After Corrections Corporation of America tours facility, organization raises concerns about company’s record

By VINAYA SAKSENA

CENTRAL FALLS — To date, Mayor Charles Moreau says he has only given a tour of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility to one of several parties interested in buying, operating and/or leasing it, but the preliminary visit from that company has already sparked concern from the local affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

On Tuesday, Rhode Island ACLU Executive Director Steve Brown sent a letter to Mayor Charles Moreau expressing concern about the operational history of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a Tennessee-based company that runs correctional facilities around the country and was the first company to take a tour of the Wyatt with Moreau, Warden Wayne Salisbury and members of the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation’s Board of Directors.
In the letter, Brown pointed to previous incidents of alleged prisoner mistreatment at facilities run by CCA, and cautioned Moreau against allowing concerns about the facility’s revenue potential to override concerns about its operations. Brown noted that Moreau had been vocal in recent weeks in his outrage over the salary of a consultant paid to oversee the running of the facility, as well as removal of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees from the facility during an investigation into the death of former inmate Hiu Lui Ng, in comparison to the mayor’s response to Ng’s death.
“It is sobering to compare those outcries with the general silence from City officials that greeted Mr. Ng’s death there,” Brown wrote. “Indeed, only a few months after his tragic death — at a time when it was clear that he had been severely mistreated by prison employees — your confidence in the running of the Wyatt facility was so high that you proudly announced a partnership with the prison, entrusting Wyatt to detain young teenage curfew violators as an apparent public service to the City.”
The partnership Brown referred to — in which youths found in violation of a local youth curfew ordinance could be held at the Wyatt’s training facility – went into effect on Oct. 31, 2008. In January, both ICE and the Wyatt have released the results of internal investigations into Ng’s death, apparently from advanced stage cancer.
Moreau said that, contrary to what Brown’s letter implied, he was indeed concerned about detainee treatment, as well as the facility’s overall impact on public safety, which he has cited as an issue of major importance to him in the past. He also noted that notwithstanding the few staffers who were disciplined or terminated from employment at the Wyatt as a result of the investigation into Ng’s death and mistreatment he allegedly suffered at the facility, he had high regard for the staffers still employed there. He said that Ng’s treatment did not reflect the quality of the staff currently employed at the facility, whom he said also placed a high value on affording detainees a basic level of dignity.
“That is a given,” Moreau said. “Detainees in that facility have Constitutional rights. And we have a great group of people working there now.”
In his letter, Brown went on to cite several instances of what he said were problematic living conditions for detainees at facilities run by CCA. In 2007, for example, he said the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the conditions at the CCA-run San Diego Correctional Facility (SDCF), where Brown said over 650 immigration detainees had been living three-to-a-cell in the overcrowded facility, with one detainee forced to “sleep on a plastic slab on the floor by the toilet,” as the facility was allegedly over capacity by more than fifty percent.
According to Brown, these conditions contributed to a September, 2006 incident “in which detainees who peacefully waited to speak with ICE officials about the new triple-celling policy were abruptly tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed by CCA officers.” He added that the conditions led to “delays in medical and mental health treatment,” “poor sanitation,” “the spread of infectious diseases” and other problems. He noted that an agreement had been reached last year to end the overcrowding.
In a still-pending lawsuit, Brown added, CCA was charged with negligence allegedly leading to a July 2004 riot at the Crowley County Correctional Facility in Colorado, in which officers allegedly used excessive force and treated in an “inhumane” manner detainees who were not involved in the riot. According to Brown, the Colorado Department of Corrections issued a report finding fault with CCA for its alleged failure to foresee or prevent the riot, and for allegedly contributing to the provocation of the riot.
A CCA spokesperson could not be reached for comment in time for this article. However, The Times has learned that the company started a web log online, called the CCA 360 (www.thecca360.com), where it addresses what it says has been biased coverage of CCA in the news media.
For his part, Moreau said that all options were being considered with regard to the future of the Wyatt, including the possibility of leasing or selling it. He added that he was not currently looking to strike a deal with CCA, saying that he had been looking to bring companies such as theirs to the facility in part to determine what its value might be. He said that numerous other companies had also expressed interest in the facility, and would be considered, though whoever ended up involved in the facility would face a certain degree of scrutiny before any agreements were signed, and that his research into the matter so far indicated that a certain degree of controversy was inevitable no matter who ended up being selected.
“Any facility around the country has issues with detainees, whatever they may be,” Moreau said. “If anybody were to buy the facility, we will scrutinize everything and make sure the facility remains at the level it’s at right now.”
Daniel Cooney, chairman of the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation’s Board of Directors, agreed. He said that the board, four of whose five members (including him) are newly appointed by Moreau, was still trying to digest the considerable amount of information being made available to them regarding the operation of the facility, a process he said often proved overwhelming. However, he said that he wanted to make sure that whatever decision the board made regarding the operation of the facility was the right one.
“I’m personally getting a mental hernia trying to figure out where we are,” Cooney said. “We’re working people, and we care about the care of our people. Talking to our staff, they feel the same way.”