The Dirty 30 | #13 Columbia Training Center Juvenile Abuse
October 21, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles
In 2013, Corrections Corporation of America is "celebrating" its thirtieth anniversary. We believe there is nothing to celebrate about 30 years of profiting off of incarceration. In response Grassroots Leadership and Public Safety and Justice Campaign published "The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About Thirty Years of Corrections Corporation of America," a list of thirty stories that exhibit the most troubling aspects of the company's history. Each week we'll highlight one of these stories. Click here to view the full report. Printed copies are available in limited quanitity. For more information please contact Kymberlie Quong Charles.

The Columbia Training Center was renovated from a mental health treatment center into a juvenile detention facility in the 1990s. Originally run by Rebound, it was intended to hold young offenders temporarily until they could be placed in a wilderness treatment program. [1] In 1996, the state decided to end its contract with Rebound and instead rely on Corrections Corporation of America to manage the facility. CCA took control in June; by August, seven young people incarcerated there had escaped (all were recaptured). CCA blamed the building, saying that it was never meant to house 400 people.
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The Dirty 30 | #11 Fines, Failures and Scandal: Chased Out Of Australia
October 8, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles
In 2013, Corrections Corporation of America is "celebrating" its thirtieth anniversary. We believe there is nothing to celebrate about 30 years of profiting off of incarceration. In response Grassroots Leadership and Public Safety and Justice Campaign published "The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About Thirty Years of Corrections Corporation of America," a list of thirty stories that exhibit the most troubling aspects of the company's history. Each week we'll highlight one of these stories. Click here to view the full report. Printed copies are available in limited quanitity. For more information please contact Kymberlie Quong Charles.
CCA’s global aspirations were also focused on the Australian market where, in 1989, the company formed the joint venture, Corrections Corporation of Australia Pty. Ltd. CCA again earned itself further distinction internationally, this time in the state of Victoria, as the only private prison operator to have had a government buy out its contracts due to failure.

CC Australia made significant inroads into the prison market and was awarded several management contracts including one in December 1994 to finance, design, build and operate Melbourne’s 125-bed Metropolitan Women’s Correctional Center (MWCC). The prison opened in August 1996 despite large anti-privatization protests. It was only a month before concerns were raised about safety standards, working conditions and substantially decreased salary levels in comparison to the public sector.[1] MWCC was plagued by a catalogue of failures under CC Australia’s management including documented reports by the Federation of Community Legal Centers (FCLC) of the brutalization of a remand and protection prisoner, the widespread prevalence of drugs, the denial of adequate clothing and access to medical treatment to women at the center, as well as allegations that women were subjected to humiliating strip searches.[2] The FCLC also quoted media reports that CC Australia was attempting to escape government penalization by covering up incidents of abuse.
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The Dirty 30 | #9 Tax Loopholes and Avoidance
September 16, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles
In 2013, Corrections Corporation of America is "celebrating" its thirtieth anniversary. We believe there is nothing to celebrate about 30 years of profiting off of incarceration. In response Grassroots Leadership and Public Safety and Justice Campaign published "The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About Thirty Years of Corrections Corporation of America," a list of thirty stories that exhibit the most troubling aspects of the company's history. Each week we'll highlight one of these stories. Click here to view the full report. Printed copies are available in limited quanitity. For more information please contact Kymberlie Quong Charles.
It is of little surprise how often Corrections Corporation of America - a private corporation invested in maximizing its profit margins as much as possible - has made efforts to avoid paying taxes. Several cases have brought CCA’s attempts at tax avoidance to light. In 1998, CCA was sued by the Cleveland Independent School District in Texas after the company failed to pay its stipulated local taxes, reducing its $180,000 tax payment by $100,000 without prior permission. CCA settled the case, agreeing to pay $300,000 in outstanding tax payments before pulling out of its contract to operate the Cleveland Pre-Release Center. Meanwhile, at CCA’s Leavenworth Detention Center in Kansas, the company filed a property tax protest with the county in February 1998, arguing that the prison’s tax status should be reclassified as residential rather than commercial. CCA’s request was denied, with Kansas State Representative Candy Ruff commenting, “They’re located in a for-profit industrial park surrounded by for-profit enterprises. They’ve got these bars on the windows. They’ve got barbed wire on top of the fence, and they want to say they’re a residence? Give me a break.”[1]
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The Dirty 30 - #8 “Gold Star” Accreditation and “Impartial” Research
September 9, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles
In 2013, Corrections Corporation of America is "celebrating" its thirtieth anniversary. We believe there is nothing to celebrate about 30 years of profiting off of incarceration. In response Grassroots Leadership and Public Safety and Justice Campaign published "The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About Thirty Years of Corrections Corporation of America," a list of thirty stories that exhibit the most troubling aspects of the company's history. Each week we'll highlight one of these stories. Click here to view the full report. Printed copies are available in limited quanitity. For more information please contact Kymberlie Quong Charles.
Throughout its history, CCA has claimed to uphold high operational standards, using both American Correctional Association (ACA) accreditation and a small body of research literature to demonstrate the advantages of prison privatization. What CCA fails to mention is the repeatedly exposed financial exchanges and close ties between the company and so-called impartial analysts.

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The Dirty 30 | #7 - Denial and Death: Cutting Operational Costs Through Basic Medical Care
September 3, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles
In 2013, Corrections Corporation of America is "celebrating" its thirtieth anniversary. We believe there is nothing to celebrate about 30 years of profiting off of incarceration. In response Grassroots Leadership and Public Safety and Justice Campaign published "The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About Thirty Years of Corrections Corporation of America," a list of thirty stories that exhibit the most troubling aspects of the company's history. Each week we'll highlight one of these stories. Click here to view the full report. Printed copies are available in limited quanitity. For more information please contact Kymberlie Quong Charles.
Over the course of its history, Corrections Corporation of America’s failure to provide adequate medical care to people in prisons has been called into question far too often. Rather than fulfilling its original promise of raising standards in corrections, the frequency of allegations of poor medical care belies the extent to which CCA shirks providing necessary medical attention in even the direst of situations.
CCA was hit with its first major lawsuit in 1988 when the company was accused of failing to provide adequate medical care to pregnant 23-year-old Rosalind Bradford. Bradford was held in CCA’s Silverdale facility in Tennessee, where she died from pregnancy complications. A shift supervisor later testified that Bradford had suffered in agony for at least twelve hours before staff agreed for her transferal to a hospital. The supervisor said in a deposition, “Rosalind Bradford died out there, in my opinion, of criminal neglect.”[1] CCA agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by her family.
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The Dirty 30 | #6 - Riots Spiral Out of Control
August 26, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles
In 2013, Corrections Corporation of America is "celebrating" its thirtieth anniversary. We believe there is nothing to celebrate about 30 years of profiting off of incarceration. In response Grassroots Leadership and Public Safety and Justice Campaign published "The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About Thirty Years of Corrections Corporation of America," a list of thirty stories that exhibit the most troubling aspects of the company's history. Each week we'll highlight one of these stories. Click here to view the full report. Printed copies are available in limited quanitity. For more information please contact Kymberlie Quong Charles.

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The Dirty 30 | #5 - A Testament to Ineptitude: Escapes and Mistaken Releases
August 19, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles
In 2013, Corrections Corporation of America is "celebrating" its thirtieth anniversary. We believe there is nothing to celebrate about 30 years of profiting off of incarceration. In response Grassroots Leadership and Public Safety and Justice Campaign published "The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About Thirty Years of Corrections Corporation of America," a list of thirty stories that exhibit the most troubling aspects of the company's history. Each week we'll highlight one of these stories. Click here to view the full report. Printed copies are available in limited quanitity. For more information please contact Kymberlie Quong Charles.

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Trending: Mass Incarceration, For-Profit Private Prisons & the Rise of Immigration Detention
May 30, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles

Three trends – the mass incarceration paradigm, private for-profit prisons, and the rise of a massive immigration detention machinery – emerged within the past forty years. And there is a common thread linking them all: The private prison companies that profit from mass incarceration and immigrant detention.
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Humpday Hall of Shame: CCA Lauds Results of Study that was Paid for By the Private Prison Industry
May 29, 2013 by Piper Madison
Quick on the heels of our protest outside the Corrections Corporation of America stockholder meeting, a study emerged last week from Temple University that outlines the fiscal benefits of privatizing prisons. The researchers concluded that privatization could save the state of Arizona between 14% and 22% without sacrificing quality -- the exact opposite findings of a study by the Tucson Citizen, which found that the price to incarerate someone had increased 13.9% since the contracts began. Even data from the Arizona Department of Corrections revealed that for-profit prisons cost the state an extra $10 million a year. We certainly weren’t surprised to find out that the study was funded by "members of the private prison industry." Prison Legal News issued a press release on May 22 which cites numerous other studies CCA has funded to promote its "benefits."
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Humpday Hall of Shame: CCA Refuses Moment of Silence to Honor Employee Slain During Prison Riot
May 22, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles

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