PRISON FIRM FAULTED FOR MISTREATING TEENS

A state judge in New Orleans has removed six teenage boys from a juvenile
prison after finding they had been brutalized by guards, kept in solitary
confinement for months for no reason and deprived of shoes, blankets,
education and medical care.

The descriptions of conditions at the prison in Jena, in central Louisiana,
are stark. But the criticism is particularly troubling, say federal
officials and attorneys for the prisoners, because the prison is run by
Wackenhut Corrections Corp., the world's largest for-profit prison operator.
The judge said the company, which generally has a good reputation in the
industry, had treated the youths no better than animals.

The teenage inmates were freed or transferred to other prisons by Judge Mark
Doherty of Orleans Parish Juvenile Court, who said the boys had been
entrusted to Jena's personnel ``for the avowed purpose of rehabilitation.''

Instead, Doherty said, they ``wound up in a place that drives and treats
juveniles as if they walked on all fours. These young people deserve to be
treated like human beings, not animals.''

Doherty said he would devote the next two weeks to hearings for 12 other
boys he has sentenced who are at Jena to determine whether he can also
remove them.

Justice Department officials and others said the problems at Jena were at
least partly caused by Wackenhut's efforts to cut costs. Consultants for the
department and a federal judge found the company had stinted on food,
clothing, education and medical treatment for 276 inmates, and on training
for guards.

The Justice Department sent experts to Jena as a result of an investigation
it has mounted in recent years into widespread reports of abuses in
Louisiana's other juvenile prisons.

Wackenhut said the Justice Department's criticisms were overstated and
ignored progress the company had made toward resolving problems at the
prison.

Other private prisons across the country have drawn official criticism. But
most of those have been run by smaller companies set up in recent years, as
the nation's prison-building boom has fostered new growth for the industry.

Wackenhut, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., operates 39,308 beds in 56
facilities in 13 states and seven foreign countries; its shares trade on the
New York Stock Exchange.