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Idaho: Federal Court Unseals Pleadings, Holds CCA in Contempt for Violating Settlement Agreement

By Prison Legal News

On August 16, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, sitting by designation, unsealed a number of court documents related to a contempt motion seeking sanctions against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, for violating a settlement agreement in a lawsuit that alleged high levels of violence at the CCA-operated Idaho Correctional Center (ICC).

The unsealed documents revealed that current and former CCA employees had submitted sworn affidavits confirming CCA’s earlier acknowledgement that officials at ICC had falsified staffing records. The affidavits further indicated the understaffing may have far surpassed the company’s admission that ICC falsified almost 4,800 staff hours reported to state prison officials.

The district court had previously unsealed other documents related to the contempt motion on August 6, but the most recent unsealed records shed additional and unflattering light on CCA’s conduct relative to staffing discrepancies at ICC.

The underlying class-action lawsuit, litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), alleged excessive levels of violence at ICC that were in large part due to understaffing. In fact, a study conducted by Idaho prison officials in 2008 found that ICC had “four times more prisoner-on-prisoner assaults than Idaho’s other seven publicly-operated prisons combined.” [See: PLN, May 2013, p.22; Nov. 2011, p.10].

The case settled in September 2011, with the settlement providing that the federal court would resolve alleged violations of the agreement. As part of the settlement, CCA agreed to comply with the staffing pattern required pursuant to its contract with the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC), and to add a minimum of three additional guards “to enhance the overall security of the facility.”

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