by Douglas Ankney
On March 16, 2021, the Queens Daily Eagle reported that the federal government had declined to renew a contract with for-profit prison contractor GEO Group to operate the Queens Detention Facility (QDF). QDF was New York City’s last privately-operated jail.
GEO contracted with the U.S. Marshalls Service ...
by Douglas Ankney
In 2020, California enacted Senate Bill No. 132, the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act (SB 132). SB 132 requires, inter alia, that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) house prisoners “in a correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual’s preference” ...
Judge Orders Facilities Housing Disabled Prisoners
to Install Surveillance and Body Cameras
by Derek Gilna and Doug Ankney
On March 11, 2021, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in the Northern District of California ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to require its guards to wear body cameras and install ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky granted plaintiffs’ motion seeking class certification in a suit alleging the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections (LMDC) holds people after their court-ordered release.
In February 2017, plaintiffs Jacob Healy, James Michael Jarvis, Jr., Cynthia Dawn Yates, and ...
by Douglas Ankney
According to the Connecticut Post, as of January 23, 2021, the number of people confined in Connecticut jails and prisons was 9,083—the lowest it has been in the last 32 years. That number represented 3,326 fewer prisoners than on March 1, 2020, and was less than ...
by Douglas Ankney
On March 16, 2021, Daniel Ruiz’s four children and his mother, Angelica Chavez, filed suit in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California in relation to his death from COVID-19 that he contracted due to infected prisoners being transferred to San Quentin and the ...
by Douglas Ankney
As a surge in migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border made headlines in March 2020, the federal agency in charge was still trying to address deficiencies uncovered in an oversight report released the summer before.
According to a July 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office ...
by Douglas Ankney
As of March 11, 2021, there were more than 137 active cases of COVID-19 at the Northern State Correctional Facility (NSCF) in Newport, Vermont. James Lyall, executive director of the ACLU of Vermont said, “This was predictable and it was preventable. Just like the multiple other outbreaks ...
by Douglas Ankney
On September 8, 2020, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilkin of the Northern District of California ordered additional remedial measures—including body-worn cameras for guards—as relief in a class-action suit claiming allegations of abuse of disabled prisoners by guards at the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility (“RJD”) in San Diego. ...
by Douglas Ankney
In late September 2020, private correctional healthcare contractor Wellpath paid $4.5 million to settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a mentally ill teen who died from dehydration while incarcerated in 2016 at the Benton County Jail in Kennewick, Washington.
The family’s attorney, Edwin ...
