Out of the frying pan and into the fire: The Nashville-based private prison company formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America has moved a warden from one of its detention facilities under state scrutiny to another.
In early November, Blair Leibach returned to the CoreCivic-managed Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility to serve as warden, a position he previously held before taking the same position at the new Trousdale Turner Correctional Facility, run by CoreCivic on behalf of the state of Tennessee, in March of 2016. CoreCivic spokesperson Jonathan Burns confirmed the move Friday, but the company had not publicly announced the move.
Leibach replaced Charlie Peterson, who had held the position since February, as warden of the Nashville jail. Peterson transferred to another facility in Georgia, according to both CoreCivic and Davidson County Sheriff’s Office officials. Peterson was still listed as warden in Nashville on CoreCivic’s website Sunday.
“We’re fortunate to have a team of seasoned wardens with extensive correctional facility leadership experience from which to draw,” Burns said.
A voicemail left with Leibach was not returned.
Both Leibach’s current and former facilities have had turbulent years. Officials at the Nashville jail spent much of the summer answering questions about a scabies outbreak there. CoreCivic has a five-year, $100 million contract to run the jail for Metro.
Last week, state investigators rebuked both CoreCivic and the Tennessee Department of Corrections for continued staffing and management issues at the Hartsville state prison, where Leibach was warden until earlier this year. The state legislature’s Government Operations Committee declined to reauthorize the DOC, at least until December, in part because of issues raised about the management at Trousdale Turner. CoreCivic has a five-year, $276 million contract to operate the state prison in Trousdale County, northeast of Nashville.
“Trousdale Turner Correctional Center management’s continued noncompliance with contract requirements and [TDOC] policies challenges the department’s ability to effectively monitor the private prison,” the state audit found. In May 2016, four months after the facility opened and two months after Leibach was named warden, the Trousdale prison stopped accepting new inmates amid what CoreCivic called “growing pains.”
And now Leibach oversees the Nashville jail, which this week will for the second time since September host inspectors from the Tennessee Corrections Institute, the state agency that certifies local jails every year. TCI inspectors conducted an initial inspection in September, according to documents obtained through an open records request, but the facility did not meet all of the state’s minimum standards.
State inspectors found that some inmates at the Nashville jail were not receiving physicals within 14 days of their admission and that fire drills were not being conducted as frequently as the state requires. But the Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility also had deficiencies in their security and inmate supervision procedures that were redacted “for security purposes,” according to a state spokesperson.
A sheriff’s office spokesperson said the office did not have a copy of the unredacted report, and CoreCivic representatives had not provided one by press time.
State inspectors were scheduled to revisit the Nashville jail on Nov. 22, according to an Oct. 2 letter to Peterson. Burns, the CoreCivic representative, directed questions about the upcoming reinspection to TCI.
The CoreCivic-managed facility also failed initial state inspections in 2016 and 2013, according to documents obtained in the open records request. The 2016 inspection found that 21 security cameras were inoperative at the facility and that CoreCivic, then still known as CCA, did not meet training standards for new employees. In 2013, state investigators criticized the lack of detail in activity logs kept during security checks. The report also noted the facility had too many beds per square foot in three pods.
The scabies outbreak at the Nashville jail lasted for several days in June, according to CoreCivic and Metro officials, but lawsuits filed on behalf of inmates and jail employees allege it was ongoing for much longer.
On Sept. 29, CoreCivic spokesperson Burns told the Scene “no new cases have been diagnosed at the facility.” But at least one female inmate was being treated for scabies in early September, according to emails between sheriff’s office and Metro Public Health Department officials obtained by the Scene in a public records request.
Health Department official Gill Wright said in a Sept. 7 email that he did “not see a close relationship with the prior outbreak but will need to look into it more closely.” A Health Department spokesperson told the Scene later that month that “scabies and other skin conditions are not uncommon in a jail population, so isolated cases of scabies would not be surprising, but we do not have evidence of ongoing spread of scabies in the facility.”
And yet, Cathy Seigenthaler, director of correctional health for Metro Health, wrote of the case, “I’m concerned.”
It wasn’t the first time she was concerned about scabies at the Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility.
In June, in the midst of the outbreak, she wrote in an email that she was “extremely concerned that CCA is not accurately reporting new cases to the Health Department. CCA has reported ‘no new cases’ each day this week.” But Peterson, the warden in Nashville at the time, responded that her accusations were incorrect.
