One of the campaign promises made by President Joe Biden was an end to the practice of private prisons.
If the examples of problems experienced by LaSalle Management, aka LaSalle Corrections, of Ruston are in any way indicative of conditions throughout the industry, that might be a very good thing indeed.
LouisianaVoice in recent months has had no fewer than nine stories of wrongful death lawsuits, class action lawsuit over forced hysterectomies at its Georgia facility, wrongful injury lawsuits, violations of Department of Labor requirements, falsification of records, inadequate employee training and even a description of how the company reorganized its corporate structure in order to deny the ex-wife of one of the company’s principals her ownership share of corporate stock.
As the calendar rolled over to 2021, LaSalle has found itself hit by two more legal blows in quick succession.
In January, the company paid out a $405,000 settlement to a former prisoner at the Jackson Parish Correctional Center who said a fall at the jail left him severely injured and that he was subsequently denied physical therapy. The man, Lane Carter, said he was often forced to drag himself across the jail’s floors because guards refused to provide him a wheelchair. Moreover, following his injury, medical treatment was denied on several occasions and his only treatment was an over-the-counter pain medication.
The latest legal salvo against the company comes in the form of yet another wrongful death claim by the family of inmate Cecil Williams who suffered an asthma attack at the LaSalle-run Madison Parish Correctional Center in Tallulah. He was denied treatment or resuscitation efforts for more than an hour after he lost consciousness and ultimately died, the lawsuit claims.
LaSalle, which Dun & Bradstreet says generates $34 million per year in sales, operates NINE FACILITIES in Louisiana as well as other installations in Texas, New Mexico and Georgia.
Operated by the McConnell family, the company’s headquarters are located, perhaps appropriately, at 192 Bastille Lane in Ruston.
Here are links to other stories LouisianaVoice has done on LaSalle:
Employee reviews of the company paint an equally bleak picture:
I would welcome the news that LaSalle Corrections would be going out of business. Sadly, it doesn’t look like it will. In a front page story in the Jena Times, the Sheriff crowed about the fact that President Biden’s order will not affect the jobs at the prisons here in LaSalle Parish. I suppose it’s because the ICE detention centers are somehow different than “prisons’.
[…] Louisiana Voice: “One of the campaign promises made by President Joe Biden was an end to the practice of private prisons. […]
Question: What’s wrong with this formula?
Rural Economic Development in Louisiana = Parish Prisons
Answer: Dependency on money that can only continue to flow if the prisons are kept full.
Once justice becomes inversely related to profit, what could possibly go wrong?
Not sure what your issue is with the this family but wow. get a life already. You clearly don’t fact check your stories. I guess you couldn’t get a real journalism job so this is what you settled for and it shows.
Well, “Joebob, or whatever your real name is, If I have misrepresented any facts, I’m sure I’ll be hearing from their attorneys. But since everything is from established public records, I’ll just stand by what I’ve written, your thorough research notwithstanding. (And just so you know, I spent 40 years as a newspaper reporter – a real journalism job, as you might say.)
well I guess your Green Acres Gazette could be considered real journalism but you sir are no real journalist. lol
They need to investigate lasalle correction center in Olla, la, too. My husband is there, and needless to say we too have filed suit against them for not transporting him to his orthopedic dr. Appts., failed to provide his medications, allowed another inmate to jump him, then kick and punch him, my husband is disabled due to a severe injury to his shoulder and upper arm, and in the beating, he was injured and transferred to the local hospital in Jena. Then they put him in lock down as if it was his fault. When I called to talk to the warden, I was told he was in a meeting, and a major spoke to me. I asked questions pertaining to what happened. I even asked for a copy of the security cameras in the dorm it happened in, and was told I could it if I got a court order. They wouldn’t even tell me if my husband was ok, what meds he was taking, nothing other than “we did our jobs.” Um no, you didn’t. The guards let the inmate beat him and they stood by and watched it happen. The guards bring in drugs, phone, shanks, etc to the inmates in exchange for money or who else knows. The warden will cuss you out because he knows he in the wrong. There are 102 inmates in the dorm my husband is in, and he was forced to sleep on the floor with a blanket and pillow. Because they wouldn’t give up a bunk for him. They moved several hundreds of inmates there from the Dallas facility thinking it would correct the violence in their facility. Nope, things just got worse. There is a fight there almost every day. This company needs to be shut down or properly ran and trained CO’s to guard it.