Lawsuit: Violent Private Prison Called 'Gladiator School'

[Purveyor]

In Idaho prison, violence is said to be used as a management tool.

Courthouse News / By Philip Janquart

October 16, 2013 |




BOISE, Idaho (CN) - Corrections Corporation of America uses violence as a management tool at a private prison so brutal it's known as Idaho's "Gladiator School," an inmate claims in court.

Rowe Burningham claims he was brutally beaten at the Idaho Correctional Center, in Kuna. He sued CCA, state prison director Brent Reinke, ICC warden Timothy Wengler and other CCA officers, in Federal Court.

Burningham, a sex offender, claims he was housed in a segregation unit but was moved to a nonsegregation unit against his requests. The move made him susceptible to attack by prison gang members who tend to react violently to sex offenders, he says in the complaint.

He claims fellow inmate and wannabe gang member Michael Shaw Balloue attacked him on Oct. 11, 2011, as part of an initiation into one of the prison's gangs. Balloue is not a party to the lawsuit.

"The only prison staff present at that time was Officer J. Hudon," the complaint states. "Before Officer Hudon responded, Michael Balloue had broken Mr. Burningham's jaw, torn his ear from his head in a three-inch gash, caused severe hemorrhaging in his eye, and left multiple welts all over his head from the impact of his fists, and the resulting impact of Mr. Burningham's head on the floor."

MORE...

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/lawsuit-violent-private-prison-called-gladiator-school?akid=11047.260530.i75BDZ&rd=1&src=newsletter910968&t=13

[IDemo]

1. CCA announced two weeks ago that they are leaving Idaho

Maybe things will improve.

BOISE -- Private prison giant Corrections Corp. of America says it will leave Idaho after more than a decade.

The decision comes after the company wrestled with scandal and lawsuits surrounding its operation of the state's largest prison.

CCA Vice President Brad Regens notified state officials on Thursday that the Nashville, Tenn.-based company won't bid on the next contract to run the Idaho Correctional Center south of Boise.

The Idaho State Police, aided by a forensic auditing firm, is currently investigating the company's operations in Idaho over allegations of possible contract fraud and falsified staffing reports.

http://www.ktvb.com/news/Private-prison-company-CCA-leaving-Idaho-226328571.html

[Luminous Animal]

3. You are comparing an ear being ripped off someone's head to a wedgie?

[Generic Other]

5. prison/gym class comparison

Interesting observation. Your comparison of that locker room mentality from junior high, the OPs mention of prison as a kind of Gladiator School suggests that prison is like gym class on steroids. Young men learning how to bully and how to survive bullying. Mano a mano. Brutal. And it doesn't start in the prisons. Men conditioned to be horribly violent in certain settings. Prison should be more like rehab -- a place to re-examine one's life and begin the process of putting it back together -- not a wild animal cage. A total waste of human resources.

[Zorra]

6. Gladiator School is common, very old prison slang for a violent prison facility, usually where the

inmates are younger, and not yet wise to the ways of prison life and the inmate social codes that exist outside of the control of prison authorities.

Old timers who have a good prison record are generally kept away from Gladiator Schools and housed in less violent facilities

Young inmates who feel they have something to prove are generally the Gladiators.