What do any of you know about RCDC - Pecos?

[Why Syzygy]

Is this the place where families are housed?
Letter from ACLU:

On Jan. 31, inmates at the Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC), a private corrections facility in Pecos, began to riot in a reported protest of poor medical care and other substandard conditions.

Prison riots are rare at any facility. But for RCDC, the Jan. 31 riot was the second in under two months and followed a mid-December incident in which inmates rioted in apparent protest of the death of an inmate who may have been denied medical care.

The ACLU National Prison Project and the ACLU of Texas have called on the federal government conduct a full and thorough review of RCDC to determine not only the immediate cause of the riots, but also the root cause.

We need your help.

Please contact the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice and request that it conduct a full investigation of RCDC.

The allegations against RCDC and The GEO Group, the private prison company that operates the facility, are troubling. If true, the allegations constitute a violation of the inmates' civil rights.

In liberty,
ACLU of Texas

[sonias]

1. It's the facility that just had all those riots

It's probably a real shit hole of a prison. This is a private run prison - you know where the bottom line is all that counts.

NEW DETAILS: Riot Appears to be Calming Down at Reeves County Detention Center
(snip)
This is the second riot at the Reeves County Detention Center in the past few months. In December prisoners rioted and set a recreational building on fire. They also took two workers hostage. That riot lasted for hours and the workers were released unharmed.

The Reeves County Detention Center is run by the Geo Group and houses federal inmates who are being held on immigration charges.

Sonia

[sonias]

2. Guerra denied access to Pecos prisoners (lawyer for inmates)

Valley Morning Star 2/11/09
Guerra denied access to Pecos prisoners

February 11, 2009 - 9:55 PM
Valley Morning Star

PECOS - County lawyers in this West Texas city have told attorney Juan Angel Guerra that he cannot meet with his clients inside a prison plagued by riots.

In a letter sent to Guerra, Willacy County's former district attorney, Reeves County officials state that his visit would be unsafe.

"We are doing everything possible to meet your request," Reeves County Attorney Alva Alvarez wrote. "However, since the facility was destroyed, there is no secure place for you to meet with your clients at this time."

The facility was destroyed? That's the first I had heard that the facility was destroyed.

On a related note - here is a blog that mainly concentrates on prisons in Texas:
www.texasprisonbidness.org

Sonia