Tennessee Prison Guard Sues CoreCivic Over Inmate Assault, Harassment
CoreCivic, and the second largest operator of private prisons, the Geo Group, run the worst prisons in America, with a steady history of abuses. I am amazed that this person was not raped. Many are in private prisons … by staff.
CCA got so much bad press that it changed its name to CoreCivic, which continues to earn terrible reports of unabated abuses.
Excerpts from the Article:
A Tennessee woman is suing private prison contractor CoreCivic, claiming her colleagues left her alone with violent male inmates–and then ignored her calls for help. She says she was forced to work alone with male inmates, enduring physical abuse and sexual harassment.
According to a lawsuit filed by the unnamed woman, coworkers ignored her regular and repeated calls for help. Assistance consistently failed to materialize, even when the Chattanooga facility went into “code red” emergencies.
Instead, supervisors chastised the woman for being weak, admonishing her to “grow a tougher skin.”
When she tried to escalate the matter to human resources, a worker replied by saying that “boys will be boys.”
The Tennessean reports that the guard quit in September and filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Chattanooga on Wednesday. She claims that the Silverdale Detention Center is a “sexually hostile work environment” and is demanding back pay, emotional damages and reinstatement.
The complaint, recounts the Tennessean, describes a series of “unwelcomed, severe, and pervasive” incidents spanning much of 2018.
“Despite Plaintiff’s repeated complaints and requests for assistance, management ignored her complaints, failed to take prompt remedial action toward the harassing inmates, and failed to provide a safe workplace free from severe sexual harassment and sexual assault by the male inmates,” alleges the lawsuit.
The Tennessean lists five incidents from 2018, all of which involved the guard being left alone with groups of male inmates.
In one June incident, two inmates “grabbed Plaintiff on the buttocks and refused to back away despite her repeated commands.” The pair had purportedly been discussing having sex with the guard before touching her.
The circumstances prompted the guard to call in a “code red,” but “no one responded.” The situation was defused only when other inmates intervened.
And in September, the plaintiff claimed she’d been repeatedly flashed by inmates. Despite her complaints, staff told her to “just ignore” inmates’ sexual behavior.
The exposure incidents escalated when one inmate grabbed the guard, pulled her into his cell and began kissing and groping her.
Yet again, claims the lawsuit, nobody responded to the “code red.” She “somehow managed to escape” the cell and quit after September 4th, following threats from other inmates.
The Whole Story:
Tennessee Prison Guard Sues CoreCivic Over Inmate Assault, Harassment
Second trial for prison riot begins Monday – 1/14/19
Read my related articles. The state has NO idea what really happened. They just picked 18 inmates and said “let’s charge these guys”! It is worth noting that the only inmates convicted in the first trial were those without a lawyer!
Open the article to see the names and backgrounds of the next 4 inmates going on trial.
Meanwhile, my friend Steve Hampton continues to give prison officials the trouble they deserve with his civil lawsuit against scores of the bastards.
Excerpts from the Article:
After a protracted criminal investigation 18 inmates were charged with perpetrating the Feb. 1, 2017, riot at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center that left Lt. Steven Floyd dead and several other DOC staff members brutally beaten and traumatized.
Charges were filed in October 2017. Sixteen of the inmates were charged with riot, murder, assault, kidnapping and conspiracy and two were charges with all the above except murder.
Since then, one has pleaded guilty to all charges, one killed himself while awaiting trial, two have been found guilty and one has been acquitted of all charges.
The 13 remaining inmates were separated into three more groups, each group to be tried separately.
The next trial is set to start on Monday before Judge William C. Carpenter Jr. in the New Castle County Superior Court — barring an inclement weather cancellation. As of Friday, a jury of 12 had been selected along with six alternate jurors.
The court has had to estimate how long each trial will take in order to build a timetable. The third group’s trial is scheduled to start March 11 and the fourth group’s on May 5. The first trial, which wrapped up in November, took about five weeks from opening arguments to verdicts.
The jury found Dwayne Staats guilty of all charges except for intentional first-degree murder, Jarreau Ayers guilty of all charges except the three murder counts and Deric Forney not guilty.
All three stood accused of 11 charges each — three counts of murder related to the death of Lt. Floyd, four counts of kidnapping, two counts of assault, riot and conspiracy.
All three defenses has repeatedly slammed the quality of the state’s investigation and witness credibility throughout the trial.
After the trial, Mr. Gifford said the state offered “hardly any evidence” against his client and the acquittal was the “right result.” Referencing dozens of inmate eyewitness accounts brought by the prosecution during the trial, Mr. Gifford noted that the jury would have had to believe highly suspect testimony.
Last week, it was learned that Forney has intention to now turn around and join an already-launched civil suit against the state. The lawsuit was filed in late October by Dover attorney Stephen Hampton on behalf of more than 100 inmates housed in Vaughn prison’s C Building (the site of the riot) during the incident. The 80-page complaint alleges “inhumane conditions” at Vaughn prison and claims that for many years prior to the riot, prison personnel “illegally abused, mistreated and tortured inmates with virtually nothing being done by their JTVCC (Vaughn prison) or Department of Correction (DOC) supervisors, to stop them.” Further, the suit alleges the inmates in questions were savagely beaten during the siege of C Building and have been systematically “tortured and mistreated” in the wake of the riot. Though the 18 inmates indicted with perpetrating the riot were not originally included in the civil suit, Forney will now be added since he’s been acquitted.
“Deric has contacted us and we expect to add him to the complaint when it is amended within the next three weeks,” Mr. Hampton said last week.
Who is next?
According to the New Castle County Courthouse, the next four inmates to stand trial on Monday are Obadiah Miller, John Bramble, Kevin Berry and Abednego Baynes.
All four stand accused of murder, assault, conspiracy, riot and kidnapping and they have opted to be represented by defense attorneys. As of last week, the DOC said all four men are currently being housed at Vaughn prison.
Much of the prosecution’s case rested on inmate eyewitness testimony on account of scant hard evidence and the shaky/nondescript recollection of the victims.
As far as the victims were concerned, the assailants were unrecognizable due to masks and gloves worn during the initiation of the riot. As such, it can be speculated that the jury will struggle similarly in this case to achieve a verdict.
After three straight days of deliberation during the first trial, it seemed likely that the jury would be unable to come to consensus on several charges.
At one point during deliberation, the jury even noted to the judge that they’d reached an “impasse” and one juror had announced their intention to not return the following day, even if a verdict was not reached.
However, at the final hour, the jury found consensus and delivered verdicts on all charges.
Several requests for clarification during the process suggested the jury had been struggling to navigate the concept of “accomplice liability.”
Broadly, accomplice liability enables a person to be held criminally responsible for acts committed by a different person if they aided, assisted or encouraged the commission of the crime. Much of the prosecutions case against the first three defendants fell under the umbrella of this principle.
Testimony by inmate eyewitnesses is expected to again form the bulk of the prosecution’s case, however, Miller’s DNA was one of the few pieces of concrete evidence discovered at the crime scene.
During a statement given by a DNA expert during the first trial, it was revealed that some of Miller’s blood was found among the blood spattered inside a utility closet where Lt. Floyd had been held captive.
Though the first trial offers a preview of the approach the prosecution hopes to use, how the new jury will interpret the state’s case remains to be seen.
Inmate acquitted for Feb. 1 riot, murder to sue state
My friend Steve Hampton, Esq. is doing a great job with holding D O C’s feet to the fire with appropriate lawsuits. Despite overwhelming evidence of abuses, crimes, and unlawful retaliation by D O C personnel and abominable medical neglect by the “health care” contractor for Delaware prisons, all manner of officials, from the governor on down, do NOTHING! I have personally SEEN these abuses, and as a former prosecutor it is galling to see these criminals uniform, the guards, doing whatever they please.
The trials of inmates continues with the State obviously having no clue about who really is responsible for the death of Mr. Floyd! See related articles on this.
That Perry Phelps is now the Commissioner is a sad state of affairs. He was the warden when I was in, and is a huge part of the problems!
God Bless Mr. Hampton!
Excerpts from the Article:
Deric Forney, an inmate recently found not guilty of participating in the 2017 Vaughn prison riot, has decided to sue the state, according to Dover attorney Stephen Hampton.
In late October, Mr. Hampton announced a lawsuit against the state on behalf of more than 100 inmates housed in Vaughn prison’s C Building (the site of the riot) during the incident.
The 80-page complaint alleges “inhumane conditions” at Vaughn and claims that for many years prior to the riot that left Correctional Officer Lt. Steven Floyd dead, prison personnel “illegally abused, mistreated and tortured inmates with virtually nothing being done by their JTVCC (Vaughn prison) or Department of Correction (DOC) supervisors, to stop them.” Further, the suit alleges the inmates in questions were savagely beaten during the siege of C Building and have been systematically “tortured and mistreated” in the wake of the riot.
Though the 18 inmates indicted with perpetrating the riot were not originally included in the civil suit, Forney will now be added since he’s been acquitted.
“Deric has contacted us and we expect to add him to the complaint when it is amended within the next three weeks,” said Mr. Hampton.
Delaware Gov. John Carney and ex-DOC Commissioner Robert Coupe were among the defendants named in the suit, along with current commissioner Perry Phelps, several wardens and a host of other DOC staff from a Major to COs.
The governor’s office has accused Mr. Hampton of “litigating that case in the newspaper” and refused to comment further.
However, Mr. Hampton has maintained that the systematic abuse of inmates continues.
“The inmates are receiving woefully inadequate medical care and some are getting greatly reduced food portions,” he said. “The abusive strip searches and threats have continued and hundreds of inmates are being shipped out of state. It seems that almost two years after the revolt, DOC has failed to correct any of its ongoing serious problems, and if anything, they are worse than ever. DOC management has allowed intolerable conditions for inmates and correctional officers to continue unaddressed and shouldn’t be surprised that nobody with a choice wants to work for DOC.”
Coming to a verdict after a nearly five-week trial in November, the jury found Forney not guilty of conspiracy, murder, riot, assault and kidnapping in association with the 2017 incident. However, the inmates being tried alongside him, Dwayne Staats and Jarreau Ayers, picked up several convictions. Both men were already serving life sentences.
Being moved to C Building just over a month before the riot, Forney said he stayed in his cell for the duration of the uprising until it was put down in the early hours of Feb. 2, 2017.
However, he grew emotional on the stand describing the Correctional Emergency Response Team’s (CERT) siege of the building — claiming he was roughly taken to the floor of his cell and beaten despite not resisting and attempting to peacefully surrender.
Shortly after Forney’s not guilty verdict was delivered last November, Mr. Gifford said he too believed his client was unjustly assaulted by authorities. “My personal feeling is that Deric, like most of the inmates in C Building that day, had no control or authority over what was going on and were helpless to stop the rioters from doing what they were doing,” Mr. Gifford said at the time. “Nevertheless, he — again like many of the inmates — was essentially brutalized when DOC took the building back without any regard as to whether he was a perpetrator or victim of what was happening. It’s also worth noting that the ‘victim vs. perpetrator’ distinction is really unnecessary, as no one deserved to be assaulted by the authorities, regardless of what they think the inmates may have done.”
The Whole Story:
Overdoses Prompt Policy Change in Vermont Prisons
What the head of prisons in Vermont does not say is what EVERYONE who knows the truth knows: most drugs in all prisons are brought in by prison staff!
Their policy of amnesty for inmates willing to tell the truth would be great IF it actually led to prosecution of all wrongdoers, including staff!
Excerpts from the Article:
Two inmates overdosed over the weekend in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton, prompting corrections officials to place the prison on lockdown while Vermont State Police canines searched for drugs.
One inmate was discovered without a pulse, but both survived. Corrections Commissioner Mike Touchette said the drug they ingested was likely K2 or Spice — synthetic cannabinoids. Corrections officials said both inmates were given the overdose-reversal drug Narcan. The department acknowledged that Narcan doesn’t have an effect in reversing a non-opiate overdose, but it’s policy to administer the drug whenever an inmate is found unresponsive with no apparent injuries.
Two other Vermont inmates have overdosed during the past six months or so. Staff quickly used Narcan to reverse those overdoses.
Touchette has decided to expand Narcan access for prison guards and workers. Previously, shift supervisors and medical staff were the only staff equipped with overdose-reversal kits. “After the weekend here we’ve made a change in policy to make sure that all staff have access to the Narcan,” Touchette said Monday. “Generally, our response times [to any incident] are between 10 and 30 seconds, but you know with any overdose event, time matters. Seconds matter.”
Touchette said that illicit drugs get smuggled into prisons through mail, visitors and incoming inmates. State police are working with DOC to find any remaining drugs in the Swanton prison. Touchette has also implemented a temporary amnesty policy for any inmates wishing to turn over contraband drugs.
The corrections department is also planning to work with Vermont State Police and the Department of Health to review this weekend’s incidents.
Touchette called the review a “social autopsy, top to bottom” and said officials hope it will inform future policies.
Companies argue against proposal not to house separated kids
Block the companies. They operate the worst prisons in America! Men, women, and children are raped by staff and inmates, otherwise abuses, and denied needed medical care. It is all well documented!
Here our friend Alex Friedmann speaks out!
Excerpts from the Article:
An activist shareholder wants to pre-emptively block the nation’s two largest private detention companies from housing immigrant children separated from their parents, but the companies don’t want the proposal to go to a vote. Tennessee-based CoreCivic and Florida-based GEO Group both say they have no intention of housing separated immigrant children or their parents, but the companies are fighting an attempt to require them to adopt policies to that effect.
Alex Friedmann, associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center, has submitted shareholder resolutions on the subject for a vote at the companies’ annual meetings. Both companies have asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to exclude the resolutions from shareholders packets sent ahead of their annual meetings, meaning there would be no vote.
After a global uproar last summer, President Trump scrapped his administration’s policy of separating children from their parents when they are detained illegally crossing the U.S. border.
But in an interview Tuesday, Friedmann said that even though the policy of family separation is “over for the moment, we have somebody in the Oval Office who changes his mind on a regular basis.” He added that family separations still happen under certain circumstances.
In an emailed statement, the company also said it “does not determine who is assigned to our care nor do we have any knowledge of their specific cases or circumstances.”
CoreCivic argued in its letter to the SEC that Friedmann’s proposal is so vague that it could apply to legal immigrants who are separated from their children when they are detained on suspicion of committing a crime unrelated to immigration. The company also argued against allowing Friedmann to clarify the resolution because only minor revisions are allowed.
Friedmann argued in supporting statements accompanying the resolutions that shareholders should adopt them because they would protect the companies from reputational damage and liability.
In an interview, he said, “if both companies have no intention of housing these kids they should have no problems adopting the resolution, or letting it go to a vote.”
My friend Steve is “a little peeved” – My constant condition – kra
The following are emails from my friend, attorney Steve Hampton, to a reporter working on a story about another trial of several defendants charged with the murder of Mr. Floyd. When I asked Steve if it’s ok to post it, he said sure, and as to “How are you?” he replied: a “little peeved” … about this situation with all the prison abuse, and I said yes, that’s my constant condition.
I have been raising the same issue now for 6 years.
to Ian
Deric has contacted us and we expect to add him to the complaint when it is amended.
I remain frustrated that the State has already paid defense costs of over $680,000, probably has spent as much or more on the prosecution, and is proceeding ahead with more criminal trials, yet there has been no investigation of the wholesale torture of inmates since February 2, 2017.
The inmates are receiving woefully inadequate medical care and some are getting greatly reduced food portions. The abusive strip searches and threats have continued and hundreds of inmates are being shipped out-of-state. It seems that almost 2 years after the revolt DOC has failed to correct any of its ongoing serious problems, and if anything they are worse than ever. DOC management has allowed intolerable conditions for inmates and C/O’s to continue unaddressed, and shouldn’t be surprised that nobody with a choice wants to work for DOC.
The conditions in Delaware prisons are a tragedy unfolding in front of everybody involved, yet nobody with the authority to make real changes is doing so. The governor and general assembly should be embarrassed that no substantive improvements have been made to DOC operations for years. Instead DOC problems continue to be handled “the Delaware way” which means not doing anything that could embarrass somebody else in authority, especially if you want to continue to have a career in state government or as a state employee. So mistakes, malfeasance and incompetence are covered up and millions and millions of tax dollars on spent on DOC for a program that doesn’t come anywhere close to justifying the expense.
Stephen Hampton
sahampton@gradyhampton.com
Grady and Hampton LLC
6 N. Bradford St.
Dover, DE 19904
302-678-1265
……………………….
Stephen Hampton
11:44 AM (2 hours ago)
to Ian
Ian, I also can’t understand why the laws of Delaware do not seem to apply inside Delaware prisons, at least not to DOC employees. The inmates on trial are accused of committing criminal acts in a DOC prison, and the evidence, as the first trial shows is not that clear. However there is overwhelming evidence that C/O’s and possibly state police officers committed hundreds of crimes against inmates on and after February 2, 2017, yet those crimes haven’t even been investigated.
Do the laws of Delaware apply to everyone committing crimes in DOC prisons, or only to inmates?
“Ignored to death” in the Bexar County jail.
Every day – yes, every day – someone who is physically and/or mentally ill is IGNORED TO DEATH in our prisons!
Read some related articles to learn more facts, and then speak out about this shit! READ Practical Tip: How YOU can become an ADVOCATE! Here is how! EASY as 1, 2 ,3 ! DO IT!
Excerpts from the Article:
Three days after Christmas, family and friends of Janice Dotson-Stephens packed into pews inside the Lewis Funeral Home in San Antonio, mourning the 61-year-old great-grandmother’s death at the Bexar County jail earlier that month. Mrs. Janice, as she was known by those close to her, raised four children as a single mother in public housing on the city’s East Side. Family members called her “Richard Pryor-funny,” her jokes too salty to repeat inside the funeral home chapel. One niece told me she thought of Dotson-Stephens as a second mother. Her daughter, Michelle Dotson, told fellow mourners that she confided in her mother, whom she remembered as a “loud, boisterous, hilarious, explicit and boldly honest woman.” She ended her eulogy by singing one last time with her mother, standing next to the open casket and sobbing along to the gospel song “Open My Heart.”
Dante Dotson says he can’t grieve unless he understands why his mother died in jail. Dotson-Stephens, who struggled with mental illness since she was a teenager, hadn’t been taking her medication for schizophrenia when San Antonio police arrested her on July 17 and charged her with criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor. Dante said that when family members learned of the arrest, they called the state hospital — where his mother usually landed after an episode — but she wasn’t there. Dotson-Stephens’ 88-year-old father, who had power of attorney, called the jail but couldn’t find her there, either.
Family members thought Dotson-Stephens had been released and would eventually resurface. The morning of December 15, sheriff’s officials informed them that Dotson-Stephens had died of natural causes in lockup the day before. They were shocked to learn that she was still in jail nearly five months after her arrest on a low-level charge.
“I can’t mourn until I find out why she died this way,” Dante said before his mother’s memorial service. “I don’t understand it.”
Dotson-Stephens’ death in custody drew national outrage because a $30 bond payment could have secured her release and kept her from spending her final days in jail. Her family questions why officials confined someone with a lengthy, documented history of mental illness in jail for months on such a petty charge. A week after Dotson-Stephens died, her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Bexar County officials. Their attorney, Leslie Sachanowicz, alleges Dotson-Stephens was “ignored to death.”
Dotson-Stephens slipped through the cracks in a county that’s been lauded for how it treats people with mental illness who enter the justice system. For nearly two decades, San Antonio and Bexar County officials have pushed reforms designed to shuffle people in psychiatric crisis toward treatment instead of jail — people like Dotson-Stephens, whose history at the intersection of mental illness and the criminal justice system stretches back decades.
Court records show that in 1982, Dotson-Stephens was committed to Rusk State Hospital after injuring Dante, her oldest child, during a psychotic episode. Dante said there were numerous other arrests and hospitalizations after that. In 2010, after threatening her husband with a knife, Dotson-Stephens was sent to the North Texas State Hospital. In both cases, charges were dismissed or pleaded down to misdemeanors after she completed treatment.
Her family insists it should have been obvious to jail staff that Dotson-Stephens was in crisis after her arrest last summer, saying she talked to herself when she went off her meds. Dante said she also refused to eat when she was sick; he fears she wasted away in jail. Months after Dotson-Stephens’ 2010 arrest, for instance, a doctor requesting a court order to compel treatment noted that her condition worsened the longer she remained in lockup, to the point where she refused to bathe and had begun to hallucinate and lose weight.
Court records for Dotson-Stephens’ most recent charge indicate that she repeatedly refused to be interviewed by officials or go to court once she landed in the jail last summer. Jail records show that nobody, including her court-appointed lawyer, ever visited her. In August, a judge ordered that she undergo a psychological evaluation, which was still pending when she died on December 14, according to court records. The medical examiner’s office listed heart disease as the cause of death, noting schizoaffective disorder as another “significant condition.”
The lawsuit accuses the county of violating the Sandra Bland Act, a state law that went into effect in 2017 and requires law enforcement agencies to make “a good faith effort” to put people facing low-level charges and mental health crisis into treatment instead of jail. As required by the new law, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has tapped an outside law enforcement agency, the Converse Police Department, to investigate the death.
Mental health advocates say Dotson-Stephens’ death in custody is another tragic example of how bad the criminal justice system is at dealing with mentally ill people who enter it, even in a county that’s become a national model. “This really stands out as a case that didn’t need to end this way,” Greg Hansch, public policy director for NAMI Texas, told me this week. “We can do better as a society than just letting people with mental illness die in jail.”
Inmates forced to stay in prison past their release date cost taxpayers
This is a problem in every state, largely because prisons’ “records departments” are as screwed up as the rest of the prison system!
Like the other major problem of deliberate abuses, this issue alone is costing taxpayers – YOU – millions and millions of dollars.
Excerpts from the Article:
Inmates are forced to stay longer in prison. And it’s not because they’ve done anything wrong while serving time. Their attorney says the state isn’t doing a good enough job of keeping track. So now, taxpayers are on the hook to pay a large sum of money.
It’s not just a few extra days. We’re talking about months at a time that the inmates overstayed. And taxpayers are footing the bill in more ways than one.
Attorney Myles Breiner has four cases pending against the state for what’s known as inmate overstay. The lawsuits say that altogether, all four inmates spent more than a thousand days past their release date.
“You’d think that given the digital age that we’re in we’d be able to account for inmate time. Unfortunately, we have an antiquated system that we use in Hawaii. Someone writes down on a piece of paper the number of hours and days someone’s in custody,” said Breiner.
It’s a problem that’s costing state taxpayers in at least a couple of different ways. There’s the additional money for housing and feeding inmates those extra days. As well as the money the state would have to pay because of these lawsuits.
A study done two years ago estimates that it costs the state $140 a day to keep each prisoner locked up. The four inmates who filed a lawsuit overstayed 1,029 days, which amounts to more than $144,000 in additional costs.
As for the cost from the lawsuit, Breiner says it could be millions of dollars, although he’s still negotiating with the state. “All our discussions with the state have been frankly insulting. The notion that someone’s life can be reduced to pennies on the dollar, that doesn’t work,” he said.
Breiner says there are likely more cases out there and a key lawmaker says he’s right.
“Because of fear and retaliation they are not suing the state and they do not want to come forward. But there are other individuals who have been held beyond the sentencing timeline,” said Rep. Sylvia Luke, House Finance Committee Chairwoman.
She says it’s troubling and plans to ask Department of Public Safety officials what’s being done about it.
Practical Tip – YOU need this if your loved one is in a DE prison or was transferred to PA! – kra
Our friend, Lori Alberts, of Link of Love, sent me the information you see below. Delaware is moving hundreds of inmates, about 15 at a time, to PA.
When they get where they are going you should CALL the prison and get the name and email address of the WARDEN of that institution! Then CALL me if your loved one has problems. 302-423-4067
I know a lot of families are concerned that their Loved One might be shipped out of State to PA, so I compiled these papers to get them this information. The important thing is to go on www.vinelink.com and to hit the “Get Notified” button. This way once your Loved One is Moved to Camp Hill, PA you will know and when they get moved to the next prison you will get notified as well.
Camp Hill is only temporary so do not send a lot of money for them to buy items, as they may get thrown away and then you will have to re-purchase the same items. It will be tough on them for a couple of months but the opportunities are better in PA if they are willing to work for them. Depending on where they get moved, it might be a couple of hours drive but in PA they usually allow for longer visits, so with the phone numbers you can call and see what their procedures are.
Also find out their procedures for filing a complaint – your filing a complaint – about that prison.
In case you don’t know it, any prison in America is a place where “anything can happen and usually does”! So save (obtain) the information herein so you are ready for trouble!
Hope this helps.
PA Prison Addresses & Phone Numbers:
Albion 10745 Route 18 Albion, PA 16475 Erie County (814) 756-5778
Benner Township 301 Institution Drive Bellefonte, PA 16823 Centre County (814) 353-3630
Cambridge Springs 451 Fullerton Ave. Cambridge Spring, PA 16403 Crawford County (814) 398-5400
Camp Hill 2500 Lisburn Rd./P.O. Box 200 Camp Hill, PA 17001 Cumberland County (717) 737-4531
Chester 500 East 4th Street Chester, PA 19013 Delaware County (610) 490-5412
Coal Township 1 Kelly Drive Coaltownship, PA 17866 Northumber County (570) 644-7890
Dallas 100 Follies Road Dallas, PA 18612 Luzerne County (570) 675-1101
Fayette 50 Overlook Drive LaBelle, PA 15450 Fayette County (724) 364-2200
Forest 286 Woodland Drive/P.O. Box 307 Marienville, PA 16239 Forest County (814) 2110
Frackville 1111 Altumont Blvd. Frachville, PA 17931 Schuylkill County (570) 874-4516
Greene 169 Progress Drive Waynesburg, PA 15370 Greene County (724) 852-2902
Houtzdale 209 Institution/P.O. Box 1000 Houtzdale, PA 16698 Clearfield County (814) 378-1000
Hunlock Creek 660 State Route 11 Hunlock, PA 18621 Luzerne County (570) 735-8754
Huntingdon 1100 Pike Street Huntingdon, PA 16654 Huntingdon County (814) 643-2400
Laurel Highlands 5706 Glades Pike/P.O. Box 631 Somerset, PA 15501 Sumerset County (814)445-6501
Mahanoy 301 Morea Road Frackville, PA 17932 Schuylkil County (570) 773-2158
Mercer 801 Butler Pike Mercer, PA 16137 Mercer County (724) 662-1837
Muncy 6454 Route 405 Hiwy/P.O. Box 180 Muncy, PA 17756 Lycoming County (570) 546-3171
Phoenix 1200 Mokychic Drive Collegeville, PA 19426 Montgomery County (610) 409-7890
Pine Grove 189 Fyock Road Indiana, PA 15701 Indiana County (724) 465-9630
Quehanna 4395 Quehanna Hiwy Karthays, PA 16845 Clearfield County (814) 263-4125
Retreat 660 State Road 11 Hunlock Creek, PA18621 Luzerne County (570) 735-8754
Rockview Route 26, 1 Rockview Place Bellefonte, PA 16823 Centre County (814) 355-4874
Smithfield 1120 Pike Street Huntingdon, PA 16652 Huntingdon County (814) 643-6520
Somerset 1590 Walters Mill Road Somerset, PA 15510 Somerset County (814) 443-8100
Waymart 11 Farview Rd./P.O. Box 256 Route 6 Waymart, PA 18472 Wayne County (570) 488-5811
This is the mailing address you have to use: Go to www.vinelink.com and follow instructions,
Smart Communications/PADOC go to “Get Notified” box to make sure you are
Inmate name Inmate PA Number updates as to your Loved One’s location.
SCI-name of Prison
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Ex-Hampton Roads Regional Jail guard charged with assaulting, choking inmate
This is noteworthy because for every 1,000 such incidents, maybe 1 of them results in criminal charges! See many related articles on prison abuse.
Excerpts from the Article:
A former correctional officer at Hampton Roads Regional Jail was indicted Thursday on charges he choked an inmate unconscious and injured his arm. Dale Barnes, 59, faces one count each of strangulation and malicious wounding. If convicted, he could receive up to 25 years in prison.
The indictment comes in the wake of a critical U.S. Justice Department report that concluded the jail’s treatment of inmates amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. It also comes two weeks after a current guard at the jail pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault on an inmate.
In an interview at the jail, inmate Skyler Peacock said Barnes attacked him Jan. 9 as he tried to get some pills from a nurse. Peacock, 24, of Portsmouth, said Barnes lunged towards him at the top of some stairs and choked him until he was unconscious. When he came to, Peacock was unable to move his arm.
Barnes resigned about a week later.
Peacock — who was born without part of his brain and suffers from multiple mental health issues — filed a misdemeanor assault charge in November with the help of a magistrate. Prosecutors later reviewed a video of the incident and decided to drop the misdemeanor and pursue felonies, according to Peacock.
In a 43-page report released last month, the Justice Department said the regional jail was likely violating its inmates’ civil rights. It detailed more than 30 cases where inmates were poorly and sometimes fatally mistreated.
Among other things, the report found the jail failed to provide adequate medical and mental healthcare and failed to employ enough medical staff. It also took issue with the jail’s policy of using prolonged restrictive housing — isolation.
Contact Us
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