by David M. Reutter
The U.S. Department of Justice, through the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, has brought stimulus money to Indian reservations – awarding $224 million to build and renovate tribal jails. The funding comes after years of unsuccessful lobbying efforts by Native American leaders.
The Justice ...
by David M. Reutter
Saying it was “not even worth it” to collect an $8 medical co-payment from prisoners seeking medical care, Florida’s Pinellas County Sheriff Jim Coats has abolished the practice at his jail. In these tough economic times that have squeezed budgets, it is surprising Coats would forfeit ...
by David M. Reutter
The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed a trial court’s summary judgment order that held incident and investigative reports created by the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) are subject to the state’s Open Records Act.
Beginning in October 2006, the Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) began seeking ...
by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a 2003 Indiana statute that requires indemnification of government employees under certain circumstances has prospective application only.
Before the Court was an appeal by the Estate of Christopher Moreland, which had filed a motion for a writ ...
by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals remanded a civil rights action that claimed a prison doctor’s care was deliberately indifferent to an ex-Illinois prisoner’s serious medical needs. The Court, however, affirmed dismissal as to non-medical prison officials who answered the prisoner’s grievances.
Before the appellate court ...
by David M. Reutter
There are more than 10.65 million people in prisons worldwide. That figure includes 850,000 in “administrative detention” in China. Almost half of all prisoners are held in only three countries: Russia, China and the United States.
Those conclusions were published in the eighth edition of the ...
by David M. Reutter
For hundreds of years the cramped, overcrowded and often filthy confines of dungeons, prisons, jails and other places of imprisonment have served as incubators for infectious diseases, which have killed more prisoners than any other single factor. Thus, the recent outbreak of H1N1 virus, commonly known ...
by David M. Reutter
The systemic failure of medical care at California’s Sacramento County Main Jail (SCMJ) resulted in a prisoner’s avoidable death that has cost taxpayers $1.45 million. For years, SCMJ’s healthcare system has been severely deficient – yet jail officials continue to use the county’s Correctional Health Services ...
by David M. Reutter
Despite federal oversight of its prison medical care, Delaware “continues to have a great deal more to achieve before it comes into substantial compliance with all provisions of the MOA” (Memorandum of Agreement) the state entered into with the U.S. Department of Justice.
That was the ...
by David M. Reutter
Three Florida prison guards have been arrested and charged in the December 16, 2008 beating of a handcuffed prisoner at the Charlotte Correctional Institution (CCI). The criminal proceedings can be viewed as a fulfillment of Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) Secretary Walter McNeil’s vow to prosecute ...
