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PLN mentioned in article on riot at CCA facility in Mississippi

Business Insider, Jan. 1, 2012. http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-corre...
PLN mentioned in article on riot at CCA facility in Mississippi - Business Insider 2012

Prison Company Tied To Deadly Mississippi Riot Has Allegedly Shady Past

Abby Rogers | May 22, 2012, 8:01 AM
Business Insider

The company that owns the Mississippi prison for illegal immigrants where a Sunday night riot reportedly left one guard dead has a history of alleged inmate abuse.

The riot Sunday at the Adams County Correctional Facility in Natchez, Miss. involved 300 inmates, causing the death of one guard and injuring 20 other people, the AP reported.

The Corrections Corporation of America, which runs that facility, has been targeted by advocacy groups for years for allegedly abusing and neglecting inmates.

In 2010 a male employee of CCA was charged with sexually abusing female immigration detainees, the ALCU said at the time.

Donald Charles Dunn, a supervisor at the company's Texas facility, was transporting women to the airport after they were released on bond when he touched their breasts and genital areas, according to the ACLU.

Prison Legal News reported Dunn eventually pleaded guilty to sexually molesting detainees.

In a report from 2003, the year Corrections Corporation of America celebrated its 20th anniversary, advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership found the private corrections company failed to provide prisoners with adequate medical care or control violence in its facilities.

That report also claimed CCA employees sold illegal drugs to inmates.

In 2001, Brandon McKnight, a CCA prisoner in Oklahoma, accused the company of placing him in the same cell as a prisoner who had previously been found guilty of assaulting him, the Grassroots Leadership report stated.

McKnight was critically injured as a result of the beating, Grassroots Leadership reported.

In August 2009, the New York Times reported that an Ecuadorean construction worker held at a CCA immigration jail in Eloy, Ariz. died of testicular cancer. His cancer went undiagnosed untreated even though he cried for help at the prison, the Times reported.

CCA officials "work hard every day to ensure a safe, secure and humane environment for inmates and detainees," company spokesman Mike Machak wrote in an email.

While Machak did not address the various incidents reported in this story, he wrote the company holds introductory and annual training for all employees.

"When an employee or inmate is found to have violated company policy, we take prompt, decisive action and cooperate fully with law enforcement to ensure investigation and, where appropriate, prosecution," Machak wrote.