Feds launch massive investigation of Delaware's prisons
Source: By LEE WILLIAMS and ESTEBAN PARRA, The News Journal (DE), 03/08/2006
Federal civil rights regulators will enter Delaware prisons within days with the authority to assume control of operations and health care if the state refuses to allow a U.S. Justice Department examination of inmate medical care and prison management, which could take years to complete. The announcement came today, on the heels of a five-month preliminary inquiry by the Justice Department during which federal regulators interviewed the same medical experts, inmates and families of dead inmates who spoke to The News Journal late last year during the newspaper’s six-month investigation of prison health care. ...... During the course of the newspaper’s investigation, reporters discovered that Gov. Ruth Ann Minner and Correction Commissioner Stan Taylor awarded a $25.9 million, no-bid contract for inmate health care to Correctional Medical Services -- a private medical contractor with a history of litigation over how the company provides medical care. Minner and Taylor also refused to release -- publicly or to lawmakers -- an audit of prison health care they say prompted the emergency hiring of Correctional Medical Services.