TheCCA360.com is a Web site intended to provide factual information about Corrections Corporation of America – from its quality private prison management services and programs, to its more than 17,000 employees that support the 66 facilities it operates.
Read first hand here stories and views shared by CCA employees and other citizens on the company and its impact in our communities.
Recent media reports ignore many of the facts that surround this tragic incident.
TheCCA360.com offers official accounts here to help set the record straight.
It’s difficult to separate the facts from the reported myths about private prisons and CCA, especially if you follow some news accounts that rely on sources who are politically or professionally biased against the overall privatization of our nation’s prisons.
TheCCA360.com disputes the most common reported myths here.
RESOURCES
KEY RESOURCE INFORMATION REGARDING RECENT CCA MEDIA COVERAGE
Some key questions continue to come up as media outlets report on CCA and its core services across the country. Here are the facts that address those questions:
Who provides health care for immigration detainees?
Several national media outlets have reported extensively on the quality of health care available to immigration detainees in private detention facilities. Detainee health care is largely provided by an agency of the federal government, the Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS). DIHS performs one of the most challenging tasks in the detention field—providing health care to thousands of detainees each day.
In CCA operated immigration detention facilities, CCA personnel work closely with DIHS and other federal government officials to ensure that the detainees in CCA care have access to timely and appropriate medical care provided by DIHS. Federal officials have provided extensive information regarding the quality of care they provide in detention settings as well as mortality rates.
Did the ACLU sue CCA to obtain information about immigration detainees?
No. At least one media outlet erroneously reported that ACLU had to sue to obtain information about detainees in private detention facilities. In fact, the ACLU has sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alleging that DHS has not released private medical information about its detainees. In contrast to the ACLU's allegations, most coverage regarding the care of immigration detainees is based on information obtained both from DHS and from private providers. In one of many notable examples, the New York Times posted images from internal private detention reports produced subject to a FOIA request in a video on the Times website. CCA supports DHS's efforts to protect the privacy and dignity of detainees in its care, and awaits DHS' defense of these claims.
When CCA settles or loses a lawsuit, do taxpayers bear the financial burden?
No. This fact is one of the key advantages of prison and detention privatization, but even notable criminal justice scholars like Michelle Deitch of the University of Texas have misunderstood it. A July 2008 Tennessean article quoted Professor Deitch as having implied that the cost of settlements is a hidden cost of private prison operations. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
When a government agency contracts with CCA, the agency agrees to pay a set price based on the number of persons that CCA will house. That price only changes when the contract between CCA and the government allows it to change. So, if an inmate is injured in a CCA facility, and sues the company, the cost borne by the taxpayer of that community is not affected. CCA pays for its own legal defense, the defense of the government agency, and the costs of any verdict or settlement. CCA funds the costs of verdicts or settlements both through funds it has on hand, as well as through insurance it is required to carry. By contracting with CCA, the government agency reduces the risk to taxpayers because regardless of the outcome of any lawsuit, the taxpayers' obligation to CCA is unchanged.
Why did ICE work with Williamson County, Texas, and CCA to house parents with their children at the Hutto facility?
As explained by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on their website, ICE needed an immediate solution to a pressing problem:
Before ICE opened the Hutto facility, alien families caught illegally crossing the border were often released with "Notices to Appear" before federal immigration judges. However, they rarely appeared for these hearings. This "catch and release" policy created a border vulnerability that alien smugglers sought to exploit by bringing children across the border along with groups of smuggled strangers, attempting to pass the groups off as family units. By bringing the children, the smugglers hoped to avoid detention if captured.
In order to provide a detention facility in which families could remain together while awaiting their proceedings, ICE acquired the existing T. Don Hutto Correctional Center through an Inter-Governmental Service Agreement with Williamson County, Texas. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) operates the 512-bed facility under a contract with Williamson County.
As soon as CCA was selected to assist ICE with this pressing need, ICE and CCA began working together to renovate the facility to meet the needs of its new population. While extensive media coverage has implied that reforms were the result of litigation, ICE maintained a deliberate and systematic program for the development of the Hutto facility throughout the period of the contract. That contract and that development process are still ongoing.