![]() ![]() The state prison mental health director is not a medical doctor, but a marriage and family therapist. Four out of five inmates in the prison receive psychiatric medication, but the facility has not had a psychiatrist since November. A scathing state report determined the riot was sparked by Management & Training’s “culture of disorganization, disengagement and disregard” of “policies and fundamental inmate management and security principles.”Īt East Mississippi, the prison designated by the state to hold mentally ill inmates, there was a glaring lack of oversight of inmate care, according to testimony. Shaw had previously been warden at an Arizona prison operated by Management & Training, where there was a riot in 2015. Shaw was asked about the variety of homemade objects used to commit assaults at the prison, he was dismissive. The warden said that he had been unaware of cases in which inmates had been so badly beaten that they required hospitalization, and that he had not disciplined guards who failed to ensure that inmates were unable to jam door locks and leave their cells. Shaw, the warden - who works for Management & Training, not for the state - receives incentives for staying within budget, but is not penalized when inmates die under questionable circumstances or when fires damage the prison. Trial testimony has presented a radically different picture. Our mission is to help these men make choices in prison and after they’re released that will lead to a new and successful life in society.” “From the warden on down, our staff are trained to treat the men in our care with dignity and respect. “We can say - unequivocally - that the facility is safe, secure, clean, and well run,” Issa Arnita, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement released during the trial. ![]() Lawyers for the state and representatives of Management & Training say prisons are meant to be tough environments, and that East Mississippi is no worse than most others. ![]() And having too few doctors and nurses meant that inmates with mental illnesses were also more likely to act out violently. Vail said that with too few guards to maintain order, inmates felt compelled to protect themselves with crudely made knives and other weapons, prompting a chain of retaliatory violence. “There are not a sufficient number of correctional officers, and most of their problems stem from that issue,” he said. That is far less than the $15,000 a year neighboring Alabama spends per inmate, and only 13 percent of what New York, which spends more than any other state, pays per inmate.Ĭalled as an expert witness for the Mississippi inmates, Eldon Vail, the former state prisons chief in Washington State, told the court that the focus on cutting costs had sent East Mississippi into a downward spiral. Mississippi pays the company just $26 a day - or about $9,500 a year - for each minimum-security inmate. The state’s contract with Management & Training Corporation is particularly economical. Security staff at East Mississippi earn even less than the $12-an-hour starting wage made by their public service counterparts, and private prison guards receive only three weeks of training - less than half the training time required of state prison guards. Testimony has described dangerous conditions, confused lines of oversight and difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified staff. The federal civil rights lawsuit, filed against the state by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center after years of complaints from inmates, seeks to force wholesale changes at the prison. Even at its state-run institutions, Mississippi spends significantly less on prisoners than most states, a fact that state officials once boasted about. The genesis of the problems at East Mississippi, according to prisoner advocates, is that the state requires private prisons to operate at 10 percent lower cost than state-run facilities. Since 2000, the number of people housed in privately operated prisons in the nation has increased by 45 percent, while the total number of prisoners has risen by only about 10 percent, according to an analysis by the Sentencing Project. Prisons are usually among the most expensive budget items for states. But more than two dozen other states, including Mississippi, contract with privately managed prison companies as a way to reduce costs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |