A shocking joint investigation by the New York Times and The Marshall Project that looks at the privatization of prison extradition, in which prisoners are transferred across the country by for-profit van companies. The exposé reveals what the reporters called a pattern of prisoner abuse and neglect in an industry that operates with almost no oversight.
Each year, tens of thousands of fugitives and suspects — many who have never been convicted of a crime — are entrusted to a handful of small private companies that specialize in state and local extraditions, as they’re called. Reporters with The Marshall Project reviewed thousands of court documents, federal records, local news articles and interviews with more than 50 current or former guards and executives in the course of their investigation. They found prisoners were locked in vans for days with little access to water and food, companies hired guards without providing proper training, guards had little incentive to adequately care for prisoners. The article tells the story of a number of prisoners transported in prison vans — including one who died of a perforated ulcer, another who was sexually assaulted, a third who had to have both legs amputated from complications of untreated diabetes.
Eli Hager talking:
We found that a small handful of companies are hired by sheriffs and Police Department’s around the country to drive people across states to where they’re wanted. And on these vans, prisoners, many of whom haven’t been convicted of a crime, are held for five, six, seven days in a row on the van as it makes it’s circuitous journeys around the country with little access to food and water, few bathroom breaks, and they’re shackled at the wrists, waist, and ankles, and not seatbelted. So, it’s a variety of conditions on these vans on these days long trips across the country.
the largest company is called Prisoner Transportation Services, and that’s a company located in Nashville, Tennessee. They’ve, they’ve dominated the market in recent years. There are also a handful of smaller, more, kind of, fly-by-night companies. Inmate Services Corporation is one. Security transport services is another. U.S. Corrections is another one that’s actually set to merge with PTS this coming month.
Alysia Santo talking:
Denise Isaacs, she’s a 54-year-old mother who was living in Kentucky. She was on probation with the Florida Department of Corrections for a shoplifting charge. She owed some fines and had not done some community service, so she was picked up in Kentucky by PTS and was transported over the course of three days down into Florida to be brought to face these probation violations. In Orlando is when she really started experiencing a lot of symptoms of having a medical crisis. The guards actually did want to bring her, they tell us, that they did want to bring her to a hospital and that they called headquarters and asked for permission, because, the way this works is, the company’s policy is that you have to seek permission to bring someone to a hospital, first, before you can do it, and they were told no. So, they then continued on the journey and a few hours later, at a Taco Bell parking lot in Miami, she was dead in the back of the van. And even before the guards called 911, they called the company first to let them know.
Michael Dykes was living in South Carolina when a warrant was served on him at his home to face theft and fraud charges in Missouri. He was placed in a — the local jail in South Carolina for nearly three weeks to await that extradition. His story is similar to many in that the medical care he received at the jail was not adequate. He was — he’s a severe diabetic. By the time the van had come to get him, he could barely walk. He had sores that had been developing on his feet. He got into the van. He says the insulin that he needed was placed on the dashboard, where it needed to be in a cooler. The company denies this. He was then transported over the course of three days, to Missouri, where he, you know, he basically, did not receive any care for his wounds he said, and didn’t get his insulin. And then, by the time he arrived, everything had really gone downhill in a serious way for him and he eventually — they just could not resolve the sores on his feet and he had to have his legs removed from the knee down.
Eli Hager talking:
The Miami police did come in to ask questions of the people on board the van. They took statements, but they waited for the autopsy to come back, and the autopsy said that she died of natural causes and that she hadn’t been taking this Diazapan medication and she went into withdrawal and there was no homicide involved, so they closed the investigation.
he’s had a real struggle. He’s also bringing a lawsuit, now, against the company, that the company denies the allegations. But, that’s another one that’s pending. He currently, as you see in that picture, he had his legs amputated from the knees down and that’s brought a lot of hardship to his life.
Roberta Blake talking:
the trip, it was horrific. The heat exhaustion, the hunger, the fear — there’s really no words to describe what I had gone through. When I was picked up, it was pitch black. There was — I was in the segregation cage, so, I was in a — I describe it as being in an cage within a cage in an oven. There was no air conditioning coming back to us. I take blood pressure pills. My medication was not given to me. The — my shirt was ripped off of me by the male inmates. I was the only female, throughout. There was two legs to my journey, and both sides I was the only female. I was actually in the PTS van right before the woman you spoke about earlier, Ms. Isaacs, had passed away. I, I was — same guard, same van, same seat, days before that. And, and I’m sorry, there’s — they, they have no — there was no accommodations for your civil — for your rights.
– Roberta, picked up for returning a rental car late. she had not been charged with any crime.
I was actually in Ventura, California, and my husband and I had just been married two weeks. We had worked all day and we decided to pull over on the side of the road and take a nap before we continued the 150 mile drive home. We decided to take a nap and the police came up on us and ran our names. I had no clue I had a warrant.
And then they transfer to Prisoner Transportation Services, the van. I spent 10 days in jail in venture and then PTS came and picked me up.
Eli Hager talking:
most of the things that Roberta described there are very common. First of all, not knowing that you have a warrant out in another state, that’s very common. Being held in a local jail for several days before being picked up by PTS or one of these companies, also very common. To be the only woman on a van and yet to be seated near or with men is also very common.
This is murderers, rapists, and people who have never been charged. You have people who have been convicted of murder and people who are only accused of small, first-time offenses like DUI or probation violations all sitting together. And it can cause some violent situations on the van.
Roberta Blake talking:
what I’m learning from calling around trying to find an attorney to actually take the case, people don’t realize what actually happened. I believe they feel like I am lying about —- that there is no way it could be as bad as I am saying, when explain my story. I had to urinate in a cup in front of 11 male inmates. And I feel like as soon as I start telling them that, they’re like, OK, we’ll just refer you over to the bar. And I have not found anybody yet that will take my case, ’cause there are no laws governing, it seems, over state, line the pri—
Fernando Colon talking:
As far as the training goes, training could last up to two days as far as classroom training. Basically, you’re taught handcuffing procedures, CPR, and basic things like that. As far as real training, you’re gonna learn that on the job when you go out with your FTO. And basically, it’s all on-the-job training.
– these stories, a man whose legs were amputated because of diabetes, another who died, Roberta Blake describing having to urinate in a cup in front of other male prisoners — she is in a Van for 10 days.
There are occasions where prisoners are on board for about seven days. For example, I would pick up all over the United States, and I’d be back in Florida, probably on the fifth or sixth day, and then it would take another three days to deliver these prisoners to the different county jails and the different state and federal institutions. Sometimes it’s hard — when there was an escape once upon a time and companies got really strict as far as opening doors en route, and sometimes we could only stop in a jail, in a secured area, in a sally port as they call it. A sally port is a secured area within the jail when you first drive in. And it’s just — there’s not a jail every five miles. And sometimes from one jail to another might be 150 miles, 200 miles, 300 miles. So, it is hard to find a location to pull over to use the restroom. Me, I would call the local sheriff’s department. I would get on the phone and call the fire department. You know, to me, those were all secured areas. As long as there was somebody there watching that can dial 911 it — that wouldn’t be a problem.
I’m gonna give you one example of something that really bothered me. Basically, it was a liability thing for me. You know, I didn’t want to have anything on my conscience that would, you know, ruin me for the rest of my life. There was one instance where I picked up a young lady. I cannot remember the state. I’m going to guess it was somewhere in, let’s say, North Dakota. This girl was about 18 years old, she was five months pregnant. She had an open warrant in Florida, and she was involved in a car accident. And when, you know, when you have a car accident, police are involved. I guess they ran her name, and she came back with a warrant. She sat in the hospital for a couple days. She had a broken neck and was wearing one of those metal halos that go around the whole neck that connects to the shoulders, and she was five months pregnant. And I transported her on my van for over five days. This young lady also suffered from seizures.
There were several times on the trip where I would hear the chains rattling in the back and the prisoners yelling for my help, and I literally had to stop the van in the middle of nowhere, and I opened the doors for her and I would just hold her in my arms and help her pass through the seizures. It was later told to me by her that caffeine helps. So, every time she caught maybe three or four seizures on board and, I would just be on the side of the highway holding her in my arms and feeding her soda or an energy drink because of the caffeine. And I just thought to myself, this could be my daughter, this could be my mom my sister. This could be anybody’s family member. And to be transported like that with a broken neck, five months pregnant, it’s just inhumane. It, it shouldn’t be done and it needs to be federally regulated.
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Alysia Santo
staff writer at The Marshall Project. She and Eli Hager co-wrote the front-page New York Times article “Private Prisoner Vans’ Long Road of Neglect.”
Eli Hager
staff writer at The Marshall Project. He and Alysia Santo co-wrote the front-page New York Times article “Private Prisoner Vans’ Long Road of Neglect.”
Roberta Blake
spent two weeks in 2014 being transported by Prisoner Transportation Services from California to Alabama. She had been arrested on a warrant issued after not returning a rental car on time.
Fernando Colon
worked as a private prison van guard for two years and is now speaking out against the industry. He’s currently a truck driver. Colon just published a piece in collaboration with the Marshall Project and Vice called “The Horrible Things I Saw Driving a Van Packed with Prisoners.”
— source democracynow.org