Private prison transport companies used to ferry violent inmates from place to place would face strict federal regulation under a bill the Senate  passed recently.    The legislation, called 'Jeanna's Bill,' calls for pre-employment drug testing and criminal background checks for these companies' prospective employees.  It also sets training standards for guards and require prisoners to  wear bright jail clothes during transport.
The bill was in response to the Oct. 13, 1999, escape of convicted child killer and molester Kyle Bell from a prisoner transport van in New Mexico. Bell had been convicted of murdering 11-year-old Jeanna North of Fargo, N.D. in June 1993. Her body has never been found.
While being taken to an Oregon prison to serve out his life sentence, Bell escaped from a private prisoner transport company's bus at a truck stop near Santa Rosa, N.M. Transcor America Inc. guards did not notice Bell was missing for nine hours.
He spent three months as a fugitive before being captured in Dallas. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill in September. The bill passed the full Senate by voice vote. It will now go to the House.  The bill is S. 1898.