Private prison inmates forced to work for their own toilet paper: lawsuit

A newly filed lawsuit is accusing CoreCivic, the largest private prison company in the United States, of forcing inmates to work for as little as $1 a day in exchange for being allowed to use toilet paper.

The Daily Beast reports that three immigrant detainees this week sued CoreCivic for allegedly making them work for poverty wages mopping floors and scrubbing toilets, with the threat that they would be denied basic necessities such as toilet paper, soap and toothpaste if they did not comply.

Two of the immigrant detainees -- named in the lawsuit as Wilhen Hill Barrientos and Margarito Velazquez Galicia -- are still being held at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. A third detainee, a man named Shoahib Ahmed, was released from the detention center after he gave up his asylum claim.

The lawsuit claims that guards at the facility often refuse to provide detainees with basic needs when asked.

"In one instance, Mr. Barrientos ran out of toilet paper and requested another roll from a CoreCivic officer," the lawsuit says. "The CoreCivic officer told Mr. Barrientos to use his fingers to clean himself."

The lawsuit also alleges that conditions at the CoreCivic detention facility are extremely poor, as it claims that its "shared bathroom is often filthy, to the extent that the pod residents at times have to plug or cover their noses to avoid the overwhelming and festering stench."

Read more about the lawsuit at this link.