Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) contracts with the state of Idaho to manage some of the state's prisons. CCA, runs the largest prison in the state called Idaho Correction Center or (ICC). ICC according to an Associated Press (AP) report, has more incidents of violence than all of Idaho's prisons combined. The prison is so violent that inmates have nick-named it the "gladiator school"." Lawsuits filed against CCA, its employees and the state of Idaho have alleged issues from sexual assault, employee indifference or incitement of violence to officials at CCA turning the prison over to gangs and understaffing to save money.
Ethical and Legal Issues.
Whether some is a police officer, security officer or a prison guard there is an ethical and legal obligation to protect life and property in that order. When an individual is remanded to local, state or federal custody the custodian has an ethical and legal obligation to care for their health and well-being as they can no longer care for themselves. Private prisons such as CCA and others are exempt from public disclosure of records unlike their state and federally run counter-parts. Citizen for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) recently released a report calling for private prisons to face the same requirement to disclose as public prisons.
With regard to legal issues, in this case they parallel ethical issues. Private prisons have the same obligations to provide the basic necessities of life, food, clothing, shelter, safety and medical care as their public run counter-parts. Corporations, guards and administrators can face both civil and criminal liability when they fail in their basic mission to provide the necessities. Incidents such as that of Hadi Elabed cast doubt on the ability of CCA to properly administer and live up to their basic responsibilities as custodian for inmates. Other legal issues that plague the private prison industry in general, is the perception that the inmate population is just "inventory " and not human beings.