BOISE, IDAHO — The surveillance video from the overhead cameras shows Hanni Elabed being beaten by a fellow inmate in an Idaho prison, managing to bang on a guard-station window, pleading for help. Behind the glass, correctional officers look on, but no one intervenes when Elabed is knocked unconscious.
No one steps into the cellblock when the attacker sits down to rest, and no one stops him when he resumes the beating.
Videos of the attack obtained by The Associated Press show officers watching the beating for several minutes. The footage is a key piece of evidence for critics who claim the privately run Idaho Correctional Center uses inmate-on-inmate violence to force prisoners to snitch on their cellmates or risk being moved to extremely violent units.
On Tuesday, hours after AP published the video, the top federal prosecutor in Idaho told AP that the FBI has been investigating whether guards violated the civil rights of inmates at the prison, which is run by the Corrections Corporation of America.
The investigation concerns the prison’s rate of violence and covers multiple assaults between inmates, including the attack on Elabed, U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson said.
A message left by AP seeking CCA’s reaction to the FBI probe was not immediately returned.
Lawsuits from inmates contend the company denies prisoners medical treatment as a way of covering up the assaults. They have dubbed the Idaho lockup “gladiator school” because it is so violent.
AP initially sought a copy of the videos from state court, but Idaho 4th District Judge Patrick Owen denied that request. AP decided to publish the videos after a person familiar with the case verified their authenticity.
CCA, the nation’s largest private prison company, said it was “highly disappointed and deeply concerned” over AP’s decision to release the videos.
“Public release of the video poses an unnecessary security risk to our staff, the inmates entrusted to our care and, ultimately, to the public,” the prison company said in a statement.
Violence behind bars and misconduct by guards are common, regardless of whether prisons are run by the government or private companies. CCA, which oversees about 75,000 inmates in more than 60 facilities under contracts with the federal government, 19 states and the District of Columbia, is no exception.
A year ago, CCA and another company, Dominion Correctional Services LLC, agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit in which the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission claimed male officers at a prison in Colorado forced female workers to perform sex acts to keep their jobs.
In January, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered about 400 female inmates transferred to a state-run prison after more than a dozen reports of sexual misconduct by male guards employed by CCA.
Similar accusations were made in March at a CCA-run prison in Hawaii, and in May, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed CCA on probation and launched an investigation into whether a guard at a central Texas detention facility sexually assaulted women on their way to being deported.
Olson said the investigation is focused solely on the Idaho prison and not any of the other prisons operated by CCA.
