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Man Alleges Horrific Abuse On Private Prison Van

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/PATRICK SEMANSKY
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/PATRICK SEMANSKY

Darren Richardson of Florida says he was urinated on and denied food during a 10-day trip in a private prison transport company’s van, after he was pulled over for rolling through a stop sign.

Richardson was arrested for an outstanding warrant for an unpaid probation fine of $250 after police pulled him over. According to the federal lawsuit, Richardson spent 8 days in a Florida jail before being handed off to the private company Prisoner Transport Services of America. Richardson was shackled and loaded into a van headed to a prison in Pike County, Pennsylvania. During the trek north, the guards allegedly put a shotgun to Richardson’s head, urinated on him, and tried to extort him. The lawsuit also claims that the guards forced the inmates to give them their debit cards so the guards could buy cigarettes and withheld food when Richardson refused to hand over his jewelry.

The inmates were allegedly kept shackled in cages with no room to move around. After a few days, Richardson says his legs started deteriorating from the lack of circulation and he had trouble walking and standing.

“Mr. Richardson’s legs were purple from the knee down and his feet were black when he arrived at the Pike County Correctional Facility,” the complaint reads. But the nurse who tended to his injuries at the prison allegedly told him they “had seen much worse come off that bus.”

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Prisoner Transport Services, based in Nashville, TN, has managed to survive several scandals. A 54-year-old woman died in one of their vans last fall after she was arrested on an outstanding warrant for a shoplifting fine. Another ongoing lawsuit charges that the company kept a woman shackled and denied her water for two sweltering summer days in Texas. The firm has also lost several high profile inmates during transfer. Prisoner Transport Services still touts itself as “the nation’s largest prisoner extradition company,” perhaps because its competitors have similarly dismal records. Another company’s employees have been caught raping inmates and threatening them with guns. In 1997, six prisoners were burned alive in a debilitated van owned by a company operated by a former bounty hunter. Yet these companies have to worry about fewer regulations than they would if they were shipping cattle.

Many states and municipalities have outsourced various aspects of their criminal systems besides extradition to the private prison industry, including probation, healthcare, food and the prisons themselves. Across the board, these companies tend to cut corners to boost their bottom line, endangering inmates and routinely violating their constitutional rights. Despite attracting frequent lawsuits, the largest contractors have continued to rake in massive profits.

But private companies like Prisoner Transport Services aren’t the only ones giving prisoners “rough rides.” The abuses endured by prisoners behind van doors are under renewed scrutiny after the death of Freddie Gray, which sparked widespread protests in his hometown of Baltimore and across the nation. Gray was shackled in leg irons but left unbuckled while being transported, leading the police commissioner and the state’s attorney to suspect the officers driving the van intentionally injured him.