Crashes have killed a dozen prisoners and guards. The companies are usually paid per prisoner per mile, giving them incentive to pack the vans and take as few breaks as possible. At least 60 prisoners have escaped from private extradition vehicles since 2000, including one who later stabbed a police officer and another who was accused of sexual assault on a minor and is still missing. Training for guards, many of whom are military veterans, is often limited to a tutorial on handcuffs and pepper spray and a review of policies and paperwork, leaving them unprepared for the hazards of driving a van full of prisoners. “We don’t know if they’re setting us up for something.” This concern was echoed by guards at several companies, who said prisoners often feigned illnesses and injuries. “Unless it’s life or death, we can’t open the cage on the vehicle,” Downs said. He said guards were instructed to contact local officials when a serious medical emergency arises. Robert Downs, the chief operating officer of PTS, declined to comment on the deaths. And in another, guards mocked a prisoner’s pain before he, too, died from a perforated ulcer. In another, a Kentucky woman suffered a fatal withdrawal from anti-anxiety medication. In one case, a Mississippi man complained of pain for a day and a half before dying from an ulcer. Since 2012, at least four people, including Galack, have died on private extradition vans, all of them run by the Tennessee-based Prisoner Transportation Services. Andrew Spear for The New York TimesĮvery year, tens of thousands of fugitives and suspects - many of whom have not been convicted of a crime - are entrusted to a handful of small private companies that specialize in state and local extraditions.Ī Marshall Project review of thousands of court documents, federal records and local news articles and interviews with more than 50 current or former guards and executives reveals a pattern of prisoner abuse and neglect in an industry that operates with almost no oversight. He was found dead while being transported by Prisoner Transportation Services from Florida to Ohio. Galack was arrested in 2012 on an out-of-state warrant for failing to pay child support. “This is someone’s brother, father, and it’s like nobody even cared,” said Galack’s ex-wife, Kristin Galack.Ī 2001 photo of Steven Galack with two of his three children. The cause of death was later found to be undetermined. A homicide investigation lasted less than a day, and the van continued on its journey. The guards said later in depositions that they had first noticed Galack’s slumped, bloodied body more than 70 miles later, in Tennessee. The others began to stomp on Galack, two prisoners said. “Only body shots,” one prisoner said she heard the guard say. On the third day, the van stopped in Georgia, and one of two guards onboard gave a directive to the prisoners. Galack soon grew delusional, keeping everyone awake with a barrage of chatter and odd behavior. The air conditioning faltered amid 90-degree heat. They sat tightly packed on seats inside a cage, with no way to lie down to sleep. Galack was loaded into a van run by Prisoner Transportation Services of America, the nation’s largest for-profit extradition company.Ĭrammed around him were 10 other people, both men and women, all handcuffed and shackled at the waist and ankles. Like dozens of states and countless localities, Butler County outsources the long-distance transport of suspects and fugitives. Read more about how to investigate private prisoner transport services in your state. This story was produced in collaboration with The New York Times.
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