Tennessee Lawmakers Say They Want Better Answers To Scathing Prison Audit

Tennessee lawmakers blasted the state Department of Correction at a meeting on Wednesday, the day after an audit found numerous violations in the state's prisons.

An oversight panel took the rare move of delaying the department's request for reauthorization — a procedural rebuke they hope will force state officials to improve the situation.

Many of their questions center on one facility in particular, the privately run Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville. CoreCivic, the Nashville-based company formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, runs the facility but cannot find enough people to handle the nearly 2,500 inmates housed there.

Casey Wilson, whose husband Cyrus is one of the inmates, told lawmakers at a hearing that the personnel shortage means prisoners rarely get to rehabilitation programs.

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