by David M. Reutter
One of the most insidious businesses to grow out of the prison industrial complex revolves around mug shots. Natural curiosity compels many people to view jail booking photos taken by law enforcement agencies when someone is arrested, which are usually considered public records. Profiteers are now ...
by David M. Reutter
As America’s prison population has swelled over the past three decades to become the largest per capita in the world, the number of special interests that feed off the so-called prison industrial complex has grown. The expansion of companies that benefit from crime and incarceration is ...
by David M. Reutter
Residents in a South Florida community near a proposed 1,500-bed privately-operated immigration detention center waged a successful yearlong opposition campaign that culminated in the cancellation of the project in June 2012.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) purchased a 24-acre plot in the town of Southwest Ranches ...
by David M. Reutter
The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) may ban all pen pal solicitations between pen pal services and Florida prisoners, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held on December 22, 2011. The appellate decision affirms a federal district court’s January 2011 summary judgment order that found the ...
by David M. Reutter
Advocates of automatic restoration of civil rights for ex-offenders have long maintained that such a policy helps former prisoners reintegrate into society and therefore reduces recidivism. Two reports by the Florida Parole Commission (FPC), released in 2011 and 2012, lend support to that argument.
Since the ...
by David M. Reutter
Two audit reports, one by Michigan’s Office of the Auditor General in 2012 and the other by the State Budget Office in 2011, both found shortcomings with the Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative (MPRI).
Michigan took a bold step in 2005 by implementing MPRI. The program abandoned ...
by David M. Reutter
On November 8, 2010, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) issued a press release announcing that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) intended to award a new contract to the company, “to manage up to 3,256 offenders at CCA’s Crowley County Correctional Facility in Olney ...
by David M. Reutter
The general public typically shows little concern about abuse and corruption in jails and prisons, at least until it affects them personally. That was the case when residents in Delaware County, Oklahoma attended a November 2011 meeting of the County Commission and learned they may face ...
by David M. Reutter
Citing hopes of reducing the number of work-related injuries and associated costs resulting from altercations with prisoners, in December 2011 the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) invested $125,000 in a pilot program at five maximum-security prisons to test the effectiveness of Tasers.
MDOC guards at Algier ...
by David M. Reutter
The American Civil Liberties Union released a report in August 2011 that calls for reforming the U.S. criminal justice system. The report makes recommendations for systematic reforms, front-end reforms and back-end reforms; it reviews policy changes and their results in six states that have successfully implemented ...
