Suicide reveals squalid prison conditions

Regrets
But in the following seven months, Idaho sent an inspector to Texas only once. That inspection found major problems, including virtually no substance-abuse treatment, and a complete lack of Idaho-sanctioned anger-management classes and pre-release programs.

There’s no evidence the inspector’s recommendations were followed. And no one from Idaho visited the prison again until after Payne’s suicide.

Most of the time, the Idaho prison employee responsible for monitoring the GEO contract used only the telephone and e-mail to handle grievances, which also included complaints about inadequate church services, poor food and limited recreation time.

Each time, Alford insisted everything was under control, according to correspondence reviewed by the AP.

The new director of the Idaho prison system concedes his department did not adequately review the inmates’ treatment when he took office in January.

“If I had to do it over again, I would have,” Director Brent Reinke said.

Former Director Vaughn Killeen said he couldn’t afford more aggressive monitoring during his term that ended in December.

“We weren’t happy about the things that were going on down there,” Killeen said. “We didn’t have that level of budget to accommodate full-time monitors.”

Some other states are more vigilant. Washington state, for instance, has 1,000 inmates in Arizona and Minnesota and places full-time inspectors at the prisons. A superintendent visits every six weeks.

Widespread issue
Problems with GEO prisons are not limited to Dickens.

Elsewhere in Texas, a female inmate’s family sued GEO in 2006 after she committed suicide at the Val Verde County Jail near the Mexican border. LeTisha Tapia alleged she was raped by another inmate and sexually humiliated by a GEO guard after reporting to the warden that guards allowed male and female inmates to have sex.

In March, an investigation into sex abuse allegations at another GEO-run Texas prison led to the firing of a guard who was a convicted sex offender.

And at GEO prisons in Illinois and Indiana, hundreds of inmates rioted this past spring.

The complaints have not hurt the company’s balance sheet. It reported profits of $30 million in 2006, four times the amount reported in 2005.

Improving conditions
Inmates at Dickens say conditions have improved since Payne’s suicide.

Hot and cold water problems have been fixed, and cleanliness was judged “adequate,” according to a May 31 report by a new Idaho contract monitor.

But prisoners still complain about sewage from adjacent cells, poor medical and dental care, and a lack of educational programs. Inmates like Robert Coulter, who was convicted of robbery, say authorities should have acted sooner.

“They basically put us down here and just dumped us,” he said.

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