As the result of a Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent lawsuit filed by Prison Legal News, litigation payouts in cases involving the District of Columbia’s prison system have been publicly disclosed.
In January 2008, PLN filed a request with the District of Columbia’s Department of Corrections (DC DOC) ...
On March 8, 2012, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC – the parent organization of Prison Legal News), in conjunction with three other organizations, sent a letter to Derrick Schofield, Commissioner of the Tennessee Dept. of Corrections (TDOC), regarding policy changes that Schofield had implemented.
Within months after being appointed ...
On February 29, 2012, former Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison guard Henry Benson III, 31, was convicted by a state court jury of “recklessly” burning a child he was babysitting.
Benson, formerly employed at the Connally Unit in Kenedy, was looking after 3-year-old Emilio Taylor in October 2009 when ...
At the beginning of the 1980s there were no privately-operated adult correctional facilities in the United States. As of 2009, more than 129,300 state and federal prisoners were housed in for-profit lock-ups. Prison privatization has become an acceptable practice and the private prison industry is now a multi-billion dollar business. ...
In May 2011, PLN reported that the Sixth Circuit Judicial Council, on a vote of 10 to 8, had dismissed a misconduct complaint filed against a federal judge in Tennessee who was accused of being a member of a private country club with discriminatory membership practices.
Specifically, the complaint alleged ...
At the beginning of the 1980s there were no privately-operated adult correctional facilities in the United States. Today more than 127,600 state and federal prisoners are housed in for-profit lock-ups, prison privatization has become an acceptable practice, and the private prison industry is a multi-billion dollar business. How did this ...
PLN’s April 2011 cover story detailed the results of our comprehensive multi-year research project on prison phone services, including a state-by-state comparison of prison phone rates, commission (kickback) percentages, and the amounts of commission payments from prison phone contracts nationwide.
Our research found that based on data from 2007-2008, 42 ...
TIME SENSITIVE!
Call to Action on opposing the Hylton nomination!
On November 9, 2010, a coalition of organizations -- including the Alliance for Justice, Human Rights Defense Center, Private Corrections Working Group, Grassroots Leadership, National Lawyers Guild, International CURE, Detention Watch Network and Justice Policy Institute -- announced their opposition ...
On June 7, 2010, Prison Legal News announced that it had settled a federal censorship suit against Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison company.
PLN filed the lawsuit in September 2009, claiming that CCA’s Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona only allowed prisoners to order books ...
In May 2010, Prison Legal News announced that it had prevailed in a public records lawsuit filed against Florida-based GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections), the nation’s second-largest private prison company.
PLN filed the suit in 2005 under Florida’s public records law after GEO failed to produce documents related to contractual ...
