| Prison Legal News, a monthly print publication that covers criminal justice issues, is a project of the Human Rights Defense Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. |
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The Tiger Woods Version of Justice Tiger Woods spent about eight hours in police custody Monday after he was found asleep and apparently impaired behind the wheel of his Mercedes-Benz on a busy road near his home in Jupiter, Fla. As a wealthy professional athlete, Woods enjoyed the treatment that the criminal justice system routinely bestows on men and women of standing. He was expeditiously released without bail on a promise to appear in court when summoned. While Woods walked out the front door, those living on the margins would more likely have been shown to a jail cell unless they could produce bail money. That dichotomy is the subject of a new analysis published today by the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. The report calls on state lawmakers to restrain local bail protocols that pack city and county lockups with those who can't afford to buy freedom. One in every three men and women incarcerated in the U.S. is being held in a local jail, but that piece of the mass incarceration pie gets scant attention, says Joshua Aiken, author of "Era of Mass Expansion: Why State Officials Should Fight Jail Growth." "Jails are ostensibly locally controlled, but the people held there are generally accused of violating state law," Aiken writes in the analysis. "And all too often state policymakers (and state reform advocates) ignore jails." Read More |
Are you aware of private prison contract violations? HRDC is interested in hearing from whistleblowers, including current or former private prison employees, who are aware of contract violations or fraud by private prison firms. For example, contracts may require that private prison operators provide specific services or programs that they are not providing, or specific staffing levels they have failed to meet. If you have documentation about contract violations or fraud at private prisons, please contact us confidentially via our contact page. Note that whistleblowers may be entitled to financial compensation for exposing fraud by government contractors. |
After string of Utah jail deaths, ACLU calls for independent inspections Utah is one of about 20 states without statewide rules on jail inspections or independent oversight of county jails, something the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah said it wants to see changed. Utah needs transparent rules about the standards for local jails, particularly in the wake of a string of jail suicides and deaths linked to health problems and drug addictions, ACLU spokeswoman Anna Thomas said. "There is little to no substantive oversight, there are no baseline standards established for all jails, there is no punishment for when conditions are terrible," Thomas said. The Utah Sheriffs' Association, a nonprofit group representing Utah's 29 county sheriffs, conducts voluntary inspections of local jails that the sheriffs themselves are legally responsible for, and jails that fail those voluntary inspections don't face penalties. "That's not exactly the gold standard of independent review," Thomas said. Read More |
New York Times Editorial Contest Winner | 'Reform the Prison, Then the Prisoner' We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Fourth Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day. Below, an essay by Katherine Leonard, age 16. _________ Reform the Prison, Then the Prisoner One would think the United States, with the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, cracks down on crime like no other nation. However, do higher incarceration rates necessarily reflect criminal justice system success? According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 77 percent of released prisoners are arrested again within five years of leaving prison. This high recidivism rate points to issues within the United States prison system. The United States should focus less on punishing inmates, and more on improving a prison environment that tends to foster continued criminal behavior after release. The United States can learn from countries like Germany, which have innovative criminal justice systems. Read More |
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Prisons Put New Limits on Inmate Visits to Stamp Out Drugs In New Hampshire, a new rule bars inmates and their visitors from hugging for more than three seconds. In Virginia, prisoners now must change their underwear before and after receiving a visitor. And states across the country are placing new limits on what kind of mail inmates can receive. All of the changes are designed to keep drugs, especially opioids, out of prison. Of particular concern is Suboxone, an addiction-treatment drug whose razor-thin strips, designed to be placed under the tongue like breath strips, are easily hidden. The drugs can help tame withdrawals for those already addicted to opioids or provide a mild high to those who are not. Once affixed to something, Suboxone strips leave a pale yellow outline. Prison officials have found the strips hidden under postage stamps and concealed by crayon drawings. In visiting rooms, people have transferred the drugs to each other during embraces and hidden them in packages of food from on-site vending machines. Alex Friedmann, associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center, which also publishes the monthly Prison Legal News magazine, said prison systems often focus too heavily on screening prisoners and their visitors rather than considering screening staff. "You ultimately have employees coming into facilities, and a lot of them are not adequately searched when they enter," he said, adding that a few bad actors are responsible for most of the drugs entering the system. "The vast majority of correctional officers don't smuggle in drugs, but the vast majority of visitors don't either. It doesn't make sense to only go after one group." Read More |
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From the PLN in Print Archives Federal Judge Grants Ex-offender "Certificate of Rehabilitation" New York U.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson, known for his well-reasoned opinions, has, in addition to his usual duties, immersed himself in other issues not typically associated with the federal judiciary. For example, he has encouraged prosecutors to revisit cases where the interests of justice dictate that prisoners be released based upon new evidence or prosecutorial misconduct. Also, his recent grant of a "certificate of rehabilitation" to a former non-violent offender has focused attention on the issue of removing barriers that released prisoners face, particularly in terms of obtaining employment. In granting the non-traditional relief, Gleeson seized upon recent pronouncements by the federal executive branch that encouraged prosecutors and judges to eliminate collateral consequences that prevent ex-offenders from fully reintegrating into society. Judge Gleeson had originally convicted the defendant, identified only as "Jane Doe," for a non-violent felony related to an auto accident fraud scheme. Doe, a single mother of two children, had been a certified nurse - but her conviction made her ability to find a job dependent on whether her employer conducted a background check. She attempted to form her own nursing agency to address that problem, and also worked as a house cleaner, but struggled to pay bills and support her family. Finally, she filed a motion to expunge her 13-year-old federal charges. According to Judge Gleeson, "while Doe has struggled considerably as a result of her conviction, her situation does not amount to the 'extreme circumstances' that merit expungement." He added, however, that he had "reviewed her case in painstaking detail, and I can certify that Doe has been rehabilitated.... Accordingly, I am issuing Doe a federal certificate of rehabilitation." The judge wrote that the purpose of the certificate "is to remove barriers to employment, but I hope Doe will also find it useful to present to landlords, benefits providers, and any others to whom her conviction is significant." Read More |
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From solitary confinement, a gang leader used smuggled cellphone to order a killing Inside rolls of razor-wire fence, behind a network of heavy metal doors, locked alone in a North Carolina prison cell for 23 hours every day, a high-ranking gang leader directed accomplices in Georgia to carry out a contract killing. Step by step over a smuggled cellphone, the prisoner instructed gang members in chilling detail: "Gag him real tight. Put something in his mouth. Put something over his head." The plot, to kill a prosecutor's father, was foiled in April 2014. The inmate - a founder of the United Blood Nation - was sentenced in November to life plus 84 months on kidnapping and related charges. Top state officials acknowledge there's only one way an inmate in solitary confinement at maximum-security Polk Correctional Institution got a cellphone: An employee helped. "This is the prison system basically protecting its own," said Alex Friedmann, managing editor of Prison Legal News. "If they really believed their own rhetoric...then they would crack down harder on staff." Read More |
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Do All Violent Offenders Need Long Prison Terms? Fordham law professor John Pfaff argues in his counterintuitive new book, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration-and How to Achieve Real Reform (Basic Books), that the unbridled discretion of prosecuting attorneys has been largely overlooked as a key to America's prison population boom. In the second part of a Q&A with TCR Contributing Editor David J. Krajicek, Pfaff, who trained as an economist at the University of Chicago, argues that the punitive approach to violent offenders favored by tough-on-crime politicians and prosecutors needs re-thinking if we want to shrink the number of Americans behind bars. The Crime Report: Explain how prosecutors, whom you describe as "the engines driving mass incarceration," were responsible for the firehose of prison admissions, even as crime was declining. John Pfaff: My findings come from a study of 34 states over the years 1994-2008. Crime falls over this time period, and serious crime falls by a lot. Arrests fall too. So fewer people are entering the criminal justice system, yet the number of felony cases filed in state court rises sharply. In my data, the probability that an arrest results in a felony charge almost doubles. That's the only change. Read More |
New York: Disabled man spent 42 hours on filthy floor of Brooklyn jail after police took away his wheelchair: lawsuit A disabled man claims he was forced to drag himself through urine, spit, and vomit and sleep on the filthy floor of a jail cell after uncaring cops took away his wheelchair, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Brooklyn. Baron Walker said he was left to rot on the cold concrete floor of a Brooklyn Central Booking cell for more than 42 hours after a bogus arrest. The 52-year-old, paralyzed from the waist down during a gun battle in 1989, says cops raided the Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment where he lives with his 80-year-old mother in April 2015 - charging him with selling marijuana. "I told them I don't sell weed. The only weed I have is the one I smoke," Walker recalled telling the cops. He asked to see the search warrant but was told by one of the officers "not to worry," and never saw one, he said. Read More |
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