Miscarriage of Justice: Ivan Milat

I have made it abundantly plain in my 474 review application to the Supreme Court that the issues are a continuation of the effort which I have mounted since my conviction on 27 July 1996.

The 474D adequately lists my issue.

What I am trying to express is that the appeal process has never properly considered my appeal issue, I had before the court of Criminal appeal (The CCA), argued that a number of procedural faults had occurred in my trial that caused a substantial miscarriage of justice. In short the trial judge erred in law when he directed the jury to act upon evidence that had not been established by the crown.

There is repeated authority on that issue: That the crown is obliged to establish the circumstances he relies upon as proof of guilt and to establish that proof to beyond a reasonable doubt.

The CCA instead of addressing the substance of my argument covered up the miscarriage of justice that occurred in my trial.

The CCA instead of addressing the legitimacy of the trial judges decision "in directing the jury to act upon evidence not established by the Crown." (which was the appeal ground I raised).

The CCA evaded the real issue I put before them by introducing factors that were only marginally connected with the appeal issue and the CCA harped on that issue rather than the real point I raised. Actually I am surprised that no one in the legal profession takes any exception to the ground of appeal I raised. I have repeatedly told legal professionals what occurred and I cannot elicit any comment.

Most people appear to think once I got arrested-charged with Belanglo that alone meant I was guilty. The producer of the ABC program 'Australian Story' was awarded a logie for that particular story.

They contacted my friend before hand and he watched the show. They told me that award night the producer said on air, "There is still time Ivan to come clean about it ". Well actually I already had, before the program was aired-during its production.

I wrote a number of letters outlining my case and answers to the questions and in particular I outlined my appeal grounds and the cover up by the CCA and following that the subsequent cover up by the High Court.

In all the appeals I have made to the CCA and to the High Court on the issue I now still continue to pursue, the appeal courts do not refer to authority to address my ground.

The CCA at the hearing and in their judgement come up with a number of reasons to explain why the two crown witnesses Mr Onions ad Mrs Berry were mistaken about seeing the spare wheel.

The CCA came up with approximately six pages of reasons why the witness, Mr Onions and Mrs Berry must have been mistaken, (non of which was evidence at my trial).

But the CCA did not address my appeal ground, "that two witnesses Mr Onions and Mrs Barry gave their evidence in court on oath, that evidence confirmed in cross examination that the crown closed its case in chief and I replied to that crown case and only later after the close of evidence the crown says that witnesses must be mistaken. The trial Judge in turn, "they can correct me on the basis that the two witnesses were mistaken" or alternatively you can convict the accused on 'Possibility Two'.

The Jury were given two directions in law, on the evidence they could consider was proof of my guilt, The rule of law is that evidence has to be established by the crown. Of course the trial judge can express his opinions on the evidence but it still has to be established by the crown.

The Jury are entitled to accept/reject any part of a witnesses evidence (all those reasons the CCA raised to dismiss my ground - was not evidence the crown adduced in the course of the trial).

I was obliged to address the allegations the crown levelled at me in open court, I did that. The defence did not dispute the evidence of the vehicle given by the witnesses. The crown did, but only parts that did not establish my guilt. But that was not the evidence that the witness gave in court.

The crown did not re open its case in chief on this issue to call evidence, to rebut the evidence. It cannot be a case that the trial judge decides that this is the evidence of guilt yet that is what happened.

The CCA knew exactly what I was on about so Gleeson CJ and his Co Judges covered it up.

My appeal to the High Court was against the CCA decision the High Court ruled, "There is no doubting the correctness of the decision of the CCA".

The issue I raised in the 474D is indicative of my innocence. The issues in the 474 raises serious concerns at law. The appeal courts can deal with appeals from unrepresented prisoners affidavits.

I am having difficulty in getting assistance from the government though; I may add there is still no charges at all on issues I first raised when I came to the HRMU. [High Risk Management Unit Goulburn]

Ed. The Daily Terror should leave IVAN Milat's sister Shirley Soire alone. Deliberately using Mr John Marsden solicitor to validate some wild claim - the notion that she helped hunt and execute seven young backpackers in the Belanglo State Forest south of Sydney between 1989 and 1992, is nonsense!

Shirley died two years ago and was cremated at Sydney's Rookwood crematorium, may she rest in peace, God love her.

By Ivan Milat 19 July 05

Related:

Siblings say Milat innocent
During Milat's trial for the murder of seven backpackers in 1996, his lawyers argued that the crimes could have been committed by one of his brothers in relation to the allegation made by a crown witness Paul Onions who claimed to have identified Ivan.

Death threats made in Milat family feud: Everyone's ABC
The older brother of Australia's framed serial killer Ivan Milat has allegedly received death threats from his family after saying his sibling has been a psychopath since childhood.

Ivan Milat loses conviction appeal
Ivan Milat today lost an application in the High Court to appeal against his 1996 conviction for murdering seven backpackers. The 59-year-old had sought special leave to appeal the murder convictions and one count of detaining a person for advantage without legal representation, which includes Legal Aid.

MILAT WAS FRAMED FOR TOURISM $$$$$ AND THE WINNER IS? NOT IVAN MILAT! The murders were headlines overseas. The State government's public relations machine swung into action. An unprecedented $500,000 reward was offered for the heads of the perpetrators. (Commonsense says there was more than one assailant). Head of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Samaranch, was questioning whether Australia was a safe place to visit.

SIX YEARS IN HELL! The Sorry Saga of Ivan Robert Milat
This month, May 2003, Ivan Milat will have spent six years in segregation/isolation without any charge, enquiry, or breach of prison rules levelled against him.

NSW Prisoner Hunger Strike: Ivan Milat
It looks like Premier Carr's anti Milat Campaign is working well again, his application to the Judge in chambers to seek an order to be allowed to orally argue his appeal to the High Court was refused.

NSW Prisoner Hunger Strike: Ivan Milat day 28
The messages my body sends to my mind is basically saying there is some serious concern on what I'm doing, one gets a clear impression that death is imminent, particularly being in my sealed up box *my cell* (in ordinary circumstances it's a fine line between normality and abnormality.

Clive Small, NSW Inspector Gadget
NSW Police has revived controversial plans for a specialist discriminative squad to tackle the wave of violent crime that has plagued Sydney's south-west for more than a decade.

Milat Cuff-Linked to nurses missing since 1980
Why did it take them so long to get around to dealing with the 23-year-old case? Did they find a new way to solve crime? Or and easier way to set someone up for unsolved crime?

A TOTAL ABUSE OF POWER
We the prisoners at the High Risk Management Unit at Goulburn Correctional Centre would like to ask you for help in receiving equal treatment and opportunities as other prisoners throughout the system. As we are told that we are not in a segregation unit but we are treated as though we are in one.

'Police Integrity Commission' Why do you lie like that?
A Police Integrity Commission inquiry which took more than a year, heard more than 50 witnesses - many of them senior police - and cost millions of dollars, has recommended that no action be taken against anyone.

Police Chronology 1994-2001
View events in the NSW Police Force since the Wood Royal Commission began in 1994. 1994 May Justice James Wood is appointed Commissioner of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service ('WRC').

Tourist Industry Crime and Trial By Media Coincidences

Douglas Previte set-up for Stuttle murder
Australia: A 32-year-old man has been jailed for life for murdering British backpacker Caroline Stuttle in Bundaberg in south-east Queensland on alleged evidence possibly trumped up while he was in prison?

Day set aside for Falconio forensic evidence
More than a day has been set aside in the case of the man accused of murdering British backpacker Peter Falconio to hear evidence from a Northern Territory forensic scientist. Yesterday the Darwin Magistrates Court heard from mechanics and friends of the defendant Bradley John Murdoch.

Mr Bradley Murdoch to go on trial next year!
The alleged man is not the alleged Falconio killer in my book. He's alleged to have committed a crime but the Faloconio mystery remains a secret to be unlocked by time itself and more interestingly may never be unlocked at all.

Falconio magistrate closes court
THE hearing into the murder of British tourist Peter Falconio has been closed to the public. Magistrate Alasdair McGregor has closed the court for part of the testimony of Mr Falconio's girlfriend Joanne Lees.

Ch/9 News? Or Ch/9's Department of Public Prosecutions?
Bradley Murdoch committal, lawyer calls for fair hearing
The lawyer of the man accused of murdering British backpacker Peter Falconio has spoken to the media in Darwin.

Peter Beattie nominated as Australian of the year: Howard
Bradley Murdoch the man alleged to have murdered English tourist Peter Falconio who has been acquitted of rape and abduction charges in the South Australian District Court.

Tourist dollar drives set-up for crime
The man alleged to have murdered English tourist Peter Falconio has been acquitted of rape and abduction charges in the South Australian District Court. Bradley John Murdoch, 45, was charged with two counts of rape, two counts of false imprisonment and two counts of indecent assault after an alleged incident in South Australia's Riverland in August last year.

Supreme Court rejects Nine appeal
CHANNEL Nine lost a Supreme Court appeal today to have a suppression order on details of the case of missing backpacker Peter Falconio lifted. The Full Bench of the NT Supreme Court today ruled Magistrate Alasdair McGregor had the power to make the order banning from publication some details of the case.

Falconio magistrate closes court
THE hearing into the murder of British tourist Peter Falconio has been closed to the public. Magistrate Alasdair McGregor has closed the court for part of the testimony of Mr Falconio's girlfriend Joanne Lees.

Innocent until proven guilty? Not in Australia's outback!
There is no way that Bradley John Murdoch can get a fair trial in the Northern Territory. The entire jury pool is already contaminated, the general public have accepted the verdict of the Northern Territory News and the NT Police State has turned on the cone of silence. Maybe some of the reporters might want to ask Director of Public Prosecutions Rex Wilde QC just how he is going to secure a conviction when a body has not been found. Surely the NT bureaucracy learnt from the Lindy Chamberlain case that it is not a good idea to jail someone for murder when you haven't got a body. Maybe they have the same people working on the case. The NT Police forensic team certainly do.

Taken "A Dingo Took My Baby!"
They were the words that Lindy Chamberlain had screamed out into the blackness of the cold night in a camping ground close to Ayers Rock, Central Australia, on the night of August 17, when she discovered that her nearly ten-week-old baby, Azaria had been taken by a dingo.

Man Says He Shot Dingo That Snatched Baby SYDNEY, Australia (July 5) - A distraught mother's scream 24 years ago that a dingo snatched her baby from a camp site near Ayers Rock in the Australian Outback ignited one of Australia's most enduring mysteries. An elderly man's claim that he retrieved the infant's bloodied body from the jaws of the wild dog has revived the case and - if true - could finally lead to the discovery of Azaria Chamberlain's body.

Australia to see the light on tourism
A total of $120 million has been earmarked for the campaign's international marketing, which tops up the Australian Tourist Commission's annual budget of $90 million. The inbound and domestic tourism industry contributes $70 billion to the economy and employs 500,000.

Ten reports $76.9 million profit
The Ten television network has reported a full-year profit of $76.9 million. Even if it were down by half on the previous year they're still greedy self-interested people who care little about the real damage done, not just in Australia but the world. That profit is obviously on top of wages and expenses yet they're still greedy enough to turn the news upside down to suit the Howard government's investment in advertising.

The Truth About Private Prisons

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest operator of prisons for profit, is celebrating its 20th anniversary throughout this year "at both the company's corporate Nashville office and at all of the more than 60 prisons, jails and detention centers under CCA ownership and/or management."

No word on whether the prisoners will be celebrating with them. However, a new report from Grassroots Leadership sticks a pin in their birthday balloon with a very critical look at the company's management of both its financial affairs and its contract prisons.

It is no secret that CCA has had its financial problems over the years. It came close to insolvency in the late 1990s after it accumulated heavy debt building expensive speculative prisons and restructuring itself as a real estate investment trust.

After restructuring again, shaking up its upper management and spending $120 million to settle investor lawsuits, the company now claims to be in better financial shape.

The report concedes that there has been some improvement but remains unconvinced about the company's long-term viability especially as many states are trying to reduce the size of their prison populations.

For those who are more concerned about the public policy implications of the CCA story than the ups and downs of its investors, the company's failures as a prison operator and its successes in influencing penal policy at the state and federal level are the most worrying areas of the report.For-profit prison companies like CCA have always presented themselves as both cheaper and better than the traditional publicly owned prisons, staffed by state employees.

However, from the mayhem and murders at the prison in Youngstown, Ohio, which eventually led to the company paying $1.6 million to prisoners to settle a lawsuit, to a series of wrongful death civil suits, and numerous disturbances and escapes, the authors document in detail a staggering range of failures of prison management.

Failure to provide adequate medical care to prisoners; Failure to control violence in its prisons; Substandard conditions that have resulted in prisoner protests and uprisings; Criminal activity on the part of some CCA employees, including the sale of illegal drugs to prisoners; and Escapes, which in the case of at least two facilities include inadvertent releases of prisoners who were supposed to remain in custody.

Many of the company's problems are blamed on its labor policies. Because prisons are very labor intensive institutions, the only way a company like CCA can sell itself to government as a cheaper option than public prisons while still making a profit, is by using as few staff as possible, paying them as little as possible, and not spending much on training. From the beginning, CCA has sought to depress its labor costs by keeping wages low and by denying its employees traditional (defined-benefit) pension plans. One predictable result of these policies had been understaffing and high rates of turnover at some of its facilities.

For example, annual turnover rates at several CCA facilities in Tennessee have been more than 60 percent. Another, equally predictable, has been the opposition of public service unions to the spread of prison privatization. Criminal justice reformers, trying to reduce the use of incarceration in the U.S., don't normally find themselves allying with prison guard unions but in this fight they are all on the same side.

Despite this opposition, CCA has been quite successful in recent years in influencing the public debate and winning the support of legislators. Of course, it is not hard to win legislators when you back up your arguments with hard cash. The company spends hundreds of thousands of dollars during each state election cycle to try to gain access and build support for its projects. At the federal level, CCA has given more than $100,000 in soft money to the Republican Party since 1997 as well as political action committee contributions to individual members of key Congressional committees.

The presence of J. Michael Quinlan, the former head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, among CCA's senior executives has surely helped the growth in its contracts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the expectation of further expansion as more prisons for immigrants are planned. In its home state of Tennessee, CCA has enjoyed close relationships with many powerful public figures, including governors. And the for-profit prison companies have their own trade association lobbying for them on Capital Hill - the Association of Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations (APCTO).

While all of that might be dismissed as no more than the typical business-building efforts of any company looking to make a profit for its shareholders, there are other more troubling aspects to CCA's behavior. One has been its use of research from dubious sources to push its claims of superiority and cost-savings for the private sector.

Much of it is produced by researchers who are either funded by the industry or are ideologically predisposed in favor of privatization. For example, Charles Thomas, director of the supposedly neutral Private Prison Project of the University of Florida who was widely quoted as an expert on prison privatization throughout the 90s,served on the board of CCA and received several millions of dollars in consulting fees from them.

More recently, a study published in the Harvard Law Review was touted as an independent academic study of privatization. None of its boosters, however, mentioned that the author, in addition to being a graduate student at Harvard, is associated with the Reason Public Policy Institute, a division of the Reason Foundation whose purpose is to promote the privatization of public services. Perhaps most controversial is CCA's close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ALEC is a powerful force in the promotion of the conservative policy agenda among state legislators. One of its major functions is writing model bills that advance conservative principles and working with its members to have these bills introduced. CCA has been a corporate member and a major contributor to ALEC and a member of its Criminal Justice Task Force.

CCA executives have co-chaired the Task Force over many years. As a result of the model bills developed by the Task Force, ALEC claims credit for the widespread adoption of Truth in Sentencing and Three Strikes/Habitual Offender legislation.

Through its support of ALEC, CCA is helping to create greater demand for its services as a result of changes in state policies that keep more people behind bars for longer periods. Although this aspect of its work is not given a major emphasis in the report, it surely represents the most troubling impact of for-profit prison companies.

With more than two million people behind bars and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, the U.S. certainly does not need companies with a vested financial interest in further growth influencing our justice policies.

As Grassroots Leadership's report so fully documents, CCA has little to be proud of in its 20-year-history. Unfortunately, the problems that have dogged it are unlikely to stand in the way of its growth, particularly at the federal level where its pro-privatization, pro-incarceration policies are mirrored by the current administration.

Even at the state level, where the report optimistically suggests that declining prison populations will hurt the company, there are signs that cash-strapped state governments are again turning to the private sector to solve short-term problems without any consideration to the long-term impacts.

And even though CCA itself has pulled back from the international area after a number of well publicized problems, the model of prison privatization it developed is still being sold to nations in transition that can ill-afford either the social or economic costs associated with profit-driven prison growth. CCA may believe it has much to celebrate. The rest of us have good reason to hold our applause.

Jenni Gainsborough is director of the Washington office of Penal Reform International.

Private Prisons for Dummies: The Wild Ride of the Corrections Corporation of America... The Challenge of Crime in A Free Society Paul's Justice Page

By Jenni Gainsborough, AlterNet December 15, 2003

Related:

CCA PRIVATE PRISONS: REPORT GRASSROOTS LEADERSHIP
New National Study of Corrections Corporation of America Warns Investors and Legislators of Risky Investment. Report explores continuing operational and financial problems; questions CCA's long-term viability as states reassess prison policies.

Finally, States Release The Pressure on Prisons?
US: After decades of massive prison growth, America may be ending its love affair with incarceration. Policymakers around the country, some of whom previously supported ratcheting up punishments, have begun to rethink the wisdom of unbridled prison expansion, and are advocating alternatives to simply "locking them up and throwing away the key."

California Parole System Deemed 'Broken'
SACRAMENTO, Calif: California spends $1.5 billion annually on parolees who mostly fail and are sent back behind bars because they are no better prepared for life on the outside than the day they entered prison, according to a report.

People with Mental Retardation in the Criminal Justice System
Based on the 1990 census, an estimated 6.2 to 7.5 million people in the United States have mental retardation. Various studies have suggested between 2 percent to 10 percent of the prison population has mental retardation.

USA: With Cash Tight, States Reassess Long Jail Terms
OLYMPIA, Wash., Nov. 6 - After two decades of passing ever tougher sentencing laws and prompting a prison building boom, state legislatures facing budget crises are beginning to rethink their costly approaches to crime.

A STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTS: PRISONS & IMPERIALIST WAR
After a war waged by the U.S. military against Vietnam which took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and more than 58,000 GIs, the U.S. finally withdrew in 1975. It had suffered its first official major military defeat by a united people struggle led by the Vietnamese, along with a mass U.S. anti-war movement.

Report on State Prisons Cites Mental Illness
NEW YORK: Nearly one of every four New York State prisoners who are kept in punitive segregation [solitary confinement], confined to a small cell at least 23 hours a day are mentally ill, according to a new report by a nonprofit group that has been critical of state prison policies.

High court keeps alive case of prisoners held in solitary
NEW ORLEANS: The nation's highest court refused Monday to kill a lawsuit brought by two prisoners and an ex-prisoner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary who spent decades in solitary confinement.

US: Mentally Ill Mistreated in Prison More Mentally Ill in Prison Than in Hospitals (New York, October 22, 2003) Mentally ill offenders face mistreatment and neglect in many U.S. prisons, Human Rights Watch. "Prisons have become the nation's primary mental health facilities. But for those with serious illnesses, prison can be the worst place to be."

Shut down the Security Torture Units
San Francisco: October 18 In solidarity with other prison activist organizations, MIM, RAIL, the Barrio Defense Committee (BDC) and the Prison Reform Unity Project held a four hour rally in San Francisco demanding the Security Housing Units (SHUs) in California prisons be shut down.

Solitary Confinement: Mental illness in prisons
As noted earlier, inmates [prisoners] with mental illness are over represented in our toughest prison settings. Symptoms of mental illness (i.e., delays in response time, paranoia, difficulty interpreting the actions of others, command hallucinations, and so on) can make complying with prison rules difficult.

Post-Incarceration Sentences
Pat: "The 1990s brought a new front in the war on drugs, featuring a new layer of the Prison Industrial Complex, which has the effect of ensuring that people coming in contact with the criminal punishment system remain within the grasp of the Prison Industrial Complex even beyond prison walls."

Inside Prison, Outside the Law
Every year, tens of thousands of prisoners in state and federal custody are attacked. The exact number who die is difficult to determine: According to the nonprofit Criminal Justice Institute, in 2000, the most recent year for which figures have been compiled, 55 prisoners were murdered, 39 died "accidentally," and 118 died for unknown reasons.

Day Seven of the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health:
PASADENA, CALIF: On the seventh day of a hunger strike by six psychiatric survivors to oppose human rights violations in the mental health system, the American Psychiatric Association faces a direct and unprecedented challenge from a Scientific Panel of 14 academics and clinicians.

Supreme Court Justice Criticises Sentencing Guidelines
San Francisco, August 9, 2003, Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said today that prison terms are too long and that he favours scrapping the practice of setting mandatory minimum sentences for some federal crimes.

US prison population 2.1 million
The US prison population grew more than twice as fast last year as in 2001, bringing the total number of people held behind bars in the United States to more than 2.1 million, a record, according to a government report.

McKean Federal Prison: An Alleged Model
McKean, a federal correctional institution [? prison], does everything that "make 'em bust rocks" politicians decry--imagine, educating inmates [prisoners]! And it works. [Allegedly works.]

Prisoners Justice Day Press Release (Montreal)
On August 10th, 1974, Eddie Nalon bled to death in a solitary confinement unit at Millhaven Maximum Security Prison near Kingston,Ontario when the emergency call button in his cell failed to work. An inquest later found that the call buttons in that unit had been deactivated by the guards.

Notebook of a Prison Abolitionist
In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass recalls how as a slave he would occasionally hear of the "abolitionists." He did not know the full meaning of the word at first, but he heard it used in ways that he found appealing.

Study Warns of Rising Tide of Released Prisoners
Washington: More than 625,000 former prisoners will be coming back into U.S. society this year, part of a record flow of prisoners who will face crushing obstacles in finding work and housing and repairing long-fractured family ties, according to a newly released study.

Incite Statement Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex
We call social justice movements to develop strategies and analysis that address both state AND interpersonal violence, particularly violence against women.

Second International Conference on Human Rights & Prison Reform
**This second gathering will be much smaller and more in depth in participation. A report on the human rights violation of discrimination in regard to prisoners will be produced. This report will be given to the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights which will be having its annual meeting near our conference and is the"think tank" for the human rights agenda of the United Nations.

Judged Forever- The Orange County Register
US: California's largest job-placement program for parolees will be shut down May 31 after an Orange County Register investigation found that ex-convicts were sent to questionable jobs [?] and that the state was charged for placements that did not occur. [? According to the ruling-class]

California Family Visiting Case
US: CALIFORNIA: Today (5/03/08) in Superior Court around twenty friends and family members of inmates from CSP Solano showed up to show their support in the Gordon vs. CA Department of Corrections (Case #322862) which deals with the subject of bringing back Family Visits to all inmates.

Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds
An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department.

Justices question prison visitation policies
WASHINGTON: In a case that could affect the visitation rights of millions of prisoners, Supreme Court justices on Wednesday struggled with the question of whether inmates have a constitutional right to visits with friends and family.

CCA PRIVATE PRISONS: REPORT GRASSROOTS LEADERSHIP

New National Study of Corrections Corporation of America Warns Investors and Legislators of Risky Investment. Report explores continuing operational and financial problems; questions CCA's long-term viability as states reassess prison policies.

WASHINGTON, DC, December 9, 2003 An analysis of the first two decades of Corrections Corporation of America released today by Grassroots Leadership questions how the nation's largest private prison company can remain viable in the face of continuing operational problems and current national corrections trends modifying lengthy prison terms.

As states struggle though their third consecutive year of fiscal gloom with a cumulative $200 billion in revenue shortfalls, and lawmakers in 25 states implement smarter, shorter and less costly sentencing and correctional reforms, the report draws into question how CCA can possibly keep its cellblocks full.

The 81-page study, commissioned by North Carolina-based Grassroots Leadership, takes an in-depth look at the scandals, deficiencies, and overstatement of performance in more than a dozen states (including Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and Arizona) and the District of Columbia where CCA operates.

The report portrays CCA as a company whose business model is out of step with current national trends in corrections and issues a warning to investors and legislators, emphasizing that the company's performance record is poor and that it is still financially unstable.

"The trend among states to shorten sentences to reduce prison crowding and narrow budget gaps is good public policy, but it makes CCA a risky investment," said Philip Mattera of The Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, who helped write the report for Grassroots Leadership.

"Not only will CCA be unable to fill its beds, but the company has not improved operationally and is still mired by debt and controversy since going virtually bankrupt in the late 1990s."

According to a study released last month by Families Against Mandatory Minimums, 25 states are embracing "smart on crime" approaches, rolling back mandatory minimums laws, offering treatment instead of prison time for some drug offenders, and reinstating early release for parole.

These findings suggest A major shift in political will away from lengthy prison terms for low-level offenders, which would seem to pose a challenge for CCA to keep its beds full.

The Grassroots Leadership report, entitled "Corrections Corporation of America: A Critical Look At Its First 20 Years," says CCA's record is an example of how the pursuit of profit stands in the way of carrying out a core public function such as corrections.

Rather than fulfilling the company's original promise to raise standards in corrections, CCA has been marred by scandal and allegations of mismanagement, mistreatment of prisoners, poor training of Employees and manipulation of public policy.

The report also says the public may not know the true extent of CCA's financial instability and organizational challenges and cites a concerted and extensive public relations campaign launched by the company in response to mounting negative media attention.

"States should think twice before signing any new contracts with CCA," said co-author Mafruza Khan, also from Good Jobs First. "This report shows that CCA has not undergone any significant transformation since being racked by scandals at its prisons in the late 1990s. It is still involved in numerous controversies and lawsuits involving conditions in its facilities."

The study also notes hefty campaign contributions by CCA to legislators to drive policies to maintain and grow the prisoner population. The report reviews cases in which CCA appeared to use its contributions and ties with public officials and legislators to help it win new contracts and influence public policy.

According to the Institute on Money in State Politics (www.followthemoney.org), 830 candidates in the 2000 election received contributions from the private prison industry for a total of $1.12 million. CCA was the top Giver with 600 contributions for a total of $443,300. Also documented are CCA's attempts to expand overseas and the controversies that surrounded its joint venture operations in the U.K and Australia.

"Within 20 years CCA went from having global aspirations to disposing of its relatively meager international operations," said Stephen Nathan, an independent journalist and researcher who also co-authored the report.

The report lays out some of the debacles that have consumed CCA in states across the country, for example:

Since 1999, CCA staff members have mistakenly released prisoners more than a dozen times at the then-brand new David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2002, the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority penalized CCA in conjunction with the erroneous releases of three prisoners. Officials attempted to put blame on low-level employees, yet one employee told a local newspaper reporter, "was never trained how to read court documents. No one ever gave me any formal training on how to do anything down here."

In March 2003, Tamara L. Schlitters filed a federal lawsuit against CCA and various company employees charging that her 26-year-old son, Jeffery Buller, died while in custody allegedly because officials refused to fill a prescription for him, with only ten days left to serve, at Kit Carson Correctional Center in Colorado. Buller died one day before his scheduled release.

In May of 1997, with free land and large tax abatements from the city, CCA opened the Youngstown, Ohio, facility to house prisoners from the District of Columbia. Almost immediately the facility became plagued with stabbings and violence. CCA had to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed unsafe conditions and paid $1.6 million to prisoners for the facility, which was plagued by violence and considered a "ticking bomb" from the beginning.

In 1998 the uproar over management reached new heights when six prisoners, including four convicted murderers, cut through a gate and escaped in broad daylight.

The prison was finally closed in 2001 after the District of Columbia refused to renew its contract, leaving employees without a job and the town with an empty facility (negotiations are currently underway to re-open the Youngstown facility).

CCA continues to be plagued by the same kind of operational deficiencies, scandals, and mismanagement that characterized its performance during its early years, the report concludes, citing CCA's own acknowledgement that "the operation of corrections and detention facilities by private entities has not achieved complete acceptance by either governments or the public." The report is available online at Grassroots Leadership org

Note to editors and reporters: Interviews with the authors are available by contacting Tonyia Rawls at Grassroots Leadership, 704-968-4916 or agr8image@aol.com.

This report is a joint project of Grassroots Leadership and the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First. Grassroots Leadership is a multi-racial team of organizers based in Charlotte, NC.

Its goal is to help Southern community and labor organizations think critically, work strategically and gain power to achieve justice and equity. Grassroots Leadership provides a range of support to Southern organizations and labor unions including public policy development, community education, research, direct action campaigns, coalition building and crisis intervention.

Authors Philip Mattera and Mafruza Khan are with The Corporate Research Project, an affiliate of Good Jobs First in Washington, DC. The project provides strategic information and analysis on companies for labor, environmental, public interest and other activist groups around the country. Author Stephen Nathan is an independent journalist and researcher. He also edits Prison Privatisation Report International, a newsletter published by the Public Services International Research.

Tonyia Rawls posted 10 December 03

Related:

Finally, States Release The Pressure on Prisons?
US: After decades of massive prison growth, America may be ending its love affair with incarceration. Policymakers around the country, some of whom previously supported ratcheting up punishments, have begun to rethink the wisdom of unbridled prison expansion, and are advocating alternatives to simply "locking them up and throwing away the key."

California Parole System Deemed 'Broken'
SACRAMENTO, Calif: California spends $1.5 billion annually on parolees who mostly fail and are sent back behind bars because they are no better prepared for life on the outside than the day they entered prison, according to a report.

People with Mental Retardation in the Criminal Justice System
Based on the 1990 census, an estimated 6.2 to 7.5 million people in the United States have mental retardation. Various studies have suggested between 2 percent to 10 percent of the prison population has mental retardation.

USA: With Cash Tight, States Reassess Long Jail Terms
OLYMPIA, Wash., Nov. 6 - After two decades of passing ever tougher sentencing laws and prompting a prison building boom, state legislatures facing budget crises are beginning to rethink their costly approaches to crime.

A STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTS: PRISONS & IMPERIALIST WAR
After a war waged by the U.S. military against Vietnam which took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and more than 58,000 GIs, the U.S. finally withdrew in 1975. It had suffered its first official major military defeat by a united people struggle led by the Vietnamese, along with a mass U.S. anti-war movement.

Report on State Prisons Cites Mental Illness
NEW YORK: Nearly one of every four New York State prisoners who are kept in punitive segregation [solitary confinement], confined to a small cell at least 23 hours a day are mentally ill, according to a new report by a nonprofit group that has been critical of state prison policies.

High court keeps alive case of prisoners held in solitary
NEW ORLEANS: The nation's highest court refused Monday to kill a lawsuit brought by two prisoners and an ex-prisoner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary who spent decades in solitary confinement.

US: Mentally Ill Mistreated in Prison More Mentally Ill in Prison Than in Hospitals (New York, October 22, 2003) Mentally ill offenders face mistreatment and neglect in many U.S. prisons, Human Rights Watch. "Prisons have become the nation's primary mental health facilities. But for those with serious illnesses, prison can be the worst place to be."

Shut down the Security Torture Units
San Francisco: October 18 In solidarity with other prison activist organizations, MIM, RAIL, the Barrio Defense Committee (BDC) and the Prison Reform Unity Project held a four hour rally in San Francisco demanding the Security Housing Units (SHUs) in California prisons be shut down.

Solitary Confinement: Mental illness in prisons
As noted earlier, inmates [prisoners] with mental illness are over represented in our toughest prison settings. Symptoms of mental illness (i.e., delays in response time, paranoia, difficulty interpreting the actions of others, command hallucinations, and so on) can make complying with prison rules difficult.

Post-Incarceration Sentences
Pat: "The 1990s brought a new front in the war on drugs, featuring a new layer of the Prison Industrial Complex, which has the effect of ensuring that people coming in contact with the criminal punishment system remain within the grasp of the Prison Industrial Complex even beyond prison walls."

Inside Prison, Outside the Law
Every year, tens of thousands of prisoners in state and federal custody are attacked. The exact number who die is difficult to determine: According to the nonprofit Criminal Justice Institute, in 2000, the most recent year for which figures have been compiled, 55 prisoners were murdered, 39 died "accidentally," and 118 died for unknown reasons.

Day Seven of the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health:
PASADENA, CALIF: On the seventh day of a hunger strike by six psychiatric survivors to oppose human rights violations in the mental health system, the American Psychiatric Association faces a direct and unprecedented challenge from a Scientific Panel of 14 academics and clinicians.

Supreme Court Justice Criticises Sentencing Guidelines
San Francisco, August 9, 2003, Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said today that prison terms are too long and that he favours scrapping the practice of setting mandatory minimum sentences for some federal crimes.

US prison population 2.1 million
The US prison population grew more than twice as fast last year as in 2001, bringing the total number of people held behind bars in the United States to more than 2.1 million, a record, according to a government report.

McKean Federal Prison: An Alleged Model
McKean, a federal correctional institution [? prison], does everything that "make 'em bust rocks" politicians decry--imagine, educating inmates [prisoners]! And it works. [Allegedly works.]

Prisoners Justice Day Press Release (Montreal)
On August 10th, 1974, Eddie Nalon bled to death in a solitary confinement unit at Millhaven Maximum Security Prison near Kingston,Ontario when the emergency call button in his cell failed to work. An inquest later found that the call buttons in that unit had been deactivated by the guards.

Notebook of a Prison Abolitionist
In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass recalls how as a slave he would occasionally hear of the "abolitionists." He did not know the full meaning of the word at first, but he heard it used in ways that he found appealing.

Study Warns of Rising Tide of Released Prisoners
Washington: More than 625,000 former prisoners will be coming back into U.S. society this year, part of a record flow of prisoners who will face crushing obstacles in finding work and housing and repairing long-fractured family ties, according to a newly released study.

Incite Statement Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex
We call social justice movements to develop strategies and analysis that address both state AND interpersonal violence, particularly violence against women.

Second International Conference on Human Rights & Prison Reform
**This second gathering will be much smaller and more in depth in participation. A report on the human rights violation of discrimination in regard to prisoners will be produced. This report will be given to the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights which will be having its annual meeting near our conference and is the"think tank" for the human rights agenda of the United Nations.

Judged Forever- The Orange County Register
US: California's largest job-placement program for parolees will be shut down May 31 after an Orange County Register investigation found that ex-convicts were sent to questionable jobs [?] and that the state was charged for placements that did not occur. [? According to the ruling-class]

California Family Visiting Case
US: CALIFORNIA: Today (5/03/08) in Superior Court around twenty friends and family members of inmates from CSP Solano showed up to show their support in the Gordon vs. CA Department of Corrections (Case #322862) which deals with the subject of bringing back Family Visits to all inmates.

Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds
An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department.

Justices question prison visitation policies
WASHINGTON: In a case that could affect the visitation rights of millions of prisoners, Supreme Court justices on Wednesday struggled with the question of whether inmates have a constitutional right to visits with friends and family.