ID & TX: "they basically put us down here and just dumped us"
From the Seattle P-I:
Suicide shows squalid conditions in privately run Texas prison
After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters, describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was serving time for molesting a child. Then Payne used a razor blade to slice two 3-inch gashes in his throat...
Payne's suicide on March 4 came seven months after he was sent to the squalid privately run Texas prison by Idaho authorities trying to ease inmate overcrowding in their own state. His death exposed what had been Idaho's standard practice for dealing with inmates sent to out-of-state prisons: Out of sight, out of mind...
Link via Randy Stapilus' Ridenbaugh Press:
Idaho behind bars
Some years back, when Idaho started getting into the business of outsourcing prisoner control to private contractors, we predicted that investigative scandal stories would be on their way, the only question being how long that would take. Took a little longer than we thought...
1 Comment:
Please excuse the anonymous post -- but I legitimately fear retaliation if this were posted with my name.
There is no reason to believe private prisons treat their inmates any worse than government run prisons do.
The real difference is that when this sort of thing happens in a government prison, it gets hushed up and nobody gets punished -- because not only do police have near-total immunity for anything they may do while on duty, they also have a monopoly on prosecuting crimes.
California's Pelican Bay, Folsom, and other facilities have had abuse scandals in the last few years -- one of which involved guards staging fights between inmates. Nothing was done because the correctional officers' union puts more money into elections for governor than anybody can match.
Post a Comment