Prison System Issues

IN THIS SECTION   Commentary     Arizona  List of Prisons (AZ)  Articles (AZ)     New Mexico     List of Prisons (NM)     Articles (NM) COMMENTARY There is a close link between police officers and prisons.  Prisoners have established organized crime networks both inside and outside prisons.  There can be intolerable environments and personnel in prisons.  Prison riots explode off and on over the years for various reasons, including abuse of inmates, attempts at escaping and gang rivalries.  Various lawsuits involving abuse of inmates also occur in an ongoing manner.   Note medically related issues, including corporations involved in medical care to prisons.  Also pay attention to food service corporations providing food services to prisons, and their activities outside the prison system as well.   The ACLU is a big player in the prison lawsuit world.  Although prison conditions can be and are often beyond difficult, with severe human rights abuses of every kind imaginable, we also need to pay attention to Mexican cartels and others tweaking the legal system against prisons.  In addition, we need to remember we almost only hear about the bad and hardly the good that gets done by prisons and their workers.  Small humanistic touches surely happen in this world just like anywhere else, with little thanks or attention given to those who try.  Most of us can imagine how bleak it is to be left in places like these and shudder at the thought.  Some people suggest prisons don’t work.  Others indicate they are terribly overcrowded.  Yet others suggest that corporations are handling them, with concomitant corruption there.  Closely tied to prison issues are those involving the ethics of mandatory isolation and death sentencing.  Some prisoners are so violent with others they have to be kept to themselves, but it is the opinion of this website that complete isolation is fully abusive and should not happen.  People should not be left in full isolation cells completely away from human contact; it is the opinion of this website that it constitutes torture and should not be permitted. ARIZONA Arizona Department of Corrections (DOC) https://corrections.az.gov/ Articles (AZ) DOC May Face $2.1 Million in Fines as Inmates Bake Waiting for Medical Care Antonia Noori Farzan | July 17, 2017 https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-doc-facing-21-millions-in-fines-over-inmate-health-care-lawsuit- 9496694 NEW MEXICO List of Prisons Bernalillo County Metro Detention Center Cibola County Correctional Center Guadalupe County Correctional Facility in Santa Rosa Lea County Corrections Center Lincoln County Detention Center Luna County Detention Center New Mexico Department of Corrections Northeast New Mexico Detention Facility in Clayton Otero County Prison 10 Mcgregor Range Rd, Chaparral, NM 88081 San Juan County Government and Juvenile Probation 851 Andrea Dr., Farmington, NM 87401 Sandoval County Detention Center Santa Fe County Corrections Torrance County Detention LINKS Albuquerque Journal (2015/10/03) Shortage of guards a threat to New Mexico prisons. By Dan Boyd. https://www.abqjournal.com/653912/shortage-of-guards-a-threat-to-new-mexico-prisons.html JRSA New Mexico - Mixing juveniles with adults http://www.jrsa.org/pubs/reports/sjsreport/new_mexico.html PBS (2018/01/27) New Mexico holds hundreds of people in prison past their release date. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-mexico-holds-hundreds-of-people-in-prison-past-their-release-date Santa Fe New Mexican (2016/06/28)  Corizon paid $4.5M to settle inmate lawsuits.  By Phaedra Haywood https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/corizon-paid-m-to-settle-inmate- lawsuits/article_70013e63-6133-5468-b6e0-2bdb91ed5a3d.html Excerpt:  Corizon Correctional Healthcare, the nation’s largest for-profit provider of inmate medical services, paid out more than $4.5 million to settle lawsuits brought by New Mexico inmates from 2007 until the end of May, when it lost its contract with the state, according to figures released by the company on Tuesday. The information was limited to a spreadsheet with the dollar amounts of payouts made to what appears to be 59 different plaintiffs and the name of the prison facility where the claims originated. Most of the payouts appear to be related to a former Corizon doctor, Mark E. Walden, who was accused in lawsuits of sexually abusing dozens of inmates in 2011 and 2012 at the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility in Santa Rosa and the Northeast New Mexico Detention Facility in Clayton https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/corizon-paid-m-to-settle-inmate- lawsuits/article_70013e63-6133-5468-b6e0-2bdb91ed5a3d.html Updates:  2019/09/06 added article New Mexico sfnm-2016/06/28 on corizon. Also Arizona phx new times-2017.