by Ed Lyon
A state prison warden was arrested on August 30, 2022, on suspicion of driving under the influence in Cullman, Alabama. Jeffrey Baldwin was then placed on mandatory leave from his post at Elmore Correctional Facility (CF) by the state Department of Corrections (DOC). Thwarting any effort to ...
by Ed Lyon
On July 23, 2021, Magistrate Scott Sheets presiding in the Ohio Court of Claims approved a settlement, under which the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) agreed to pay $20,000 to a former state prisoner who claimed he was injured while incarcerated when he slipped and ...
by Ed Lyon
On February 28, 2022, Judge Patrick E. Sheeran of the Ohio Court of Claims approved a settlement under which the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) agreed to pay a prisoner $32,500 to resolve his claims that prison medical staff ignored post-surgery instruction and removed his ...
by Ed Lyon
After Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D) took action in August 2022 to forgive up to $20,000 in federal or federally insured student loan debt, nearly 22 million of some 44 million Americans affected rushed to sign up. Prisoners were not excluded from the plan, which was ...
by David M. Reutter and Ed Lyon
On September 6, 2022, the Richland County Court of Common Pleas granted an injunction in a challenge brought by four condemned South Carolina prisoners to 2021 state legislation making electrocution the default method of execution unless a prisoner opts instead for lethal injection ...
by Ed Lyon
In January 2022, when Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) announced the closing of the state prison complex in Florence, he pointed to the facility’s age—it was built in 1904—and said spending an estimated $150 million on needed repairs “just doesn’t make sense.”
What does make sense? Apparently ...
by Ed Lyon
Two high-profile prisoners made nonfungible token (NFT) sales of some prison memorabilia in December 2021, adding to both the notoriety and bottom line of Michael Cohen, one-time personal lawyer to former President Donald J. Trump (R), and Ross Ulbricht, founder of the dark web’s “Silk Road” site. ...
By Ed Lyon
The years of the COVID-19 pandemic have been difficult for everyone, especially prisoners. Like a form of universal long-term solitary confinement, the endless hours of boredom were broken only by an occasional shower, or a dry bologna sandwich with an occasional handful of raisins or prunes in ...
by Ed Lyon
By the time he was released from Maine State Prison (MSP) on March 7, 2022, Zachary Swain estimated he had spent half of his seven-year prison term in solitary confinement, isolated over 23 hours per day.
Swain, 25, was a high school senior when he stabbed someone ...
by Ed Lyon
In February 2022, watchdog groups called for a U.S. ban on imports of fishing nets from Thailand, after a December 2021 report by Thomson Reuters Foundation that found some of that country’s 280,000 prisoners are being forced to make the nets by hand under threat of punishment ...
