Privately owned prisons in Colorado fall far short of minimum safety and medical standards, possibly resulting in the deaths of two inmates and the early release of a sex offender, according to an audit released Monday.
Part of the problem, the report from the state auditor’s office said, is lax state oversight of the private prisons, which collected $53 million to house 2,800 inmates in 2004.
The audit’s key findings:
Nine inmates died between January 2001 and September 2004. Two of those deaths may have been caused by physicians who changed medications without physically examining the inmates.
A sexual offender was released from prison three months early because officials awarded him credits for treatment sessions he didn’t attend.
None of the five private prisons in Colorado have licensed medical clinics.
Four private-prison employees had previous convictions for motor-vehicle theft, assault, criminal mischief and harassment.
Staffing levels are lower at private prisons than at state institutions, with the worst ratio at the Crowley County prison, where inmates rioted last year.
Steve Owen, spokesman for Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America, which operates four of the five private prisons in Colorado, declined to comment on the audit, saying he had not yet read it. But he said his company meets the standards set by a national trade association for private prisons.
“We are doing our part to help the state be good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollar,” said Owen.
Last year, the prison company settled a lawsuit brought by Tamara Schlitters, the mother of Jeffrey Buller, a 26-year-old inmate who died 27 hours before he was to be released from the company’s prison in Kit Carson County in 2001.
Buller suffered from a hereditary condition that caused his breathing passages to swell. Despite his pleas, the company wouldn’t spend $35 on the medicine he needed during his final 10 days in the prison, according to the lawsuit. Instead, he was switched to another drug.
James Gillies, the lawyer for Schlitters, said the case was “heartbreaking” because Schlitters was planning a welcome-home party for her only son. Instead, the guests attended a funeral.
Buller was in prison for a sexual encounter with an underage teenage girl.
The Department of Corrections acknowledged the shortcomings and promised to fix them. Joe Ortiz, executive director of the department, said tight state budgets have contributed to some of the problems.
“It is difficult to provide all of these services, given the current budget condition the state is in,” Ortiz said. “Sometimes you want platinum treatment when you’re paying for copper fare.”
The audit tied many of the problems to lax oversight by the Department of Corrections.
Since 2002, department officials knew they were failing to enforce a contract requirement that private prisons operate licensed medical clinics. None of the five private prisons in Colorado are licensed by the state Department of Public Health and Environment, the audit said.
Lawmakers on the Legislative Audit Committee chided state corrections officials for failing to enforce the rules in the contracts.
“Two departments have dropped the ball,” said Rep. Fran Coleman, D-Denver. “I don’t understand why this has been let go so long.”
Ortiz said that hiring medical professionals in rural communities is difficult – and even more complicated for prison operators. Still, he acknowledged the problem.
“We were lax in our supervision of medical staff,” he said.
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-820-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
