The High Price of Privatization Escapes and lawsuits cast a searchlight on problems with Corrections Corporation of America. by ashley fantz Steven Moore always wanted attention. Using a wooden box as a stage, he would perform comedy shows for his family. When his mother fixed his favorite foods -- barbecue ribs, chitlins, or pizza -- he would help her sometimes, dramatically playing the role of a television chef. When he wasn't hurtling himself into back-flips, playing basketball, or Nintendo, he loved to draw. A pad and a pen kept him quiet for hours. And Steven's calm was a rare relief. The boy had a short fuse, setting his grandparents' apartment on fire at 3 years old and throwing a bike onto the interstate at 8. His mother had five children, no car, and collected welfare. She spent most of her hours at work. Steven's sexually abusive dad had checked out of his life a long time ago -- the result of a Department of Human Services order. Expelled four times from school for fighting, the boy who had not yet reached his teenage years was already diagnosed with severe depression. Although his mother doesn't know when exactly, Steven began carving his initials into his skin. Large S's appeared on his knees and legs, engraved with a dull pencil eraser and its metal casing. His wrists were usually sore from incessant rubbing. Arrested for assaulting his 7th-grade teacher, Steven was ordered by Shelby County Juvenile Court to serve time at Shelby Training Center -- a place intended to rehabilitate troubled juveniles. Now, less than a year later, Steven is getting more attention than he probably ever would have -- in the form of a high-profile lawsuit. On Friday, May 26th, Memphis attorney Jeff Rosenblum filed a $22 million complaint against Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest prison privatization company. CCA owns and operates Shelby Training Center. The suit is just one of many across the nation challenging CCA's competency. Yet the company continues to flourish in the area, promising jobs and a cheaper alternative to public prisons with the current construction of Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi. But a closer look at CCA's track record suggests Tennessee may be paying the highest price of all -- public safety. "Just let him hang." For the first time since the night 15-year-old Steven Moore tried to take his life, a CCA Shelby Training Center employee who witnessed it all describes what went wrong. Robbie Webb, the center's unit manager, had had a long day. The humidity of August 1, 1999, flattened the air and pressed it heavily against the center's dully painted, windowless walls. Webb was not prepared to take over the duties of her superior, shift manager Victor Lacey. She was near the end of her shift and wanted to go home. But Lacey had to go to a birthday party and wanted the night off. "I told him that I didn't feel comfortable with that," she says. "I didn't have training to handle it, no emergency training. But I was not going to say anything because he was above me." Reprimanded for fighting with other inmates, Steven had been confined for 30 days to isolation, a 24-hour supervisory lockdown cell. According to CCA records, he had been "acting up" since April, banging on his cell wall. Though it's not clear who took the CCA notations, descriptions of bruises and cuts were recorded in the teenager's file. Steven told his mother on numerous occasions that guards had beaten him over a five-month period in the spring of 1999. A CCA employee documented May 17th that the boy had threatened and at least once attempted suicide. That same day, center officials put Steven on suicide precaution, giving him a paper gown and constant supervision. He was taken off suicide watch in July. Steven's physician, Dr. Mark Messer, has been accused of malpractice in the lawsuit. CCA medical records also show that at the beginning of July, he was prescribed 50 milligrams of Zoloft and 250 milligrams of Depakote a day, antidepressants that prevent manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder. For reasons not explained in medical records, Steven's Depakote dosage was doubled at the end of July. He was still taking 500 milligrams of Depakote and 50 milligrams of Zoloft August 1st. Jumping around his cell that evening, Steven yelled at the nurse on duty, "Come watch me!" as he wrung his green T-shirt around his neck. Exclaiming, "I'm going to kill myself!" his mood shifted suddenly. CCA records indicate the boy calmly asked for his medication. The nurse told him to wait his turn. He refused to take the pills. No one knows why Steven was left alone for 20 minutes, but within that time he wrapped a bed sheet around his neck and hanged himself. Webb was on her way to the bathroom when she received a call on her radio asking for Lacey. The female staff member on the other end of the line was frantic. She kept asking for Lacey while Webb tried to explain to her that Lacey was gone. Then the message came through -- Steven was discovered hanging from the ceiling vent. Webb issued CCA's emergency code, "10-33 Staff!" In her panic, she made a damning statement that eventually led to her firing. Recorded in the dispatches from that night, Webb called out, "Just let him hang himself." On her way to the boy's cell, Webb was joined by another staff member. The two arrived at Steven's cell to find a CCA resident supervisor staring at the boy still hanging from the ceiling. Next to her stood two guards who were responsible for watching Steven but had left their post to play cards in a nearby kitchen. Webb got some scissors, and with another staff member, cut Steven down. She performed CPR and the boy regained a weak pulse. Webb then called the paramedics. In the meantime, chaos was stirring in the center's Foxtrot Unit, which houses the most violent juveniles. "They were starting a riot," says Webb. "You could hear them beating on the walls and doors, flooding the toilets." As the nurse continued to revive Steven, paramedics arrived. Altogether, from the time he was untied and arrived at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center, Steven's pulse had faded in and out for more than an hour and a half. At Le Bonheur, he was diagnosed with Anoxic Brain Injury -- a step above vegetable. Webb says the staff was aware of Steven's suicide threats. "But everyone just blew it off like it was just his way of getting attention," she says. From Basketball to Bedridden Today Steven is in a wheelchair. He has awakened from a coma that for months left him teetering between life and death. During therapy at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Center, he struggles to walk, one of his legs shaking uncontrollably. Wearing a Vince Carter jersey and shorts, the 4'5", 92-pound teenager aims a wadded Kleenex with which he's wiped his drooling mouth toward a wastebasket. He throws and misses, throws and misses. Expert witness Dr. David Strauser, director of the University of Memphis Center for Rehabilitation and Employment Research, says Steven will likely need occupational and physical therapy for the rest of his life. He won't ever be able to walk or drive a car, says Strauser, and will require round-the-clock assistance. The amount of the lawsuit against CCA is based on estimates of how much Steven's care will cost. "It's a long process of talking with Steven's neurologist and psychologist to determine a detailed life care plan," says Strauser. "Structural changes have to be made to his house. When you factor in the medical bills, it's going to be in the millions of dollars." Steven's attorney is tagging on $10 million in punitive damages. "CCA failed to take any action to prevent this tragic incident despite Steven's repeated cries for help," Rosenblum says. "They were deliberately indifferent." Steven's mother, Debra Moore-Reed, takes care of her son. Her daughter, 17-year-old Rose, dropped out of high school to help. They bathe and help Steven with bathroom functions as well as feed him. The teen has just begun to learn how to grip utensils again. Debra lives with her five other children in a small two-bedroom home without air-conditioning. Even though her son requires a 24-hour nurse for possible medical emergencies, she does not have insurance to pay for one. The state will likely provide her with one, but that kind of paperwork could take months. Debra Moore-Reed is restless and she wants answers. "I just want someone to tell me straight what happened," she says. "I think he was abused." CCA medical records show that on numerous checkups, her son had "signs of trauma," including bruises, scrapes, and cuts. He complained to his mother on several occasions that Shelby Training Center employees were hitting him. Webb says she saw STC's staff physically assault Steven. "A lot of those kids are getting beaten," she says. "One time, I saw an employee take Steven by the neck and drag him down the hallway to another hallway where there was a cell, choking him all the way. If visitors are there, things are cleaned up, covered up, and you see the good of CCA." Litigating Lockups Since Corrections Corporation of America began building prisons and juvenile detention centers in Tennessee, the company's competency has been questioned. Just two weeks ago -- in a case strikingly similar to Steven's -- a Tulsa, Oklahoma, father filed suit against a CCA juvenile jail, claiming employees were responsible for the suicide of his son Corey. The boy was found dead in his cell with a bed sheet tied around his neck and to a bunk. The father has asked CCA for incident reports or documents regarding his son but has received nothing. A suit will be tried this November in Jackson, Tennessee, alleging that inmates were tortured at the CCA-owned Hardeman County Correctional Facility in Whiteville in August 1998. Columbia, South Carolina, attorney Gaston Fairy is representing the inmates. "An inmate at Whiteville attacked a guard, injuring him," Fairy says. "In retaliation, Whiteville's own officers called SORT -- Special Operation Response Teams -- [who] retaliated by beating the inmates. In some cases, electrical devices were used on the inmates' genitals." The attorney recently filed suit on behalf of 26 juveniles in New Jersey who claim guards hog-tied and threw them head-first into walls. "We have a witness who says there were 18 children at one time in a cell. They were left there for over 24 hours," says Fairy. "There was no bathroom -- they were given cups." Another case against CCA involves South Carolina's Columbia Training Center -- a cookie-cutter version of Shelby Training Center. Fairy has videotapes of guards beating their young charges. Even though CCA records indicate there are more videotapes showing wrongdoing, they have not been turned over to Fairy. And when it comes to escapees, CCA has a high record. According to the California Correctional Police Officers Association, 170 high-security inmates fled from CCA-run facilities across the country. In the past five years, 27 inmates -- including three teenagers from Shelby Training Center and nine juveniles from the Metro Detention Facility in Nashville -- have escaped Tennessee CCA facilities. That's more than any other state. Some ran in broad daylight and were not pursued by guards. Most simply scaled a fence. One, a rapist, remains at large. Last June, the Tennessee Department of Safety forked out $72,000 for a seven-day manhunt for two inmates on the lam from a correctional facility in Mason. CCA's only business competition is Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, which owns 33 prisons in the U.S. and six abroad. Worth an estimated $2 billion, the company has also faced accusations that its inmates have been sexually and physically abused. In May, 11 teenage women filed and won a suit against the prison privatization company in which two guards admitted to repeatedly raping them. Frank Lee, chairman of Middle Tennessee State University's criminal justice department, co-authored a book on CCA and privatization. He says that it is not simply that these companies are poorly run; the concept of privatization is flawed. "Practically and ethically, privatization is a bad idea," says Lee. "Although, it's not new. Various food and medical services have for a long time come from outside enterprise. But overall if your main goal is to make money, then that's all you're concerned about. Quality falls short. And when you're measuring quality by how well you treat prisoners and ensure public safety, CCA's reputation is a little alarming." Climbing the Stonewall Corrections Corporation of America is notorious for stonewalling investigations into its more than 82 adult and juvenile facilities nationwide. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued for records more than 10 times, one of which confirmed CCA kept 10 Pahokee, Florida, juveniles past their release dates. Newspaper associations in Florida and New Mexico have also sued CCA when the company would not turn over public documents. CCA spokesperson Susan Hart would not answer questions about this story nor would she directly address Steven's case. "The only thing I'm going to say is that it's certainly unfortunate -- this situation. It's tragic and it certainly took place under tragic circumstances," says Hart. "It's unfortunate when one feels that the only way out is to commit or, in this case, attempt to commit an act of suicide." Hart would not confirm the level of training of the nurse, warden, and other supervisory employees who were in charge of Steven. In response, the Flyer sent the spokesperson a Freedom of Information request for related personnel files. The facility is inspected and receives county funds from Shelby County Juvenile Court. However, Hart wrote in a memo to the Flyer that CCA is not obligated to hand over any documents because CCA is a private company and not required to obey Tennessee open records laws. During this time, Shelby Training Center director John Manuel approved a Flyer tour of the facility. Hart intercepted and canceled the tour, calling it "possibly disruptive to the process of rehabilitating the center's inmates." Jackson, Tennessee, attorney Tom Anderson is defending CCA in the Moore suit. He would not return the Flyer's phone calls. Although Shelby County Juvenile Court ordered that Steven serve time at Shelby Training Center, its Youth Services Bureau -- the agency responsible for monitoring incidents at the center -- could not produce a record of what happened to him. Shelby County court attorney Danny Presley says the Youth Services Bureau should have taken a report. "I'm not sure what to say," Presley says. "We're trying to look for something, but we're not coming up with anything. Nothing was done, apparently." Dollars for Detention Late Tennessee state senator Pete Springer held that there are no pros about privatization -- only cons. A vocal opponent of CCA since Tennessee entertained an unprecedented attempt at privatizing every prison in the state in 1997, Springer (D-Centerville) joined lawmakers this year in opposing the latest endeavors to build more prisons and juvenile facilities in Tutwiler, Mississippi. The economically disparaged town is welcoming the development, hoping the penitentiary will provide much-needed jobs. Springer, who died of a heart attack in April, was worried that CCA's public relations debacles might cause the company to go belly up, making the state responsible for CCA's more than 2,000 inmates. Tennessee has no contingency plan if an emergency like that happens. The senator was alarmed that CCA had closed or backed out of building or operating prisons in Iowa, Washington, D.C., and three cities in California. The company's financial prospects don't look bright either. CCA's stock is performing at its lowest level, with investment analysts turning sour on the company when its stock plummeted from $26 a share in 1997 to $2 a share last week. In the past year, company shareholders have filed more than a dozen class-action lawsuits alleging that CCA is guilty of fraud. Most of CCA's problems came about when it tried to branch off into real estate under the name Prison Realty Trust, then later entered into an agreement with Pacific Life Insurance Company worth more than $200 million. Prison Realty Trust was to take over ownership of the prisons, while CCA continued day-to-day facility operations. If Prison Realty Trust and CCA were partners, they weren't acting like it. The trust company set its rents too high for CCA in what some investors speculated was a failed takeover attempt. "One doesn't know from day to day who CCA is. Are they a life savings company? Are they a venture capital company?" says MTSU's Frank Lee. "They had continuing losses of one kind or another and all sorts of lawsuits. It's no surprise that investors got suspicious." Politicians in CCA's Pockets A month ago congressmen Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) and Bill McCollum (R-Florida) urged Capitol Hill lawmakers to support a bill that would prohibit states from receiving federal funding for construction of private prisons. "Incarceration is part of the overall administration of justice in this country," Strickland says. "We would not consider privatizing our courts." "The biggest argument for privatization is that it costs less to operate than public prisons," says Ryan Sherman, executive director of the California Correctional Police Officers Association. Sherman began researching CCA three years ago when the company lobbied California's state legislature for contracts. Two U.S. General Accounting Office studies specifically focusing on Tennessee found that it is not cheaper to run private facilities than public. The studies also noted that there is no difference in the quality of safety, personnel aptitude, and physical condition of the institutions. "When I think of CCA, I think of escapes, poor employee training, and abuse," Sherman says. "It's not like they are hiring mean guards, just people who, faced with really serious situations, don't know what to do. They say privatization is faster and cheaper. Well, it might be in some cases, but they are also cherry picking." Cherry picking is the process of choosing inmates who don't have any problems that require extra costs, such as health problems. If CCA has such a bad reputation, suffered hundreds of lawsuits, and isn't cheaper or more effective than public incarceration, why does the company continue to thrive? "People have just started noticing negative reports," Sherman says. "They just have too many facilities. If something happens in New Mexico, no one in Texas hears about it. And they have a very powerful group of politicians who either believe privatization saves their state money or they think it personally saves them money." Political back-scratching for CCA in Tennessee goes back to Governor Lamar Alexander's tenure. Tom Beasley was the chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party during Alexander's term from 1979 to 1987. Beasley and CCA's owner Doctor Crants were roommates at West Point. CCA first lobbied Tennessee in 1985, attracting investors such as Alexander's wife, Honey, and Alexander's successor Ned McWherter. CCA lost its bid in 1985 because lawmakers questioned the constitutionality of privatization. However, legislators pushing for CCA swung the vote to approve a Private Prisons Contracting Act in 1986. McWherter authorized a contract in 1991, giving CCA control of South Central Correctional Center in Clifton -- where prison officials once asked inmates to draw fire evacuation diagrams by giving them the facility's floor plans. At the end of the three-year contract, the state still had no conclusive proof that privatization is less expensive than public incarceration. Yet state politicians remain in favor of private corrections. Governor Don Sundquist is a longtime supporter of prison privatization and has been friends with Doctor Crants for years. The CEO was the governor's second-largest individual campaign contributor -- to the tune of $23,900 -- last year. At one time, Sundquist's wife, Martha, and his three adult children were business partners with Crants. Jimmy Naifeh, Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, is a longtime supporter of CCA. Naifeh's wife is a CCA state lobbyist. She and her husband are part-owners of a Nashville restaurant with state representative Matt Kisber, who sponsored the 1997 bill to privatize every Tennessee prison and juvenile facility. The prison company's influence reaches even the lowest levels of state government. Joe D. Ward, mayor of Mason, Tennessee -- home of CCA's West Tennessee Correctional Facility -- owns CCA stock valued at $45,000. Ward gave his son a garage business , which the mayor was using to service all of the prison's vehicles. Two inmates escaped from West Tennessee Correctional last year, one serving 220 years for deliberate homicide. "A kid's life is over." Robbie Webb protested her firing from Shelby Training Center by filing a complaint with the Tennessee Division of Employment Security. The center's chief supervisor and a counselor testified in October at an employment agency hearing that Webb, the highest in command that night, is ultimately responsible for Steven's suicide. "You have to understand," Webb says. "The things I said that night were out of panic. It was just me being worked up and not qualified to do that job." According to the hearing summary, CCA representatives testified that Webb often filled in as shift supervisor -- it was not her first time in the position, as she claims -- and that she went on break despite being told by a nurse that Steven was acting up, not taking his medication, and threatening to kill himself. The nurse and chief of security also claim that Webb ignored the first two radio calls alerting her to Steven's suicide. The Division of Employment Security found in favor of the center and denied unemployment benefits to Webb. Unless CCA settles with the Moore family, the suit will go to trial in a year and a half. Former director of the downtown jail Denis Dowd and ex-county corrections director Rob Sprecher are expected to testify that Shelby Training Center employees should have secured Steven in a long-term suicide precaution cell when the boy first threatened suicide. "No matter what the outcome of the case, there will be no winners," says Jeff Rosenblum, the Moore family attorney. "A kid's life is over." n Getting Away CCA has a higher rate of escapes than public facilities, with the most inmates fleeing in Tennessee. Metro Davidson County Detention, Nashville October 1999: An inmate serving time for aggravated burglary slips out of his handcuffs and runs away. Only one guard watches him and 15 other inmates. The guard stays with the other inmates, rather than pursue the fleeing convict. November 1995: Nine juveniles jump guards and escape. They have a 30-minute head start when police are forced to wait outside the facility until a CCA spokesperson tells them that an escape has indeed occurred. One of the teens is awaiting trial for murder. The same month, a four-time escapee, convicted of assault, stalking, and burglary, scales a razor-wire fence. Hardeman County Correctional Facility, Whiteville August 1999: A 5-foot 4-inch, 130-pound inmate overpowers a guard, steals his gun, takes a woman hostage, steals her car, and flees down the interstate after the guard removes the inmate's leg irons and handcuffs during a routine medical exam. He is serving 25 years for robbery. May 1998: Convicted rapist Reginald Ivory is accidentally released two years early. He remains at large. July 1997: Another convicted rapist climbs a fence and escapes. West Tennessee Correctional Facility, Mason May 1999: Two inmates flee in daylight at 3 p.m. by climbing over a fence. One is serving a 50-year robbery sentence, the other 220 years for deliberate homicide. September 1999: A rapist serving 24 years is caught during a routine traffic stop. When a TV station inquires about the incident, a CCA spokesperson says there has been no escape. South Central Correctional Facility, Clifton January 1999: Confessed murderer David Britt dresses as a guard and gets a female guard to escort him out during a shift change. October 1998: Four inmates convicted of rape and murder cut through a fence. Guards do not realize anything is amiss until they discover the torn fence. The inmates are arrested months later in a Los Angeles suburb. Shelby County Training Center, Memphis March 1996: U.S. marshals capture three escaped inmates after they are found sitting in a stolen car. n