(C) Tennessee Lookout
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Stockard on the Stump: Tennessee officials start putting pressure on private prison • Tennessee Lookout [1]
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Date: 2025-07-03
It took a riot and multiple indictments, but the chorus of calls is growing to boot the state’s private-prison operator out of a Hartsville correctional center.
Republican state Rep. Michael Hale of Smithville, saying in a social media post he is “deeply concerned” about recurring problems at Trousdale Turner, joined District Attorney General Jason Lawson in calling for the Tennessee Department of Correction to take over operations at the facility run under contract with Brentwood-based CoreCivic.
The Trousdale County grand jury recently returned 41 indictments for incidents at Trousdale Turner, 12 of them connected to the June 8 riot when inmates stabbed a staffer and took over an inner yard. Lawson said more indictments will be issued as investigators review video footage.
In seeking a new operator, Lawson said crimes at the prison have added hundreds of cases to Trousdale County’s court docket over the last few years, roughly one every four days. Yet adding time to inmates’ sentences doesn’t improve inmate safety at the prison.
“The continued problems demonstrate that CoreCivic is unable to address the issues. I understand that Tennessee needs the bedspace at Trousdale Turner to house state prisoners, however, it is long overdue that the state of Tennessee shifted the management of Trousdale Turner from CoreCivic into the direct hands of the Tennessee Department of Correction,” Lawson said in a statement.
The legislature passed a measure this year designed to penalize CoreCivic by removing inmates from the prisons it operates if the death rate at any of those facilities exceeds the rate at state-run prisons.
The continued problems demonstrate that CoreCivic is unable to address the issues. . . It is long overdue that the state of Tennessee shifted the management of Trousdale Turner from CoreCivic into the direct hands of the Tennessee Department of Correction. – District Attorney General Jason Lawson
The early June riot is causing a greater awakening.
But Gov. Bill Lee remains slow to act and doesn’t appear to be anywhere near putting the state over Trousdale Turner.
“The state has an obligation to hold CoreCivic accountable,” Lee said this week in response to questions. Lee acknowledged, though, the state is responsible for making sure the prison operates correctly.
He declined to discuss details or whether CoreCivic should make changes as authorities investigate.
The state has penalized the company $44.78 million since 2022 for contractual shortfalls, including $15 million in late 2024 and early 2025. Liquidated damages total $570,825 this year alone.
Those are mainly for personnel shortages at CoreCivic-run prisons, which were 7 percentage points higher than at state-operated facilities early this year and cause problems with overseeing inmates.
The state pays CoreCivic about $240 million annually despite audits detailing low staffing, violence and deaths, and a federal civil rights investigation into Trousdale Turner, which hasn’t stopped, even under the Trump administration.
Republican Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin said he and other lawmakers, as well as constituents, are “fed up” with the problems at Trousdale Turner, according to the Hartsville Vidette.
Haile isn’t quite ready for the state to take over the prison and noted he isn’t certain what steps the Department of Correction would have to take since operations involve a three-way contract of sorts between Tennessee, Trousdale County and CoreCivic. He plans to visit prisons to get a better understanding.
“I’m not at that point. I won’t say that I might not get there. But there’s got to be some drastic changes up there, and I know they’ve made some,” Haile said.
A CoreCivic spokesman said Wednesday the company is committed to operating “safe and secure facilities” and is conducting a “thorough review” of its policies to prevent rioting.
Republican Sen. Mark Pody of Lebanon, who sponsored the bill to penalize CoreCivic for high death rates, told the Lookout he wants a review of the entire prison system. He is set to tour the facility with Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, who has called CoreCivic a “partner” with the state.
“I’m going up there to hammer out what this looks like and what the options might be,” Pody said. “We definitely can’t have what just happened with that riot and guards being taken hostage.”
Trousdale Turner is the most “visible” problem, Pody said, but he believes the issues run “deeper” than Trousdale.
Get on board
Add Lee to the list of Republican state leaders who believe Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell should be oblivious to ICE sweeps in the city he governs.
Following the dragnet of a South Nashville neighborhood in early June when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swept up nearly 200 immigrants, O’Connell updated an executive order requiring Metro Nashville personnel to notify his office within 24 hours of an ICE encounter. Former Mayor David Briley issued the original order five years earlier, but O’Connell is taking the political heat these days from people such as House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who urged him to rescind it. O’Connell came under federal scrutiny, too, when Metro accidentally posted the identities of ICE agents involved in the roundup.
Lee isn’t fond of the executive order.
“I don’t think it’s helpful that they report that. I think anything that impedes the assistance toward the federal government’s efforts, anything that impedes that is not helpful,” he said during a short press conference this week.
Oddly enough, Lee and other Tennessee lawmakers frequently say the federal government should keep its nose out of state business such as educating kids, including special needs children, and taking care of the poor – until the state is overwhelmed by something such as a massive flood.
Once President Donald Trump started his deportation program, Lee jumped at the opportunity to spend money helping the feds pull immigrants off the streets, putting $200 million toward grants for local law enforcement to join the battle and creating a secretive immigration enforcement bureau within the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security. Interestingly enough, it hired a director before the fiscal 2025-26 budget took effect July 1.
Is that jumping the gun?
Either way, Lee appears to love the feds more than one of his own mayors.
Nevermind, go ahead
The legislature’s Fiscal Review Committee approved a three-year $30.6 million contract this week with Fast Enterprises to run the Department of Revenue’s tax collection system despite lawmakers’ reservations that it signaled a 40% cost increase.
Republican Rep. Rush Bricken of Tullahoma raised the biggest fuss, saying the state is paying substantially more for 15 Enterprise employees than it is for the computer program.
Bricken told Revenue officials the state “doesn’t need 15 folks sitting around waiting for direction.”
A department representative responded that those people are not twiddling their thumbs, instead responding yearly to multiple legislative changes in tax collections and, in fact, are “more cost-effective than state employees.”
“I hope they do work hard,” Bricken said, considering their salaries are costing the state about $466,000 per person.
But as Bricken and other lawmakers questioned the expense, they were notified the state had moved forward with the contract on Monday, the day before the Fiscal Review meeting, using a waiver to execute it.
Fiscal Review Director Bojan Savic told lawmakers the state had to work quickly because its contract with Fast Enterprises was expiring.
Rather than send the contract back to the drawing board, lawmakers took a voice vote to forge ahead.
After this tempest of sorts, everybody came out happy, especially those making nearly half a million a year.
Bring your cushions
Former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada is seeking a new trial after being convicted in a four-week political corruption case.
Casada’s attorneys say prosecutors inadvertently played audiotape of his initial interview with FBI agents when he said co-defendant Cade Cothren, his former chief of staff, couldn’t “deal” because Speaker Sexton didn’t like him. The playing of that unredacted recording, which nearly led to a mistrial, is the basis for the new trial request, according to The Tennessean.
Cothren was convicted on 19 counts and Casada on 17 counts of bribery, kickbacks, fraud and money laundering connected to a secret political vendor named Phoenix Solutions that operated from late 2019 to mid-2020.
Casada and Cothren were expected to appeal the verdict anyway. The question is whether anyone can stand to sit on those federal court benches for another four weeks. They will put a body in traction.
In or out?
Rumors have been flying for more than a year about a congressional run by House Speaker Sexton. But in a short chat Tuesday with the Lookout, Sexton said he is not running for Congress.
Still, he’s set to make a big announcement in August. Unless he’s admitting he lives in Nashville instead of Crossville, it won’t be much of a news event, unless, of course, he says he will be seeking the governor’s office. That would put him head-to-head with U.S. Rep. John Rose and, possibly, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who has been crowned the next governor but hasn’t officially entered the race.
According to news reports, she pushed a moratorium on state oversight of artificial intelligence out of Trump’s budget plan, proving she is worth every piece of China she smashed in a campaign ad before the last election.
“Broken dishes, broken parts / Streets are filled with broken hearts”.
*Bob Dylan – “Everything is Broken”
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