Public Concerns

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Youngstown Ohio Mayor George McKelvey tells about one escape, "I guess an inmate tapped the guard on the shoulder and said, I want to tell you something.". The guard said "So what do you want to tell me?" The inmate replied "Well, there's a big hole in the fence, and six inmates are gone." The mayor added "you know, if I didn't laugh, I'd cry. This could have been the largest prison break in the history of the United States. There were more than 200 inmates in that yard who could have gone through that hole, because the guards, nobody knows where they were. Now, that's incompetence."(1).

In La Villa Texas six inmates escaped from a private prison. This prison has repeatedly violated state standards according to the Texas prison board eight days after the escape, inspectors found, the prison employed too few guards adding an unauthorized number of bunks and keeping unlicensed guards on the payroll(2).

Nashville law enforcement officer Sgt. Mark Chesnut is suing CCA for negligence in the escape of Joseph Jackson Jr.'s escape of an offsite doctors visit (3 ). Officer Chesnut was shot multiple times when he stopped a rental vehicle containing Courtney Logan and Joseph Jackson Jr. who escaped from CCA's Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood, Miss. CCA denies that the arm guard went for her cell phone instead of her gun and the that Mr. Jackson had prior knowledge of his doctors visit or he had cell phone to use in planning his escape (4 ).

The Texas Youth Commission (TYC) fired three monitors for not reporting for reporting dangerous and filthy conditions of a private prison their were in charge of overseeing. Another thing they use to work for the private prisons they were hired to oversee. Two were hired directly from GEO the company, a third had worked briefly for GEO four years before being hired(5 ).

The Pahokee Youth Development Center in Florida is a political machine. Starting in 1994 Correctional services donated $140,000 to political campaigns, they hired three Tallahassee lobbyist, and put Pahokee's mayor on the company payroll (6 ).

In 2006 Alaska State Representative Tom Anderson was indicted for taking bribes from a private prison contractor that is believed to be Cornell Companies Inc.(7 ).

Texas State Rep. Jerry Madden and Texas State Sen. John Whitmire are co-chairmen of the special legislative committee that was established to oversee reforms of Texas Youth Commission. Both received donations from GEO Group Inc. The Texas Youth Commission is in charge of contracting with and overseeing GEO (8 ).