The Texas Observer

The fastest-growing segment of the prison industry is for-profit detention centers housing immigrants. The Bush administration - with characteristic zeal - has given the job of holding this growing detention population — fed largely by the crackdown on illegal immigration — to prison peddlers who are dependent on taxpayer dollars. Texas has been ground zero for this growth industry.

“Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses… and we’ll lock ‘em up” seems to be the mantra of Corrections Corporation of America, Emerald, GEO Group, MTC, and other “corrections” companies. These outfits tend to operate with minimal oversight and little direction from government agencies. In truth, outside of a few attorneys, correctional officers, and the detainees themselves, few have first-hand knowledge of detention center operations.

However, documents recently obtained by the Observer paint a dismal picture of some Texas facilities. We wrote about the documents in a March issue of the magazine. Three of six Texas facilities inspected by the Office of Federal Detention Trustee flunked federal standards: the Brooks County Correctional Facility in Falfurrias, operated by LCS Corrections Services Inc. of Lafayette, Louisiana; the Willacy County Regional Detention Center in Raymondville, operated by Utah-based Management & Training Corp; and the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa, also operated by LCS.

Brooks and Willacy both passed more limited inspections conducted by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

The facilities had numerous security, sanitation, management, record-keeping, and health care problems. In the case of East Hidalgo, the Federal Detention Trustee deemed the detention center “at risk” and ordered immediate federal intervention.

From the March issue of the Observer:

At East Hidalgo, the inspectors found dozens of violations of federal standards. Medical, dental, and mental health care is virtually nonexistent. Initial medical screenings are performed by unqualified nurses and do not include a physical examination, or an appraisal for chemical dependency, mental retardation, and suicide risk, according to the report. Moreover, the jail has no dentist or mental health professional on-site.

A hallway is used as an examination room. Staff are not trained to deal with suicidal detainees despite eight suicide attempts in the year prior to the report.Security is poor. At the time of the inspection, visitors didn’t even pass through a metal detector when entering the building. The jail has no “specific instructions” on when firearms may be used; no procedures for maintaining weapons or for controlling keys, kitchen tools, and medical equipment; no effective plan for a mass evacuation; and no training program on the use of force.

Sanitation is lacking. Employees are not tested for blood-borne pathogens, increasing the risk of disease to both guards and inmates. Detainees are issued “sporks,” but the utensils are not sanitized, nor are barbering tools.Two juveniles were discovered by the inspectors at the adult-only detention center and immediately removed.In addition, the report reveals that 19 inmate-on-inmate assaults had occurred in the previous year.

After six inmates escaped in 2006, the state jail commission cited the facility for employing too few guards, for the third time.

Richard Harbison, vice president of LCS, told the Observer last month that the company had corrected the problems and expected to pass an upcoming inspection. (We’ll update once we find out if the inspection has occurred and how the facility did.)

Because it’s so rare to get a glimpse of how bad some of these private lockups can be, we’ve taken the time to scan most of the pages from the East Hidalgo inspection report.

In addition to the deficiencies of the prisons, the documents also inadvertently reveal the pettiness of the secretive Bush administration. Whole pages of the inspection reports were redacted… sort of. The feds need to invest in some better Sharpies. Much of what they tried to hide could be read with the aid of a light table and a magnifying glass. While the redactions did obscure some sensitive security problems, other portions of the inspection reports hardly seemed worthy of a black marker.

For example, in the report on the East Hidalgo Detention Center, the Federal Detention Trustee redacted a section on spork protocol. “Sporks are not returned to food service for proper cleaning,” the redacted part reads. “All utensils should be properly washed.” A blacked-out section in the report on the LCS Brooks County Correctional Facility says, “Chicken was thawing in a sink for over two hours on Nov. [ ], 2007 and a turkey product was thawing at room temperature for over 7 1/2 hours on Nov. 7, 2007.”

The agency even redacted areas of the inspection where the prisons received passing marks.

As a legal basis for the secrecy, the agency cited a provision in the Freedom of Information Act that allows an agency to withhold information that “could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.” But doesn’t the real danger to human safety come from the sorry state of the detention centers, not the disclosure thereof?

(Update below)

Sometimes small town politics can be a whole lot fiercer than a big city political brawl. Some citizens of Seguin, home of the world’s largest pecan, are stepping up to support their Police Chief Luis Collazo. Others, not so much. The chief was placed on administrative suspension March 11 and told to turn in his sidearm, badge and keys.

According to a letter from Douglas Faseler, City Manager of Seguin, there are serious allegations against the chief including “abusive conduct toward fellow employees or members of the public, racial, religious, sexist or ethnic slurs or remarks, participation in horseplay or practical jokes…including the use of abusive, profane, or threatening language.”

Collazo’s lawyer Brian Davis said the chief had no comment for the press regarding the allegations. “We have a private hearing set for March 27th,” he said.

Both the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise and KWED radio filed an open records request for information on allegations against Collazo. Some of the documents which detail the allegations are on the KWED Radio web site (scroll all the way to the bottom of the page). The allegations provided as sworn statements from Seguin police officers use words that can only be heard on late-night cable, so we’ll just hit on some of the more PG rated stuff here.

Ahem, City Manager Faseler writes that police officers, in sworn statements, made the following allegations about Collazo:

He told a female officer, with witnesses present, that if she made a mistake, he would “cut her tits off.”

He addressed females employees as “slut” and “ho.”

He called another police officer an “Amazon lesbian.”

Besides the potty mouth, officers also alleged that he granted special treatment to citizens and other officers.

He allegedly interfered with the apprehension of someone wanted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on a federal warrant.

Collazo also allegedly allowed a fellow officer to use city vehicles and equipment to build a residence for Collazo’s mother-in-law.

He dismissed a parking ticket for a Ms. Lola Miller.

The allegations don’t look pretty, yet according to a story today in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, at least 20 citizens attended a city council meeting Tuesday to defend their police chief. Some of the citizens accused the police department of conspiracy and a plot to crucify Collazo, who has been police chief for almost five years.

During his term in office, Collazo beefed up the department’s Blue Santa program and created the Cops-N-Kids Day Picnic, where local children receive new bicycles. He also built up the police department’s Citizens’ Police Academy, according to the KWED Radio article.

Update

The Statesman is reporting that Collazo has resigned. City of Seguin officials apparently offered him a deal to skedaddle.

“Hutto: America’s Family Prison,” a short film by filmmakers Matthew Gossage and Lily Keber, details the prison-like conditions at the for-profit T. Don Hutto family detention center in Taylor, near Austin. Hundreds of immigrant men, women, and children - many of whom are fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries - are incarcerated at Hutto in conditions that, until recently, were abysmal. A grassroots movement to shut down Hutto and a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and attorneys with the UT Immigration Law Clinic has improved the lot of those warehoused at Hutto, but calls persist to shutter the detention center. Watch the film and then read the Observer’s interview with the filmmakers below.

Texas Observer: Some of the most harrowing accounts of being detained at Hutto came from young children. They evidently thought they had done something wrong to be in jail and would ask their moms or dads, “Why has God abandoned us?” Many kids said they were threatened by guards with separation from their families if they misbehaved, as your film shows. Moreover, a child psychologist for the defense in the ACLU-UT Law Clinic lawsuit against the feds gave a preliminary assessment based on interviews with several children and their mothers. The psychologist said he found evidence of regression (including a reversion to bedwetting and nursing among kids who had outgrown this), trauma, and PTSD among young children. Civilized nations consider children to have a kind of existential and legal innocence, and they enjoy special rights under long-established law. How did we, then, get to the point of locking minors behind bars for no reason other than they accompanied their immigrant parents - many of which are bona fide asylum-seekers - to the U.S.?

Matthew Gossage: I feel that several regressive and conservative policies all came together with the operation of Hutto. We have a conservative federal administration that wants to appear “tough on immigration” and a criminal justice system which is more and more driven by a profit motive. These two together encourage a system of dealing with immigration on a prison model, instead of addressing the social and economic causes of immigration.

TO: You call Hutto the largest family internment since WWII. “Internment” is a strong word, carrying much historical and political significance. Why did you choose that word and why do you believe Hutto constitutes internment?

Lily Keber: We chose the term ‘internment’ to place what’s happening at Hutto in a broader historical context. Of course one thinks of the Japanese-American internment during WWII. Families of Japanese, German, and Italian descent were all removed from general population because of the perceived threat they might pose. It took until the 80s, but finally politicians apologized for that and admitted it was unjust and motivated by racism rather than real military necessity. I think one day we, as a nation, will look back on what Homeland Security is doing right now and say the same thing.

MG: “Internment” is loaded in our culture and history. We hope that making this comparison will cause debate and conversation about other examples in our history where we have reacted with hysteria and fear towards people that aren’t part of the dominant power structure and have fewer civil rights.

TO: Homeland Security maintains that Hutto was opened to keep families together. But as your film shows there are less restrictive alternatives, such as keeping people under supervision or housing them in non-prison settings. Why do you think the authorities have written off these more humane and cheaper alternatives?

MG: I would love to hear Michael Chertoff (Director of Homeland Security) explain why he doesn’t use more humane options for immigration and border enforcement. But my opinion is that it is politically advantageous for the Bush administration to appear that they are taking a hard-line approach towards immigration to appease the Republicans’ more conservative and xenophobic base. There are also people that are getting very wealthy off these less-humane and more expensive detention facilities. These same people contribute financially to politicians of both parties to continue the growth of the prison industry. If more humane and cheaper alternatives exist, that by definition means that there will be less money for these prison corporations and contractors.

TO: What sort of access did Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) or the Dept. of Homeland Security grant you to film inside?

LK: None. They are extremely restrictive with media access. There was an official media tour about a year ago, but for that they cleaned out the jail, put teddy bears on the beds, literally shackled the pregnant women and bussed them out of the prison so no one could photograph them. When we tried to contact CCCA and DHS about getting access inside, it was the typical bureaucratic run around- ‘No, you have to call this other person’ or ‘No, that’s this other department’, that sort of thing. We tried very hard to get an interview with them and include their side of the story. But they declined. They made that choice, meaning they decided to continue hiding behind their veil of bureaucracy and secrecy.

TO: What was it like making this short film - did you set out to make an advocacy documentary or did you come into this project with an “open mind,” if that’s possible?

LK: I didn’t set out specifically to make an advocacy documentary. There was such a paucity of meaningful media available on Hutto in the beginning that we just were trying to get anything out there. A couple papers in Texas covered it, and there were some reports on Univision and “Democracy Now!”. But beyond that, there was very little information available. Very soon into the filming, though, I started to realize just how topical the issue is. The government built Hutto as a prototype, and had hopes of building family detention centers all across the country. It’s only because of the negative outpouring they’ve gotten about Hutto that’s made them re-evaluate their plans. We felt it was important to include that this outcry was just by ‘ordinary’ people, and how important it is for people to get involved.

MG: Yeah, I made no illusions to myself or others that this would be an objective film. Even before we started thorough research of Hutto, my perspective was clearly opposed to it. It is definitely advocating the reversal of these immigration policies.

TO: You end on a high note in the film: that the public activism and outcry surrounding Hutto succeeded. Talk a little bit about the movement to shut down Hutto. Obviously the facility is still open but conditions have evidently improved. Are people satisfied with that outcome? And what’s next for you, and for the movement against the growing immigrant detention complex in America?

LK: Conditions have improved. The barbed wire has come down, accountability is up. Are people happy with that as an end result? No. At its core, Hutto is still a for-profit prison channeling money into the pockets of the largest corrections corporation in the US at the expense of the taxpayer. It still is holding men and women and children who have no crime against them other than a civil violation. As long as our government sees fit to traumatize children, incarcerate adults with no criminal background, and inordinately and unjustly criminalize people of color who seek to enter the country, people will not be satisfied with the conditions at Hutto.

MG: Well, at the least we hope that our film puts detention on the radar of non-activists as to what our government’s actual policies are. I feel that when most people hear about “tougher immigration”, they imagine more Border Patrol agents in Jeeps hunting down drug dealers and terrorists. They don’t imagine incarcerating tens of thousands of people every day and paying corporations hand-over-fist to do it and build more prisons. And what’s next for us is to continue using media to educate and advocate for a more just immigration and prison system.

It looks like Conservator Richard Nedelkoff is ready to name an executive director over at the Texas Youth Commission. The state’s juvenile justice department posted the job on its web site on Thursday, Jan. 24. Only GritsforBreakfast noted the posting, pointing to a Dallas Morning News editorial criticizing the agency’s diversion of funds for correctional officers to office renovation.

On Sunday, however, Austin civil rights watchdog Jim Harrington took issue with the job posting — noting that applications are only being taken for five business days and alleging that the commission had “buried” the posting on its site.

The job posting is not prominently displayed on the TYC site. You have to search the jobs alphabetically to find it. And the window from job posting to closing is, clearly, small. The job pays up to $160,000 per year and suggests applicants have the “ability to maintain high tolerance to mental stress.”

Nedelkoff was appointed in December by Gov. Rick Perry. He replaced former TYC Conservator Jay Kimbrough. The conservatorship was put in place by legislation passed in 2007 after Nate Blakeslee broke the story in the Observer of alleged abuse at the Pyote TYC facility — a story that moved a shocked Texas legislature into action. Blakeslee writes about three legislative staffers that shaped the reform legislation here.

“The posting is actually unnecessary,” said TYC spokesman Jim Hurley. He said the conservatorship statute directs Nedelkoff to hire an executive director, and he said Nedelkoff’s reputation has attracted the attention of professionals in the juvenile justice field. “Mr. Nedelkoff is a national figure. He knows national figures.”

Hurley said the fact that Nedelkoff will be hiring is and has been obvious. “It’s not like we haven’t been in the news,” he said.

Another point to consider, Hurley noted, is the fact that once the conservatorship ends, the executive director will be in charge, and needs to be in place. Until recently, Demetria Pope has been acting as executive director but doesn’t seem to be in the running for the permanent job.
“When the governor’s ready to move this thing out of conservatorship, the conservator goes away,” Hurley said.

Still, as Harrington says on the Texas Civil Rights Project web site, “When a job opening like this is only posted for 5 workdays — and not even prominently displayed, but buried deep in general employment listings — one smells duplicity and that a ‘fix is in’ for a particular candidate.”

After all the stir about Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s decision not to run again for re-election this year, it’s easy to forget that his office still has a few hot irons in the fire. One of those is the pending case against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — which is tied together with cases against his former associates John Colyandro and Jim Ellis.

The race for Travis County DA features four prosecutors who all work within Earle’s office: Rosemary Lehmberg, Gary Cobb, Mindy Montford, and Rick Reed. Earle this week endorsed Lehmberg for the job — a boost to her campaign for sure. (There is no Republican in the race.) Still, with less than two months until Texas’ March 4 primary and none of the candidates possessing any real name id, there’s no telling who will win.

All of the candidates have either taken leaves of absences from the DA’s office or are using vacation time to campaign for Earle’s job — arguably the most powerful position in Texas politics, since, as seen in DeLay’s case, the Travis DA has the power to indict Texas politicians, and the fact of an indictment is often all that’s needed to knock someone off their perch.

Reed is one of three prosecutors that have been handling all of the pre-trial issues in the case, and it’s been all pre-trial so far.

The case is on the docket for March 7, but that may be just for show, since the trial judge is suggesting an appeal by Colyandro and Ellis will need to be disposed of before the case can move forward. According to Judge Pat Priest’s homepage, Colyandro and Ellis filed their appeal based on rulings by Judge Bob Perkins, who was replaced by Judge Priest after they objected to donations made by Perkins to Democrats. The appeal is pending in the Third Court of Appeals:

Certain indictments, you may remember, were thrown out by Judge Priest, including conspiracy to violate the election code. That decision was appealed all the way to Texas’ Court of Criminal Appeals, where prosecutors lost, but there were some strongly worded dissents. Based upon these, a motion for rehearing was filed by Earle’s office and denied by the top criminal court.

The indictments that are still alive and well include money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. For the background about where all these charges come from, it’s always worthwhile to consult the Observer’s repository on the DeLay/Abramoff ‘Money Machine’ scandal here.

Once the Third Court rules on the merits of the appeal by Colyandro and Ellis, sources within the DA’s office suggest that decision will be appealed — by whatever party loses. That issue would then be resolved by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Then the drama moves back to Priest’s courtroom, assuming DeLay’s attorney Dick DeGuerin is not in the middle of a case elsewhere.

Once action resumes in Austin, at least two motions need to be resolved, including an allegation by the defendants of prosecutorial misconduct on Earle’s part — focusing on a documentary called The Big Buy, made by Texas filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck. The documentary allegedly features Earle giving the filmmakers lots of access while the case against DeLay and company was being put together. The defendants argue Earle was wrong to participate. The other motion is a request by the defendants for a change of venue — arguing that an Austin jury may well have preconceived notions about DeLay, Colyandro, and Ellis. Surely after these several years, even Austinites, who were roundly disenfranchised by DeLay’s efforts during redistricting, may have allowed their tempers to cool enough to give these fellows a fair trial, but, hey, there’s a reason I’m not a lawyer.

Presumably, after all these things have come to pass, then, finally, the case against DeLay will begin to move. The question is, will that happen this year? It’s hard to say, but probably not, which means, really, that Earle will watch this one from the comfort of his retirement. It seems justice isn’t all that swift after all.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, in light of an email-erasing scandal, professions of devotion to an executive secretary, a well-known Houston defense lawyer filing against him, and vocal antipathy from Harris County GOP leaders, will not seek re-election after all.

Rosenthal has seen a tumultuous couple of weeks, as we reported yesterday. His letter of withdrawal was stamped as received by the Harris GOP offices as of 5:57 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 2.

Harris County Republican Party Chair Jared Woodfill read the one-line statement from Rosenthal: “This is my written notice to you to withdraw my nomination from the office of Harris County District Attorney.”

Defense lawyer Jim Leitner filed for the GOP nomination Wednesday, announcing also, according to the Houston Chronicle, that he would step aside should the right candidate file. It appears that Rosenthal’s last-minute withdrawal triggers a 48-hour extension of the filing period.

With Rosenthal out, the way has been cleared for a new Harris County District Attorney to clean up Houston’s image and reputation — from the crime lab to the death penalty.

A blog note: in a comment on my initial blog about Rosenthal and Houston’s leadership in terms of the death penalty, Ward Larkin is right. Houston has actually only been responsible for roughly 10 percent of U.S. executions — not a quarter. Larkin rightly pointed out what I meant to say, which is that Houston is responsible for fully a quarter of all Texas executions since 1976. Thanks for the correction, Ward.

Harris County District Attorney Charles A Rosenthal, Jr. has hit a rough patch. Even Houston Republicans want him to quit.

Just after Christmas, the country’s newspaper of record singled out Rosenthal as a lonely voice in a sea of change: Harris County is responsible for fully one-quarter of the executions in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976. And Texas is leaving the rest of the country behind in terms of the numbers of those put to death. Rosenthal has been Harris DA since 2001, and he has presided over a significant portion of Texas’ Death Boom. But that’s not why the local GOP wants to oust him.

Around the same time a federal court inadvertently released emails in which ‘Chuck’ alternately woos and declares his heart for his executive secretary (whom he has apparently been involved with before) — while his campaign site proudly touts his second marriage to a “former FBI Special Agent.” Death penalty, okay. Adultery, off with his head, ur, job!

In a front page piece on Dec. 26, the New York Times quoted Rosenthal’s defense of Texas’ outsized number of executions:

Charles A. Rosenthal, Jr., the district attorney of Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston and has accounted for 100 executions since 1976, said the Texas capital justice system was working properly. The pace of executions in Texas, he said, “has to do with how many people are in the pipeline when certain rulings come down.”

A separate article two days later most clearly described Rosenthal’s situation regarding the emails to his secretary:

The e-mail messages were attachments to a brief filed by Mr. Rosenthal’s lawyers seeking to keep the exchanges under seal. When Judge Kenneth Hoyt of Federal District Court in Houston ruled on a motion by KHOU-TV that Mr. Rosenthal’s pleading itself could be made public, the e-mail attachments were inadvertently unsealed briefly.

The filings grew out a civil lawsuit by two brothers, Erik Adam Ibarra and Sean Carlos Ibarra, who claimed that on Jan. 4, 2002, they were beaten after taking pictures of sheriff’s deputies abusing a family during execution of a search warrant. A lawyer for the brothers later claimed that Mr. Rosenthal and the sheriff’s office were looking out for each other, the filings said, as in ‘I’ll watch your back if you watch mine.’

In that brief filed on Dec. 19, the Ibarra brothers’ lawyer, Lloyd E. Kelley, claimed that Mr. Rosenthal had deleted at least 2,500 e-mail messages after they should have been turned over to the court in the process of legal discovery after Nov. 16.

In his court papers, Mr. Rosenthal has claimed that his e-mail messages came under ‘zones of privacy’ involving personal conduct recognized by the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 case in which the court overturned the state’s anti-sodomy law.

The irony here is that Rosenthal argued for Texas in Lawrence v. Texas, urging the Supreme Court not to recognize the very privacy he now claims. (For more on Lawrence v. Texas, see here.)

So it’s perhaps not a shock that the Harris County GOP has voted to ask him to step aside, and reports suggest, if he does decide to run again, Rosenthal will see a challenge from within his own party. If so, that means this mystery candidate must file today, because candidate filing closes at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 2.

In any case, Rosenthal or his GOP replacement will face former Houston Police Chief C.O. ‘Brad’ Bradford in the general election. Bradford is an eloquent speaker and he is just one example of a surge of Houston Democrats that will take the reins of city and county offices as demographics change in Harris County.

Bradford said in his announcement speech:

This community… need not fear crime as long as there is a strong, but fair, justice system… Fairness is something the district attorney’s office sorely needs…

Bradford also called for “a truly independent crime lab” — independent, that is, of both the police department and the district attorney’s office.

Rosenthal has won and kept his office, arguably, by being pro-death penalty. It’s just an extension of the issue that keeps on giving in Texas: being tough on crime. Harvey Kronberg, back in 1999, printed the following about Rosenthal after he was the first to announce for Johnny Holmes’ job:

He has served his entire 22 year professional career in the D.A.’s office. He currently serves as Chief of Felony Division B supervising prosecutors in six district courts. He has tried more than 200 jury trials and sent fourteen offenders to death row.

Rosenthal says on his campaign site, “Without safety, other rights and freedoms are meaningless.”

Come on… Meaningless? And can he point to any evidence that the death penalty increases safety?

I don’t think Ronald Taylor’s rights were meaningless, although they seemed as much in the pursuit of ‘justice’ when he was condemned to serve 14 years for a rape he didn’t commit (while the statute of limitations ran out on a suspect later identified by DNA). That’s just one instance where Houston’s notoriously faulty crime lab served up lab results that imprisoned the wrong person.

However, election results show that scandal or no scandal, a substantial majority of Harris County voters have backed Rosenthal again and again. In his initial primary run in 2000, he beat four GOP candidates, garnering 45.27 percent of the vote. The runoff thereafter was his last contested GOP fight. And, with George W. Bush at the top of the ticket in both general elections, Rosenthal beat his Democratic opponent handily — in 2000 by 54-46, and in 2004, by 55-45.

Even if Chuck Rosenthal is “damaged goods,” as the Harris County GOP County Judge Ed Emmett called him, he ought not to be counted out until he is down for the count. We’ll keep our eye on this one. That’s for sure.