More than 1,700 public health workers were handed pink slips last week after a legal decision found that Florida could begin privatizing health care for most of its 100,000 prisoners, the third-largest inmate population in the U.S. The $230 million contract with Corizon could become the largest privatization of prison services in U.S. history, an increasingly popular trend for state governments trying to cut costs.
The mass layoffs were handed down when Corrections Secretary Mike Crews sent letters to the 1,756 public health employees, notifying them that Corizon will soon take over all health care duties for prisons in north and central Florida.
“The position you currently occupy with the Department will no longer be available,” Crews wrote.
Those who have been fired have a chance to interview with Corizon but are not guaranteed a position.
Corizon’s poor prison history
The Miami Herald reports that Corizon, which is based in Brentwood, Tenn., is slated to begin work Aug. 1 after Florida won a two-year legal fight with a public employee union. Plaintiffs in the case claimed that the state legislature was illegally seeking to privatize health care in most prisons by steering the decision to a 14-member Legislative Budget Commission.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and a second union representing physicians and dentists won the first round in circuit court.
The state of Florida later appealed, and a three-judge panel upheld the right of the commission to approve a budget transfer for the project, ruling that the Florida prison system has “broad authority” to contract for services.
The result is a loss for public sector employees that could also lead to a deterioration in prison services, considering Corizon’s poor track record in other facilities outside Florida. The litany of violations reads like a bad rap sheet.
“The Tennessee-based firm has been dumped by Maryland’s system following abuses, grilled by investigators about years of negligent treatment in Idaho’s prisons, and criticized by lawmakers in Maine for failing to give medicine to thousands of sick inmates — all in the past year,” writes Sean Collins Walsh, a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News.
Earlier this year, Philly.com reported that Corizon was hit with an unprecedented $1.85 million fine for passing money through a fraudulent subcontractor in order to meet the city of Philadelphia’s minority-participation requirements.
Inspector General Amy Kurland discovered that Corizon had lied on documents to make it seem as if JHK Inc., a female-owned subcontractor, was receiving 40 percent of the work. The investigation showed that JHK did virtually none of it.
The problems were far worse in Idaho, where a report by correctional health care expert Dr. Marc Stern last year found that conditions in Corizon-run prisons were “inhumane.”
Based upon Stern’s report, the Spokesman Review reports that “Inmates who were terminally ill or required long-term care and who were unable to move on their own were sometimes left in soiled linens, given inadequate pain medication and went periods without food and water.”
Despite fraudulent activity and deficient care in Philadelphia, Idaho and Maryland, state officials are renewing contracts and signing new ones. The problem may boil down to budget concerns, driven by a desire to reduce state government spending.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, has made clear that he supports privatization of prisons and other sectors, even if that means eliminating jobs and sacrificing the quality of care.
“We’ve had plenty of success so far. Not enough… In Florida, unemployment rate’s gone from 12 percent down to 10.7. We’re still above the national average, but we’ve generated 87,200 private sector jobs — private sector! And we have 15,000 less government jobs in the state of Florida,” Scott said in 2011.
The push for privatization creates a situation whereby Corizon must offer healthcare to Florida’s inmate population for at least 7 percent less than it cost the state in 2010. Operational costs have increased over the past three years and are likely to rise further given the rapidly aging prison population, which will require more intensive geriatric care.
Historically, conditions in Florida prisons are poor, at times sparking prisoner uprisings. In 2004, eight prisoners carried out an unsuccessful hunger strike to protest poor conditions at Florida State Prison.
“On Feb. 1, the inmates housed on Q wing will begin a hunger strike in protest of the erroneous and unconstitutional conditions that we are being forced to endure. Those who are not participating are either mentally ill or in fear of retaliation from this administration,” the prisoners released in a message.
Hunger strike participants accused authorities of denying them basic necessities such as recreation, decent food, visitation and access to canteen items. The effort ended February 2010 with no deaths and no reported change in prison conditions.
Problems with for-profit prisons
The short, sordid history of private prisons in the U.S. shows that the foray into corporate prison management has generally decreased overall standards and, in some cases, has violated Eighth Amendment rights that protect citizens from “cruel and unusual punishments.” It’s a problem found in other private prison corporations, not just Corizon.
The first case of private prison management occurred in Ohio when state officials sold off the Lake Erie Correctional Institution to the Corrections Corporation of America in 2011 — hoping, like Gov. Scott, to reduce state costs.
Prison conditions quickly declined to the point that audits of the prison found “rampant abuse” below state standards.
“Within a year, a state audit of Lake Erie Correctional Institute, the nation’s first privately owned state prison, found rampant abuse and abysmal conditions well below state standards,” writes Aviva Shen of Think Progress.
An ACLU report published earlier this year found that the prison is at 130 percent capacity, with single-person cells holding three inmates. Assaults on guards and inmates have increased by 40 percent since the CCA takeover.
“The CCA prison was given another chance to pass, but flunked another inspection four months later. Independent reports continue to illuminate filthy, broken facilities, as well as much higher rates of crime and violence in and around the prison,” Think Progress reported.