PRISON FIRM ACCUSED OF ONGOING INMATE ABUSE

State prisoner's lawsuit claims Tennessee guards often use threats, violence

Madison - Attorneys for a Wisconsin inmate held in a private prison in
Tennessee filed a federal lawsuit Friday accusing the company that owns the
facility of torture, civil rights violations and racketeering.

The suit alleges that Corrections Corporation of America has been able to
corner the market in the private prison industry with a corporate policy of
violence or the threat of violence against inmates.

The suit also claims that CCA has managed to cut costs and increase profits
by inadequately staffing its prisons with poorly trained guards. If trouble
occurs, tactical squads are dispatched to use unlawful, aggressive, physical
force, according to the lawsuit.

A company spokesman denied the allegations, saying CCA guards only use force
"as a last resort."

The lawsuit stems from a disturbance that began when a guard was attacked
last August at the CCA prison in Whiteville, Tenn. Inmate Ottoway Murphy,
who filed the suit, claims he witnessed CCA's special forces beat, use
pepper-spray and shock other inmates with electrical devices and suffered
such abuse himself.

Murphy's lawyers say what happened last summer at Whiteville also has
occurred at other CCA prisons. This they offered as evidence of CCA's policy
of unlawful violence. One example they cited was CCA's prison in Youngstown,
Ohio, which was the subject of a federal investigation.

CCA, the nation's largest operator of private prisons, opened Northeast Ohio
Correctional Center in 1997 and held inmates from the District of Columbia.
A series of inmate stabbings, two of them fatal, and escapes prompted the
federal investigation.

W. Gaston Fairey, a Columbia, S.C., attorney representing Murphy, contended
that CCA's strategy to cut corners, boost profits and maintain order in its
prisons by brute force was also evident in a juvenile facility it used to
run in Columbia.

"We are alleging that this is in effect a criminal conspiracy by the
corporation," Fairey said. "They use violence or the threat of violence to
gain an economic advantage in the marketplace."

Fairey accused the Tennessee corporation of engaging in a pattern of
racketeering activities, prohibited under the so-called RICO statutes that
Congress enacted nearly 50 years ago. The RICO statutes prohibit
interference with commerce by threats or violence.

Fairey said the lawsuit, filed in Nashville, Tenn., where CCA has its
headquarters, was the first of roughly 30 complaints he and other lawyers
would be filing over the course of a week against CCA on behalf of Wisconsin
prisoners held in the Whiteville prison.

CCA spokeswoman Susan Hart said she had not seen the lawsuit but defended
the corporation, saying its staffing and training requirements met national
standards and the terms of the Wisconsin contract.

"We only use force as a last resort, or a show of force as a last resort,"
Hart said. "People can make allegations all day long. That's not what our
policy and procedures call for. That's not what our training calls for.
That's not how we've been able to grow our business."

Prison Defended

Bill Clausius, spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections,
declined to comment on the lawsuit. However, he said state officials had
visited Whiteville on numerous occasions and were satisfied with changes
made since the disturbance a year ago, which began with an assault on a CCA
guard.

"Representatives of the Department of Corrections have been in Whiteville
many times, and we have worked with them, and we're satisfied that they are
operating to our satisfaction, in terms of the policies they use to run
their prison," Clausius said.

The state now has nearly 1,500 inmates at the private prison, which is east
of Memphis.

The lawsuit alleges a litany of abuse, accusing CCA units, known as SORT
teams, for Special Operations Response Team, of stunning the testicles of
inmates, spraying them with mace, choking them, and uttering obscenities and
racial slurs.

On Aug. 5, CCA guard Jerry Reeves suffered severe head injuries when he was
struck with a weight-lifting bar. At the time, Reeves was among five guards
assigned to supervise about 150 Wisconsin prisoners in a recreation area.

According to Murphy's lawsuit, CCA sent SORT teams from other facilities to
the Whiteville prison. In the suit, Murphy alleges that on Aug. 11 he saw
SORT members enter the segregation unit, where he was held, and beat inmates
and torture them with stun shields, hand-held stun devices and pepper spray.

The lawsuit further alleges that on Aug. 15 SORT team members abused him. He
said he was taken to a separate room, handcuffed and forced to his knees. He
alleged that guards, without provocation, pulled down his pants, lifted his
shirt and gave him electrical shocks repeatedly with stun guns.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

When told of the specific allegations, Hart disputed the charges.

"They can allege all they want, but that is not how our officers are
trained," she said.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 24, 1999.