by Derek Gilna
Although most of the discussion in the past several months has been the continuing decrease in the number of prisoners in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to slightly more than 200,000, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) actually confines more than twice as many, approximately 400,000 ...
by Derek Gilna
U.S. District Court Judge Robert W. Gettleman issued an injunction on May 2, 2017, holding the Cook County Sheriff’s Office accountable for insufficient efforts to accommodate the needs of disabled prisoners who must access Cook County courthouses. The injunction ordered “defendant Cook County to move the privacy ...
by Derek Gilna and Matt Clarke
Jail officials in Syracuse, New York have agreed to end solitary confinement for 16- and 17-year-old juvenile offenders held at the Onondaga County Justice Center under the terms of a June 26, 2017 settlement that ended a federal class-action suit filed by the New ...
by Derek Gilna
On June 13, 2016, U.S. District CourtJudge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. denied a motion submitted by Robertson County, Tennessee officials seeking to dismiss a §1983 civil rights case brought by the mother of Matthew J. Burns, who committed suicide while confined at the Robertson County Detention Facility ...
by Derek Gilna
A lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed on October 20, 2017 in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington, complaining of excessive and predatory fees imposed on prisoners who receive debit cards containing funds from their jail trust accounts upon their release. The suit was filed on behalf ...
by Derek Gilna
For many years, the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) has largely denied treatment to prisoners infected with hepatitis C – a blood-borne disease that can have serious long-term health effects. In doing so, state prison officials concerned more about the cost of medical care than human suffering ...
by Derek Gilna
The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centres issued a report slamming health care professionals voluntarily working with the military and intelligence communities who “[p]articipated in cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and torture of detainees.” Although the American government claims that these practices ...
“We should not be tolerating rape in prison.” – President Barack Obama, July 2015
by Derek Gilna
The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, was a rare instance of bipartisan cooperation, and its passage signaled that public officials could no longer ignore the problem of ...
by Derek Gilna
Thomas Heyer, who is completely deaf, was initially convicted of possessing child pornography, then violated his supervised release and was imprisoned for eighteen months in 2007. Before he was released from federal prison, prosecutors filed an Adam Walsh petition seeking to civilly confine him as a “sexually ...
by Derek Gilna
In May 2017, the City of New York agreed to pay $1.2 million to two female prisoners to resolve claims of rape and sexual assault by a male guard at the city’s Rose M. Singer facility on Rikers Island. Rikers, one of the nation’s largest jail complexes, ...
