Abstract
New Mexico dedicates significant resources to incarceration—particularly with respect to prison medical care. Although New Mexico has mostly transitioned away from privately operated prisons, the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) continues to contract with various corporations to provide health services in state-owned prisons. Not surprisingly, the private contractors’ cost-saving measures often result in the provision of grossly inadequate healthcare that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Prisoner litigation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, however, is fraught with substantive and procedural barriers to recovery. The New Mexico Civil Rights Act (NMCRA or “the Act”) provides an avenue of redress by which prisoners can vindicate their rights under the state constitution without the barriers imposed by federal jurisprudence. However, the Act itself is inconsistent and reveals a disconnect to its federal counterpart. While § 1983 allows claims against not only those employed by the government but also those acting “under color of law,” the NMCRA only provides a cause of action against a “public body.” The Act does not account for state constitutional deprivations committed by individuals acting “under color of law” and thus fails to give New Mexico prisoners an avenue to recover for harm caused by private corporations contracting with the State to provide medical services. NMCD’s medical contractors operate in the prison setting, an area exclusively controlled by the government. By stepping into the shoes of the government, they should be subject to liability for violations of the New Mexico Constitution. Accordingly, this Comment advocates for an amendment to the NMCRA to allow claims against private parties who contract with the state to provide medical care.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Mayalyn Durham,
Prisoners, Patients, and Privatization: Accountability for Corrections Contractors Under the New Mexico Civil Rights Act,
55
N.M. L. Rev.
487
(2025).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmlr/vol55/iss2/7
