Briefs

• The persistent lobbying efforts of Council 31 have led Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R) to sign into law H.B. 4124, which makes the state’s prisons safer by inhibiting the spread of gangs.
  
  AFSCME members made hundreds of phone calls, wrote to and visited legislators, and testified at legislative hearings about the impact of gangs on prison operations. A key element of the bill calls for the creation of a gang-intelligence unit to gather information on gang activity and the problems it causes.

• Louisiana state officials recently took control of Tallulah Correctional Juvenile Facility, operated by Correctional Services Corporation, and transferred youth from the Jena Juvenile Justice Center managed by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation. Now measures have been taken to prevent the outrages that occurred in those facilities.
  Tallulah was reclaimed by the state because of mental and physical abuse of inmates, constant turnover of staff, and dangerous cost-cutting measures. Jena was cited for rampant sexual and physical abuse of the young inmates.
  
  The agreement giving the state control includes strict limitations on when COs can use force, establishes a database to track abusive guards and ensures that the abuse hot line is working.
  
  For Wackenhut, losing its Jena “clients” brought another blow to the chin: The company revealed that its third-quarter profits would fall by $2.3 million in the wake of the transfer. Wackenhut had to close the 276-bed facility, and it’s expected to remain closed through 2001.

• Eight New Mexico security officers were injured — two critically — after 32 inmates inside the privately run Torrance County Correctional Facility in Estancia started a riot in November.
  The inmates, all from Washington, D.C., rebelled when the officers tried to turn off the television. According to reports, officers kept changing the hours when the television was to be shut off.
  
  Inmates beat and stabbed officers with furniture parts. Corrections Corporation of America manages the maximum-security facility. After the riot, the warden and chief security officer were fired by CCA, which has seen a number of similar incidents in the Torrance prison in recent years.

• Wackenhut Corrections Corporation lost another inmate when George Luis Hernandez escaped from the Willacy County State Jail, about 50 miles north of Brownsville, Texas, in mid-November.
  
  Hernandez got away in the wee hours of the morning and was reported missing after a dawn head count. He escaped by climbing over a razor-wire fence covered with washcloths.
  
  Hernandez, who has a large extended family in the area, was serving a 20-year sentence for robbery and burglary.