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Iron Bars Do Not a Prison Make (for Nazis)

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ April 15, 2013Post a comment Email This Post Email This Post Print This Post Print This Post
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COMMENT: In recent posts, we have exam­ined indi­ca­tions of col­lu­sion between cor­rec­tions offi­cers in the Unit­ed States and neo-Naz­i/white suprema­cist prison gangs. We have also high­light­ed col­lu­sion between Ger­man intel­li­gence and neo-Nazi net­works in that coun­try.

Two recent sto­ries sup­ple­ment that research, indi­cat­ing yet again that there are omi­nous par­al­lels between the rela­tion­ship join­ing the “author­i­ties” and the Nazi/white suprema­cist “under­world” in both coun­tries.

Inmates in one of the grow­ing num­ber of for-prof­it cor­po­rate pris­ons have charged that an appar­ent neo-Nazi prison gang has been giv­en author­i­ty to super­vise that prison, to an extent.

In Ger­many, neo-Nazis in pris­ons there have effec­tive­ly net­worked, spark­ing spec­u­la­tion that Ger­man offi­cial­dom may be col­lud­ing with the inmates.

“Inmates Claim Pri­vate Prison Fal­si­fies Staffing Lev­els” [AP]; The Spokesman-Review; 1/22/2013.

EXCERPT: Attor­neys for inmates at Ida­ho’s largest pri­vate prison say Cor­rec­tions Cor­po­ra­tion of Amer­i­ca is fal­si­fy­ing staff logs to hide chron­ic under­staffing.

The alle­ga­tion was raised Fri­day in an amend­ed law­suit filed in Boise’s U.S. Dis­trict Court.

Attor­neys for the Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA have not yet respond­ed to the amend­ed law­suit in court, and CCA spokesman Steve Owen said he could­n’t dis­cuss details of the lit­i­ga­tion. . . .

. . . . The new law­suit was filed in Novem­ber by a group of inmates who con­tend CCA is work­ing with a few pow­er­ful prison gangs to con­trol the facil­i­ty south of Boise and cut back on staffing. The attor­ney for the inmates, T.J. Angst­man, cit­ed an inves­tiga­tive report from the Ida­ho Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion that sug­gest­ed gangs like the Aryan Knights and the Severe­ly Vio­lent Crim­i­nals were able to wrest con­trol from staff mem­bers after prison offi­cials began hous­ing mem­bers of the same gangs togeth­er in some cell­blocks to reduce vio­lent clash­es. . . .

“Neo-Nazis Orga­niz­ing in Pris­ons in Ger­many” by Melis­sa Eddy; The New York Times; 4/11/2013.

EXCERPT: They called them­selves the A.D. Jail Crew and sought to band togeth­er “broth­ers and sis­ters” in pris­ons across Ger­many to “defend loy­al­ty, com­rade­ship and the ‘old’ val­ues.” Their aim, accord­ing to an adver­tise­ment found by the author­i­ties who broke up the net­work, was to pro­vide sup­port for neo-Nazis serv­ing time behind bars.

Three pris­on­ers in the state of Hesse are sus­pect­ed by pros­e­cu­tors in Frank­furt of form­ing a crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tion and try­ing to recon­sti­tute a banned orga­ni­za­tion, and the author­i­ties widened their search on Thurs­day to include penal insti­tu­tions across the coun­try.

Details about the A.D. Jail Crew emerged days before the tri­al of the sole sur­vivor of a trio of neo-Nazis who called them­selves the Nation­al Social­ist Under­ground opens in Munich. The author­i­ties in Hesse said the name of the sus­pect, Beate Zschäpe, was includ­ed on a list of pris­on­ers who were con­tact­ed by those try­ing to set up the far-right orga­ni­za­tion.

Ms. Zschäpe is charged with play­ing a role in the killings of eight men of Turk­ish back­ground, one Greek man and a police­woman in a crime ram­page that set off soul-search­ing in a coun­try that has tak­en great pains over the years to pub­licly account for the crimes of its past.

Embar­rassed over their fail­ure to detect the Nation­al Social­ist Under­ground soon­er, the Ger­man police and intel­li­gence agen­cies pledged last year to redou­ble their efforts to crack down on the far right. But the exis­tence of the prison group and its efforts to orga­nize behind bars raised ques­tions about the seri­ous­ness of that com­mit­ment. . . .

Discussion

One comment for “Iron Bars Do Not a Prison Make (for Nazis)”

  1. So this hap­pened:

    Ida­ho agen­cies refuse to dis­cuss CCA set­tle­ment
    By REBECCA BOONE, Asso­ci­at­ed Press
    Updat­ed 5:24 pm, Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 26, 2014

    BOISE, Ida­ho (AP) — Ida­ho’s set­tle­ment with pri­vate prison com­pa­ny Cor­rec­tions Cor­po­ra­tion of Amer­i­ca releas­es the com­pa­ny from all civ­il lia­bil­i­ty con­nect­ed to the under­staffing at the prison south of Boise, as well as any lia­bil­i­ty stem­ming from staffing issues not yet dis­cov­ered.

    But the full scope of the set­tle­ment is dif­fi­cult to deter­mine. The Ida­ho Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office, which reviewed the set­tle­ment on behalf of the state, refused to com­ment on the doc­u­ment, claim­ing attor­ney-client priv­i­lege.

    Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s office referred all ques­tions to the Ida­ho Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion, and Divi­sion of Pur­chas­ing Admin­is­tra­tor Bill Burns did­n’t return phone mes­sages left by The Asso­ci­at­ed Press. Ida­ho Board of Cor­rec­tion mem­bers Robin Sandy and David McClusky did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to emails from The Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

    The Ida­ho Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion refused to com­ment on the set­tle­ment, say­ing only that it would not affect the Ida­ho State Police crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion cur­rent­ly under­way.

    The set­tle­ment says that in exchange for CCA pay­ing $1 mil­lion, the Ida­ho Depart­ment of Admin­is­tra­tion, Divi­sion of Pur­chas­ing, Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion and Board of Cor­rec­tion agree to release the prison com­pa­ny from all lia­bil­i­ty aris­ing from the staffing of the Ida­ho Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter.

    That release of lia­bil­i­ty lasts for­ev­er and is irrev­o­ca­ble and includes but isn’t lim­it­ed to “any claims under any oth­er fed­er­al, state or local statutes or ordi­nances not ref­er­enced above (the “Staffing Dam­ages”)...” accord­ing to the doc­u­ment. The set­tle­ment also states that it isn’t tied to a foren­sic audit that found that CCA under­staffed the prison by thou­sands of hours in 2012, and that CCA does­n’t agree with those audit find­ings.

    CCA has oper­at­ed Ida­ho’s largest prison for more than a decade. The Ida­ho Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion asked the Ida­ho State Police to launch a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into CCA last year after an Asso­ci­at­ed Press inves­ti­ga­tion showed that the Nashville, Tenn.-based com­pa­ny’s staffing reports giv­en to the state list­ed some guards as work­ing 48 hours straight in order to meet min­i­mum staffing require­ments. CCA then acknowl­edged that its employ­ees fal­si­fied the doc­u­ments to hide thou­sands of hours of under­staffing at the prison in vio­la­tion of the $29 mil­lion state con­tract.

    For the past 12 months, state offi­cials have said that the inves­ti­ga­tion was under­way. But after the AP filed a pub­lic-records request for the Ida­ho State Police inves­ti­ga­tion doc­u­ments late last month, the law enforce­ment agency revealed no inves­ti­ga­tion ever occurred.

    The release of lia­bil­i­ty stretch­es from Dec. 23, 1997 — the day Ida­ho and CCA first inked a con­tract — until Feb. 18, 2014 — the day the set­tle­ment went into effect. Feb. 18 was the same day that the gov­er­nor announced he had changed his mind and was direct­ing the Ida­ho State Police to crim­i­nal­ly inves­ti­gate the mat­ter after all.

    ...

    Yep! CCA was giv­en a $1 mil­lion fine on its $29 mil­lion annu­al con­tract and has been released of any lia­bil­i­ties for any past or yet-to-be found vio­la­tions. Oh, and there was nev­er actu­al­ly an inves­ti­ga­tion.

    So any­ways, in oth­er no longer very rel­e­vant news...look who’s get­ting inves­ti­gat­ed!

    APNews­Break: FBI Inves­ti­gates Prison Com­pa­ny
    BOISE, Ida­ho March 7, 2014 (AP)
    By REBECCA BOONE
    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    The FBI has launched a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into pri­vate prison com­pa­ny Cor­rec­tions Cor­po­ra­tion of Amer­i­ca which ran what Ida­ho inmates called “Glad­i­a­tor School” because of a vio­lent rep­u­ta­tion they say under­staffing helped cre­ate.

    The Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA has oper­at­ed Ida­ho’s largest prison for more than a decade, but last year, CCA offi­cials acknowl­edged it had under­staffed the Ida­ho Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter by thou­sands of hours in vio­la­tion of the state con­tract. CCA also said employ­ees fal­si­fied reports to cov­er up the vacan­cies. The announce­ment came after an Asso­ci­at­ed Press inves­ti­ga­tion showed CCA some­times list­ed guards as work­ing 48 hours straight to meet min­i­mum staffing require­ments.

    The Ida­ho State Police was asked to inves­ti­gate the com­pa­ny last year but did­n’t, until amid increas­ing polit­i­cal pres­sure, the gov­er­nor ordered the agency to do so last month. Demo­c­ra­t­ic state law­mak­ers asked the FBI to take up the case last month.

    Ida­ho Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion spokesman Jeff Ray con­firmed Fri­day that the FBI met with depart­ment direc­tor Brent Reinke on Thurs­day to inform him about the inves­ti­ga­tion. Ida­ho State Police spokes­woman Tere­sa Bak­er said her agency was no longer involved with the inves­ti­ga­tion and the FBI has tak­en it over entire­ly.

    “They (the FBI) have oth­er cas­es that are tied to this one so it worked out bet­ter for them to han­dle it from here,” Bak­er said.

    CCA spokesman Steve Owen could not be imme­di­ate­ly reached, but Owen has pre­vi­ous­ly said that his com­pa­ny would con­tin­ue to coop­er­ate with any inves­ti­ga­tion.

    The under­staffing has been the sub­ject of fed­er­al law­suits and a con­tempt of court action against CCA. The ACLU sued on behalf of inmates at the Ida­ho Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter in 2010, say­ing the facil­i­ty was so vio­lent that inmates called it “Glad­i­a­tor School” and that under­staffing con­tributed to the high lev­els of vio­lence there.

    In 2012, a Boise law firm sued on behalf of inmates con­tend­ing that CCA had ced­ed con­trol to prison gangs so that they could under­staff the prison and save mon­ey on employ­ee wages, and that the under­staffing led to an attack by one prison gang on anoth­er group of inmates that left some of them bad­ly injured.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | March 7, 2014, 12:21 pm

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