by David M. Reutter
A Florida federal district court has awarded $420,683.53 in attorney fees and costs in a class-action suit challenging the use of solitary confinement and lack of educational opportunities for juvenile offenders held at the Palm Beach County Jail.
PLN previously reported the facts and settlement in ...
by David M. Reutter
Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County Prison (LCP) has paid $45,000 to settle a civil rights action alleging a guard used excessive force on a prisoner.
Multiple guards approached prisoner Marquice Gatewood on December 9, 2017, and told him that he would be taken to “medical” and then to ...
by David M. Reutter
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held on September 18, 2019 that the “prison mailbox rule” applies to detainees held in a civil commitment center.
The ruling resulted from an appeal by Rayvon Boatman, a detainee at the Florida Civil Commitment Center (FCCC), which holds civilly ...
by David M. Reutter
"We finna show y’all some real shit, man, on how we live here that y’all ain’t seen.”
With that introduction, a Florida prisoner begins a video that is being proclaimed the first documentary on prison conditions produced by a prisoner. Shot on a series of contraband ...
by David M. Reutter
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court’s failure to make findings as to the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s (PLRA) “needs-narrowness-intrusiveness criteria” mooted all injunctive enforcement actions that occurred 90 days after the court entered a preliminary injunction.
The ruling came in an ...
by David M. Reutter
The state government in Missouri owes counties more than $33 million for housing and transporting state prisoners during fiscal year 2019. Although state law places no cap on the number of prisoners sent to county jails, the legislature has also not made allowance in the state ...
by David M. Reutter
As previously reported in PLN, a 2017 investigation found the 1,326-bed Augusta State Medical Prison (ASMP), operated by Georgia Correctional Health Care (GCHC) under a $190 million annual contract for the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC), had “a myriad of unsafe and unsanitary conditions.” State ...
by David M. Reutter
In October 2019, the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) announced plans to lease a privately-owned prison in Floyd County that has sat idle since 2012. State Justice Secretary John Tilley, who oversees the KDOC, hopes the prison’s 650 beds will make a “serious dent” in overcrowding ...
by David M. Reutter
Over 2,000 photos taken by staff at Alabama’s St. Clair Correctional Facility paint a graphic picture of violence in the prison that was previously described only in words. But after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) received the leaked images in early 2019 – from someone ...
by David M. Reutter
Nashville’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) has removed for-profit prison company CoreCivic from its membership rolls. The October 8, 2019 decision to return the company’s membership fee came after a vocal outcry from the local LGBT community.
“The voices at our meeting last night were very ...
