Mom of dead inmate begs to end prison suffering

[flashl]

Deaths in prison

An Idaho mother spoke softly but silenced a legislative hearing room Friday as she described her son's degradation at a private Texas prison last spring before he slashed his throat.

Shirley Noble begged lawmakers, looking into the monitoring of conditions at all state lockups, to investigate the March 4 death of Scot Noble Payne at a prison run by the Florida-based Geo Group Inc.

"After he tried unsuccessfully to slash his wrists and ankles, he knelt in the shower and cut his own throat," she said of her 43-year-old son's suicide at Dickens County prison in Spur. "Surely only a person in utter desperation and horrifying conditions would bring himself to this end."

A spokesman for Geo, the company formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp., said the company has no comment about testimony before the committee.Read More ...

What is the cost of mass Incarceration? There are many silent deaths today in prisons, especially, when the warden is for-profit private WalMart prison company, GEO/Wackenhut.

[jwirr]

1. Prisons for profit. When are we going to learn that some things should

not be run by just any jackass with enough money?

[flashl]

2. We don't learn

Testimony Before the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives (38 page PDF)

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT PROGRAMS
Concerns Regarding Abuse and Death in Certain Programs for Troubled
Youth

GAO found thousands of allegations of abuse, some of which involved death, at residential treatment programs across the country and in American-owned and American-operated facilities abroad between the years 1990 and 2007. Allegations included reports of abuse and death recorded by state agencies and the Department of Health and Human Services, allegations detailed in pending civil and criminal trials with hundreds of plaintiffs, and claims of abuse and death that were posted on the Internet. For example, during 2005 alone, 33 states reported 1,619 staff members involved in incidents of abuse in residential programs. GAO could not identify a more concrete number of allegations because it could not locate a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that collects comprehensive nationwide data.