatures nationwide, confronted with tight budgetary constraints, have demanded more efficiency out of the programs they fund, and New Hampshire is no exception. The Office of the New Hampshire Budget Assistant recently announced the results of a new audit criticizing the controls in effect to monitor the state prison system’s work release program.
Four transitional residential facilities in Concord and Manchester were examined in the audit, which noted that state prison officials had failed to institute performance-based controls to properly monitor whether the programs were performing their principal duty of reducing recidivism. As a result, the audit said, it was unable to determine whether or not the state’s financial resources were being used wisely.
Recently, many nonprofit organizations, including the non-partisan Pew Institute, have examined operating efficiencies in the nation’s prisons, and one area of focus has been the efficiency of work-release programs. Work release programs have been shown to be effective in reducing recidivism when properly administered and when prisoners have an opportunity to develop skills that will assist them in gaining and maintaining employment after their release from custody.
The New Hampshire Department of Corrections ...
Ohio Court Denies Habeas Challenge to Jail-Time Calculation and Double Jeopardy
by Derek Gilna
The Supreme Court of Ohio, in the case of Johnson v. Crutchfield, rejected an Ohio prisoner’s challenge to the calculation of his jail-time credits and his allegation that the aggregation of his sentences violates his protection against double-jeopardy. The court affirmed the decision of the Twelfth District Court of Appeals denying the habeas corpus petition of Ronald Johnson.
While on parole for an offense committed in Montgomery County, Johnson was arrested for several new crimes out of Fayette, Adams, and Highland counties, His parole in Montgomery County was revoked after the later arrests, but the revocation occurred after his newest convictions.
According to the court’s decision, “Johnson alleges that the time he spent incarcerated after his arrest on July 11, 2005, could be attributable only to the Fayette, Adams, and Highland County charges, and therefore he should have received jail-time credit up until the date of his last conviction in those counties.” Johnson also took issue with the Ohio Department of Correction’s aggregation of his “11-year sentence in Fayette, Adams, and Highland County with the 7-to-25 year sentence on the earlier Montgomery County conviction.” Johnson ...
Sixth Circuit Affirms Denial of Jail Nurse’s Qualified and Sovereign Immunity Defenses
by Derek Gilna
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio that denied Richland County Jail Nurse Jennifer McCune’s motion to dismiss. McCune asserted both qualified and sovereign immunity defenses to a lawsuit filed by the estate of deceased prisoner, Michael P. Reid. The Appellate Court found that McCune, chief nurse at the Mansfield, Ohio facility, had been “deliberately indifferent” to the needs of Reid, a pre-trial detainee, who died despite personally warning the defendant that he was prone to seizures if he was deprived of alcohol.
Reid, a chronic alcoholic, was arrested in February 2009 and charged with resisting arrest and violating his probation by consuming alcohol. On April 2, 2009, he was taken into custody by probation officers, who noted that Reid registered a blood-alcohol level of .349, over four-times the legal limit. Reid advised the arresting officers that he had a history of seizures when he stopped drinking and told them several times to make the jail personnel aware.”
During intake, McCune, a Licensed Practical Nurse, and a certified entry-level Emergency ...
Vermont Seeks to Improve Management of Prisoner Medical Costs
by Derek Gilna
Vermonters have a well-deserved reputation for fiscal responsibility, so it is no surprise that State Auditor Doug Hoffer’s 2013 audit report detailing spending on Vermont’s in-state prisoners was critical of a $4.2 million deficit, over the past three-year period, out of total budget of $49.1 million. With respect to outside contractor Correct Care Solutions (CCS), Hoffer noted that “cost monitoring was not robust during the earlier years of the contract, but has improved since late 2012.”
Vermont’s contract with the company calls for a “cost-plus management fee” method of reimbursement, which the auditor feels gives the contractor no incentive to reduce costs. He also pointed to several instances wherein state officials could have been more diligent in recovering medical reimbursement when prisoners were covered by other insurance programs or by Medicare or Medicaid. The audit turned up one example where CCS failed to bill Medicaid for a prisoner’s medical procedure which cost the state $84,000.
The report was noteworthy for another reason; it made clear that adequate medical care for prisoners was a priority for Vermont. Vermont Director of Corrections, Dr. Dee Burroughs Biron, said, “Maybe they have ...
