MSNBC reports on squalid conditions at Dickens

Geo Group's Dickens County Correctional Center hit the front page of MSNBC yesterday with the headline, "Suicide Reveals Squalid Conditions." The suicide referred to in the title is that of Scot Noble Payne, who killed himself in solitary confinement after an escape attempt last December. His family is one of many families that have complained about the decrepit conditions at GEO-run prison.

This week, Idaho has announced plans to move the prisoners to yet another GEO Group prison. It turns out that the Idaho Department of Correction's own head of health care, who toured the prison shortly after Payne's suicide (which would likely place this visit in March) described the prison as the worst he had ever seen and the prison in general "beyond repair."

Yet, there are no reported plans for GEO Group to close Dickens or to repair it before putting other prisoners there. According to GEO Group's website, there are closer to 500 prisoners there. That means that 125 prisoners are being moved because conditions there are squalid, yet the rest of the people there will just have to live with squalor. From all indications, these 125 people will soon be replaced with other people, and the conditions will remain the same until Texas refuses to allow gulags to operate inside its borders.

Scott Henson did an excellent write-up of the GEO Group's Texas operation at Grits for Breakfast.