The Texas Observer

Everybody on the outside loves a good mystery. This one comes to us from Del Rio, home of the Val Verde Correctional Facility, a private detention center run by the Florida-based Geo Group. It seems detainees at the 875-bed lockup have been getting sick and dying from what the San Antonio Express-News dubbed a “mysterious illness.” [Cue creepy Twilight Zone theme.] So far two inmates have died and two more have been hospitalized. More people, including guards, are rumored to have fallen ill. Three of the men were undocumented immigrants from Honduras and Mexico.

The men showed symptoms of erratic behavioral changes followed by incontinence and dehydration, reported the Express-News. Geo Group officials and the Texas Department of State Health Services haven’t figured out what befell the men, so they’ve called in the big guns from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate. The CDC team has not provided any answers publicly, but have promised a statement soon.

The criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast wonders if the Unsolved Mystery could be tuberculosis, a jailhouse scourge. State health officials haven’t ruled that possibility out. “I can’t tell you it isn’t tuberculosis,” Dr. Sandra Guerra-Cantu, an official with state health services told the Del Rio News Herald. “The presence of tuberculosis is almost expected in any correctional facility.”

That equivocation doesn’t sit well with Grits.

Because of its method of transmission, prisons and jails are a prime breeding ground for TB. But for exactly those reasons health officials should be scurrying to prevent it. If TB was the cause of not one but two inmate deaths in Del Rio, that’s a much bigger deal than Guerra-Cantu makes it out to be.

Incidentally, at another Geo-run detention camp in Tacoma, Washington 300 immigrant detainees recently became sick, possibly from food poisoning. But officials aren’t sure and are calling that incident a “mystery” as well.

But what’s not a mystery is that like many for-profit prison operators, Geo Group’s track record in Texas does not inspire confidence in its ability to prevent or manage problems. (The company owns and/or operates 18 “corrections” facilities in the state.) Geo’s corporate rap sheet is longer than that of its inmates. Two high-profile lawsuits have highlighted conditions at the Val Verde prison, which holds detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, and also county inmates. A 2006 suit brought by the Texas Civil Rights Project blamed Geo for the death of 23-year-old LeTisha Tapia, who hung herself in 2003 after allegedly being raped and beaten. The suit was settled for $200,000 earlier this year. As part of the settlement, an independent monitor was appointed to oversee the facility.

A discrimination lawsuit, filed in 2005 by a former guard who is African American, alleged that a jail supervisor had a fondness for KKK paraphernalia, which he kept in his office. Last year, in Willacy County, a jury returned a $47.5 million verdict to the family of a man who was beaten to death by other inmates, finding that Geo Group (then called Wackenhut) were negligent in the man’s death. In July, MSNBC reported on an inmate suicide, linked to squalid conditions, in a Geo-run lockup in Spur. A top Idaho prison authority investigating the Spur jail, where Idaho had sent a surplus of its offenders, declared it the worst facility he had ever seen and “beyond repair.”

But the steady drumbeat of scandal has done little to harm the company’s bottom line. Geo’s second-quarter profits are up 96 percent and the stock has made analysts’ “buy” lists. The CEO of Geo, George Zoley, told analysts recently that they typically squeeze a 25-30 percent profit margin out of each prisoner in the facilities they own, such as Val Verde. That brings to mind a troubling, if entirely unoriginal, thought: what if the unbelievable profit margins are the product of running an inhumanely bare-bones operation?

A month ago, the Senate unanimously passed a measure by Sen. John Whitmire (D—Houston) to quit funneling parole violators back into prisons for minor screw-ups. As it is, breaking parole will land you back in the clink for another year. Whitmire’s bill prescribed a shorter stint in an intermediate sanction facility — like a prison, but without the long-term inmates around.

It was just one piece of the Whitmire/Madden reforms, but it could quickly translate into fewer people spending less time in prison. That means fewer occupied prison beds, and makes building three new prisons less necessary — especially with the new budget likely to include funding for them.

The House stranded the bill at the end of the calendar early this week, so Whitmire amended it onto another bill in the Senate Wednesday. This time, support was less than unanimous. If debate on the Senate floor is any indication, some of the prison diversion programs inching toward the governor’s desk could have a bumpy road ahead.

Sen. Steve Ogden led the Republican charge against Whitmire, asking why people who break the law shouldn’t go back to prison. Whitmire replied that parole violations are often for breaking the rules. If what they’ve done is a crime, they’ll be punished for it, he said. Whitmire argued that a year in prison is unnecessary, and wasteful, for punishing someone who breaks their parole by leaving the county, or sitting down at a bar.

“Then I guess you get a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” Ogden said.

Whitmire looked exasperated that he’d have to defend his proposal against a sound bite. “This bill is so critical to our capacity reuirements at TDCJ,” he replied. He told Ogden the amendment would cut the number of people locked up for minor offenses, “so we don’t have to spend $231 million on unnecesary prisons.” Unnecessary prisons, it should be noted, that Ogden supplied himself in the budget. Wonder if Ogden’s worried about cutting off the demand?

Whitmire postponed his amendment and spoke with Senate Republicans in a back room. When the bill came back up, the amendment passed with a compromise: violators would go to an intermediate facility the first time they broke parole. Any more violations, and it’s back to the pen.

Whitmire was frustrated afterward that some senators are backing off their support. After putting together a research-based package of reforms, he didn’t having to tweak his proposal on the spot. Mostly, though, he said he recognizes that the reforms he does get through the Lege won’t have an automatic “Rick Perry” stamp waiting for them. When the leadership is pushing Jessica’s Law and three new prisons, reforms and diversion could prove a tough sell.

Between protecting bobcat caretakers and ticketing noisy dog owners (too bad our earlier coverage didn’t give them paws before passing this one), there was plenty of light-hearted action in the House last night.

On a more serious note, a couple of bills just made it in under the barbed wire — before the second-reading deadline for House bills — that would make for some good changes in Texas’ corrections system. They’re not blockbusters, but their passage would mean progress for a population that’s been seriously underserved by Texas’ jails and prisons: the guards.

Rep. Sylvester Turner’s HB 2244 takes on county jails, requiring one officer for every 48 inmates. That ratio has been in the Commission on Jail Standards rules for nearly 25 years, but it’s been easy to skirt by asking for a “variance,” to stretch the jail staff even thinner. Turner’s bill would turn that guideline into law, and would allow only “reasonable” variances. The bill would also only cover counties of more than 150,000 people.

At the bill’s hearing in April, Bexar County sheriff’s deputies filled one side of the committee room in support of the bill. They told the corrections committee their job often involves being stuck behind a desk in an open room, guarding 70-plus inmates at a time. Bexar deputies have long been pushing for changes, at one point even appealing to the public by putting a photo of a beaten guard on a billboard along I-10. The deputy in the ad, Luis Alva, had been left alone in a room with 74 inmates when he was attacked.

Dallas County Jail officials oppose the bill, and say they’re doing fine without sticking to the 1:48 ratio (though the U.S. Department of Justice says otherwise), and say that because staff move around during their shifts, they can’t be held to such a tight standard.

Turner’s bill would give counties some wiggle room, as long as they can prove their exception to the ratio is reasonable. On the bill’s second reading last night, Turner successfully fought off an attempt by Rep. Charlie Howard to remove that word from the bill. As it’s written now, the bill that could mean long-overdue changes at the Dallas County Jail.

Another Turner bill that passed yesterday, HB 2699, creates a special monitor to crack down on jails that repeatedly fail their annual inspections — for things like saddling guards with too many inmates.

Last night’s deadline also marked the end of the road for a few bills that TDCJ employees had been pulling for, including extending the career ladder for correction officers, and creating an oversight committee to speak up for CO’s and advocate for pay raises and training.

The $15 million fiscal note on the career ladder bill couldn’t have helped its chances, but the House did give the go-ahead to spend $5 million on improving hazardous duty pay for CO’s. Rep. Gonzlaez Toureilles’ bill would bump the monthly payment up from $10 to $12, for each year of service an officer has put in. It was one of the last bills read in the House last night, and an important bill for legislators to pass, even if they did so quietly.

The parks funding bill, HB 12, cleared the House today on third reading. After the 141-0 vote Speaker Craddick gifted his gavel to Rep. Harvey Hilderbran (R-Kerrville) who has been working to increase funding to the cash-starved Texas parks system for two years. Applause ensued.

Parks advocates are now closer to achieving one of their main goals of the session: busting the cap on the sporting goods tax, which could potentially free up an extra $80 million a year for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

However, some troubling provisions remain in in the bill. For starters, HB 12 taps more inmates to do the grunt work on Texas state natural areas, picking up trash or digging foundations for new buildings, as Hilderbran explained today. So for any of you jailbird John Muirs, Mother Nature needs you! (A random thought: will anti-immigration folks be up in arms when they find out “illegals” in prison have one more way to steal American jobs?)

An attempt by Rep. Jim Dunnam (D-Waco) to strip out the inmate labor sections of HB 12 fizzled on a 77-65 motion-to-table vote. “I really don’t think we should finance our government by using slave labor,” Dunnam said. Apparently that didn’t convince ten Democrats who joined Republicans in shooting down Dunnam’s amendment.

For your interest, the Dem chang gang consisted of Reps. Cook, Farabee, Gallego, Guillen, Heflin, Hopson, Pena, Villarreal, and suprisingly the liberal Donna Howard of Austin. Democrats did succeed in prohibiting any inmate convicted of a violent crime or sex crime from working on the parks. No one offered an amendment to ban arsonists or the guy who poisoned the Treaty Oak.

Also left in the bill is the controversial transfer of historic sites from TPWD to the Texas Historical Commission, an agency headed by Craddick crony John Nau III. A wholesale transfer of historic sites, such as Sebastopol House in Seguin and rock climbing mecca Hueco Tanks near El Paso, is opposed by parks advocates, visitors, and many of the local communities.

“It’s unfortunate that there are some sites that do not want to go to the historical commission that will be going,” said Beth McDonald, president of Texans for State Parks. McDonald fears that the Historical Commission will not have sufficient state money to maintain the sites - some of which receive few visitors - and will turn to outsourcing, increased entrance fees, and privatization schemes to generate revenue. Of course that may be the whole point of Nau’s - and Craddick’s - gambit: starve the sites of funding and then turn them over to private sector control.

Rep. Donna Howard - and this may explain her earlier vote - did get Hilderbran to accept an amendment yesterday that would require the commission to prepare an “operating plan” before any site transfer. The plan would have to include a proposed budget and mission statement, but the language appears to stop short of making the transfers contingent on the details of the plan.

HB 12 now goes to the Senate. Meanwhile, budget conferees from the Senate and House - where the rubber really meets the road -will meet to work out appropriations for TPWD.

Sadly, Rep. Phil King’s bill to keep prisoners locked up in tents doesn’t seem to be moving this session. But if another lawmaker gets his way, criminals in Texas might yet get that camping experience while serving their time

Years of bare-bones funding have left the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department chronically understaffed, often relying on inmate labor from state prisons for basic park maintenance. To fix this staffing crisis, Rep. Harvey Hilderbran’s sweeping parks reform bill gives TPWD just what they need… more inmate labor!

The expansion of inmate labor, to include people locked up in local and county jails, was added to the Kerrville Republican’s bill, before it was voted out of committee last week.

The bulk of the bill involves giving TPWD more money from the sporting goods tax, and handing 18 historic sites over to the Texas Historical Commission (a dubious decision on its own, covered in the April 20 Observer). Park advocates have lately been focusing their outrage on the historic sites transfer — which would suck six percent of the sporting goods tax away from TPWD — and the way the Legislature has cooled to a dramatic increase in parks funding.

By adding local and county inmates to the mix, legislators would make sure any park can take advantage of this cheap labor pool, even if they’re not lucky enough to be near Hunstville or Mountain View.

Joe Arabie of Texas AFL-CIO says that while expanding inmate labor continues to be a popular move among legislators, it’s not a long-term fix for the parks department, and could spell trouble for TPWD’s current staff. “It all depends on how much TPWD gets” in the final budget, Arabie says. “If they don’t get adequate funding, more folks’ll lose their jobs, and that’s more inmate labor they’ll be using.”

A state auditor’s report released in March highlighted poor maintenance and unmanned fee collection booths as particular problems at TPWD. Struggling to stretch its budget, parks and wildlife was forced to cut 73 jobs last November.

Arabie says that judging from the work state prisoners already do in parks, a cash-strapped park superintendent could save plenty of money by handing jobs over to inmates. “Right now they do everything from maintaining roads to picking up trash. Those are jobs that can pay pretty decent wages.”

Last session, a bill by Rep. Leo Berman opened the door for nonprofits and cemetaries to use inmate labor. Later today, the House Government Reform Committee will hear Rep. Debbie Riddle’s bill authorizing fences along the border, built with prison labor. (By the end of 2002, Texas held the second highest state prison population in the nation and the third highest incarceration rate, according to the Urban Institute.)

“Inmate labor is just too readily available these days, and it seems to be growing,” Arabie says. “It’s just too easy a thing [for legislators] to do, instead of doing the right thing and giving [the agencies] the money they need to operate.”

At least a dozen TV cameras and their operators, several print reporters, a couple still photographers, two soft boxes, a conference table, half a dozen microphones, at least three lawyers, some ACLU staffers, and five or six of the unfortunate asylum-seekers who had to suffer through de facto imprisonment at the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center all packed into a room no larger than the average executive’s office this morning. The press conference in this little room announced lawsuits with big ambitions.

Filed in federal district court in Austin on behalf of 10 children at the Hutto center in Central Texas, the suits name as defendants Michael Chertoff, Dept. of Homeland Security chief, and five other DHS officials. The goal, said Vanita Gupta, a staff attorney with ACLU’s Racial Justice Program and one of the lead lawyers in the Tulia case, is nothing less than Congressional hearings and the closure of the Hutto center, and of course better treatment for immigrant children who came here hoping for a better life.

Throughout the press conference there was an emphasis that the suits do not aim to curb Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s power to uphold the law, but that there are more humane, cost-effective measures than putting families into a converted prison and treating them like convicted felons. “There are other reasonable alternatives” to detention, said Barbara Hines, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the UT School of Law. One of those, a pilot program known as Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, is described on ICE’s website.

Given that the courts have ordered ICE to place children in its custody in the least restrictive setting available, it’s a disturbing side note that the ACLU hasn’t been able to get a straight answer on why the Hutto facility — which is run by Corrections Corp. of America (actual slogan: “Prison Privatization At It’s Best” [sic]), a for-profit company that bills ICE $3 million a month to run the joint — was ever created in the first place.

The ACLU has a press conference scheduled for 10:30 this morning in Austin to announce multiple lawsuits against federal government officials over the T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, Texas. Hutto is home to hundreds of immigrant families, many of whom came to the U.S. seeking political asylum, in what is branded as a “family residential center,” but the families who have since been released say it’s nothing more than a jail.

Some of those families will be on hand today to talk about about the inhumane conditions at the facility, even though Hutto officials have been on recent PR blitz to convince everyone it’s not so bad. We’ll report back with more details this afternoon.