This bunch is like just another employment agency - gouging, kidkbacks - 22 million dollalr proft mentioned here and do not think there arenot kickbacks. So they are comprised of former CIA on the board maybe, but they seem to hired mercenaries do they not who in turn mistreat prisoners. When the Watergate Bunch got caught they went to gentlemen prison......yet this same vicious lot it appears, now condones abuse of prisoners many of whom are younger men .... I do not like this bunch but look how they use big names to get their foot in door........ Saba Prison operator hit with abuse charges, violence at other sites. Sunday, April 30, 2000 BALDWIN -- A former kitchen worker at the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility is under investigation by state police for allegedly having sex with at least one young inmate. Detective Sgt. George Pratt, of the Reed City post, said he is investigating allegations against the woman, who no longer works at the prison. He refused to provide details, including how many inmates allegedly were involved. The 33-year-old woman was one of the original employees of the prison when it opened in July, said Warden Dave Trippett. He said she left in December. "She resigned from us before we would have dismissed her," he said. Trippett said he's aware of allegations of sexual misconduct with one teen-age inmate. A prison employee who has consensual sex with an inmate can be charged with fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a high misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of two years in prison. Trippett said the investigation was dropped at first. "I think the prisoner said something after he left here. That's why the Michigan State Police picked it up again," he said. Guards and former guards told The Press the allegations involved two inmates. Former guard Stephanie Striker said she was ordered to search cells in her pod for tobacco before she quit in October. A lieutenant told her they were investigating allegations that a kitchen worker was trading tobacco for sexual favors, she said. She said she found tobacco four or five times in cells, mostly in a cell shared by two prisoners who worked in the kitchen. Neither Pratt nor the warden said they were aware of the allegations involving tobacco, which is not allowed in the prison. Prison operator hit with abuse charges, violence at other sites. Sunday, April 30, 2000 A month after Wackenhut Corrections Corp. of Florida opened Michigan's first private prison, the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility near Bald-win, riots were breaking out at one of its prisons in New Mexico. On Aug. 31, nearly 300 inmates rioted at the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility in Santa Rosa, N.M., leading to the stabbing death of a rookie guard. It took more than 100 officers from across New Mexico to quell the violence. Former FBI agent George Wackenhut founded Wackenhut Corp. in 1954 in Miami as a private investigation service. He launched Wackenhut Corrections in 1984, at a time when prison crowding was forcing states to release inmates early. The company, now based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., is the nation's second-largest private prison operator, behind Corrections Corp. of America. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WHC. Wackenhut has 33 prisons in the United States and six more abroad, more than 38,000 beds and 8,000 employees. Those prisons helped the company earn nearly $22 million in profits last year. But the profits come with a cost: -- In New Mexico, about a week before the riot, an inmate at the same prison was watching television when he was beaten to death with a laundry bag full of rocks. Three inmates have been stabbed to death since late 1998 at the company's other prison in New Mexico. Wackenhut blamed the violence on flaws in the state's prison system, including the way it sends violent, maximum-security prisoners into Wackenhut's medium-security prisons. Also in New Mexico, a class-action lawsuit filed against Wackenhut claims mentally ill inmates have been gassed, beaten and, in one case, marched naked down public hallways in the company's prisons in Hobbs and Santa Rosa. The state corrections secretary called allegations in the lawsuit a "complete exaggeration." -- In Texas, a grand jury in December indicted a dozen former Wackenhut employees at the Travis County Community Justice Center prison in East Austin on charges ranging from rape to sexual harassment of 16 female inmates. By that time, the state had removed the prison's 106 female inmates, taken over the prison from Wackenhut and cracked down on the smuggling of contraband. A former guard at the East Austin prison filed a federal lawsuit in September, claiming he was fired for ordering an employee to videotape abuse of an inmate by a guard. -- In Louisiana, a U.S. Department of Justice report released in February found that guards at Wackenhut's Jena Juvenile Justice Center near New Orleans habitually used excessive force and abused, mistreated and humiliated young inmates. During the prison's first year, 125 employees, mostly guards, were fired for having sexual relationships with inmates, excessive use of force, smuggling contraband into prison and falsifying documents. The report blamed many of the problems on staff turnover, poor training and the facility's remote location. A Wackenhut spokesman said the Department of Justice report exaggerated the prison's problems, but the state of Louisiana earlier this month took control of the prison, and the company has agreed to sweeping changes. A judge in March ordered a 17-year-old inmate removed from the New Orleans prison after allegations that guards abused him. The inmate was wearing a colostomy bag in May 1999 when a guard knelt on his back, "forcing five to six inches of intestines" into the colostomy bag. The boy spent six days in the infirmary. The judge called the prison "unsafe, violent and inhumane." -- In Europe, the company's Doncaster national prison in the United Kingdom had one of the highest suicide rates in the country. Since 1997, six prisoners have hanged themselves. The company also was criticized for failures at its Lowdham Grange Prison in Scotland, including 20 assaults on staff and others. Wackenhut and a United Kingdom company run the prison under the name Premier Prison Service. Publications |Clearinghouse |Commentary |Contact Us |Programs |Links |News |Search The Justice Policy Institute is a project of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice © 1999, 2000. 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