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Articles by Jo Ellen Nott

Pennsylvania Jail Guards Accused of Smuggling, Assaulting Mentally Ill Prisoners

by Jo Ellen Nott

Three guards at the Beaver County Jail in western Pennsylvania were hit with contraband charges in May 2022 after allegedly taking Cash App transfers from the families of prisoners under their supervision to smuggle marijuana, tobacco and suboxone into the lockup. 

Using search warrants and the ...

Woman Masterminds $2 Million Unemployment Fraud from California Prison Cell

by Jo Ellen Nott

A woman serving a life sentence in a California prison and a dozen accomplices she allegedly led were charged on May 18, 2022, in a scheme to defraud the state of at least $2 million in unemployment benefits between June 2020 and April 2021. An unnamed ...

Cause of Prisoner’s Death in Tennessee CoreCivic Jail Finally Revealed as Homicide

by Jo Ellen Nott

Laeddie Coleman was the second prisoner brutally stabbed at Tennessee’s Hardeman County Correctional Facility (HCCF) on September 7, 2021. The first, Devin Jamison, was allegedly stabbed 15 times with a homemade knife in the jail day room by fellow detainee Nicholas Tipton, who ran and hid ...

California Grandfather with Dementia Dies After Being Jailed for Suspected Intoxication That Was Really Diabetic Shock

by Jo Ellen Nott  

On February 11, 2022, after police spotted Gilbert Gil, 67, driving erratically in Escondido, California, his daughter rushed to the scene to explain her dad had early onset dementia and diabetes. He didn’t drink or do drugs, Jennifer Schmidt added; he’d never even had a traffic ...

Private Prison Space in Louisiana Contracted But Unused by ICE Costing Taxpayers $8 Million a Month

by Jo Ellen Nott

In 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed just how expensive the federal immigration detention system is for the American taxpayer, reporting that the year before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had funded detention for its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the tune ...

New York Prison Guard Suspended After “Despicable” Facebook Post Mocking Buffalo Mass Shooting Victims

By Jo Ellen Nott

Gregory C. Foster II, 46, a guard at New York’s Attica Correctional Facility, was suspended without pay on May 18, 2022, after posting a meme on Facebook that mocked the horrific deaths of ten innocent shoppers—all them Black—in a mass shooting four days earlier at a ...

Four Suspected Drug Overdoses in D.C. Jail in One Week of May 2022

By Jo Ellen Nott

At the jail in Washington, D.C., two prisoners died and two more were hospitalized during the third week of May 2022 from suspected overdoses.

The first victim, Ramone O’Neal, 28, was discovered unresponsive and unconscious on May 13, 2022. His death is currently attributed to “unknown ...

Alabama Prisons Still Lethal, Record Another Seven Deaths in May 2022

By Jo Ellen Nott

Seven prisoners held by the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) died during May 2022. One of the seven was murdered. One most likely died of a drug overdose, authorities said, given his age. The remaining five appear to be deaths resulting from natural causes, though autopsy ...

Michigan Guard Arrested for Killing the Service Dog He Adopted at His Prison

By Jo Ellen Nott

A former guard employed by the Michigan Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office (GCSO), was fired and arrested on April 25, 2022, for allegedly torturing and killing a dog. An investigation by the Saginaw Animal Care and Control led officials to Jacob ...

BOP Raises Hackles With Ad Using Prisoners’ Mental Illness As Selling Point to Recruit Psychologists

By Jo Ellen Nott

In advertising for staff psychologists which appeared on Facebook in April 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) played a new trump card: the prevalence of mental illness among federal prisoners. But, no doubt because prisoners have historically been subjected to unethical experimentation by researchers, Facebook ...