Skip navigation

Articles by David Reutter

Florida’s House Speaker Wants to Quicken Executions

by David M. Reutter

Speeding up Florida’s execution machinery is a top priority for state House Speaker Dean Cannon. Cannon’s efforts to achieve that goal have included abolishing a commission that oversees death penalty cases and trying to reorganize the state’s Supreme Court.

Most unexpected in the 2011 legislative session ...

North Carolina Prisoner’s First-Degree Murder Conviction is Valid Basis to Deny Awarding Good Time Credits

by David M. Reutter

On August 27, 2010, North Carolina’s Supreme Court reversed a grant of habeas corpus relief to a prisoner serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, holding that prison officials acted properly in withholding various good time credits accumulated against his sentence.

Alford Jones, convicted in 1975, ...

Washington State Closes McNeil Island Prison

by David M. Reutter

Citing $12 million in annual savings, the Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) has closed the 1,200-bed McNeil Island Corrections Center. A 2009 audit, however, found there would be no actual savings because it would cost the same amount to continue operating the island’s civil commitment ...

GPS Tracking of Washington Sex Offenders Expanded

By David M. Reutter

In September 2008, The Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) began requiring its most violent sex offenders to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet for the first 30 days after release from prison. The new program is an expansion of a test program that was used on ...

Investors in Montana Prison Left Holding the Bag as New Prison Sits Empty

By David M. Reutter

With the expansion of the prison industrialization complex in recent decades, many communities have turned to prisons as a means to generate economic activity.
Considering the success of other small, rural areas in this endeavor, it comes as no surprise that the citizens of Hardin, Montana ...

Prison Officials Losing War on Drug Smuggling

by David M. Reutter

Despite the closed environment and high security features of prisons, prison officials continue to lose the battle against drugs and other contraband smuggling. The results of interdiction efforts are often the same as those in America’s decades-old “war on drugs” – a few skirmishes are won ...

Widow of Slain Fulton County Judge Settles Lawsuit for $5.2 Million

By David M. Reutter

Georgia’s Fulton County has agreed to pay the widow of slain judge Rowland Barnes $5.2 million. Barnes was killed by Brian Nichols, who went on a killing rampage in March 2005 at the Fulton County Courthouse.

Nichols, who was on trial for rape in Barnes’ courtroom, ...

Michigan Auditor Finds Prisoner Health Care Delivery Inadequate

By David M. Reutter

The Michigan Department of Corrections’ (MDOC) efforts to comply with the requirement to deliver medical services are not effective. That is the conclusion drawn in an audit report issued in March 2008 by Michigan’s Office of the Auditor General. That conclusion comes as no surprise to ...

Idaho: Prison Doctor’s Treatment Fell Below Standard of Care

by David M. Reutter

The Idaho State Board of Medicine’s Prelitigation Screening Panel found that a prisoner at the CCA-operated Idaho Correctional Center had “borne his burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that Dr. [Stephen] Garrett did not comply with the standard of care in failing to ...

Merger Creates Largest Private Prison Medical Provider in U.S.

On March 3, 2011, American Service Group, Inc. (ASG) and Valitás Health Services, Inc. (VHS) announced a planned merger of the two companies that would create the largest contractor for healthcare services in prisons and jails in the United States.

Under the deal, VHS will acquire ASG for $26 per ...