On September 8, 2008, Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration for 88 counties as Hurricane Ike bore down on the Texas coastline.
The 900-mile wide storm, with winds in excess of 100 mph “...is now in the Gulf of Mexico and making its approach toward our coast,” Perry ...
China’s Ministry of Health currently employs several teams of specialized doctors to harvest organs from condemned prisoners. When a prisoner is scheduled to die selected teams are sent to China’s Changi Prison depending upon which organs are to be harvested.
Fifteen doctors compose the renal transplant team which harvests the ...
Prisoners helping prisoners with legal issues would not seem strange to most people. But the idea of prisoners protecting the U.S. constitution is a notion not many can grasp unless they take the time to read Jailhouse Lawyers.
In Jailhouse Lawyers, author and PLN Columnist Mumia Abu Jamal raises the ...
Racial Impact Statements: An Effort to Eliminate Legal Racism
by Gary Hunter
Barack Obama’s election to the White House has many citizens convinced our country is closing its racial divide. Perhaps we are. But the disproportionate number of black Americans that fill our nation’s prisons testifies to the fact that ...
California DA Says Incarceration Rate a Measure of His Success – Despite Wrongful Convictions, Prosecutorial Misconduct
by Gary Hunter
Ed Jagels, District Attorney for Kern County, California, is concerned that his ratings have slipped from first to third. Not his ratings in the polls or even his popularity rating among ...
Sexual assault, rape, indecency, deviance. These terms represent reprehensible behavior in our society. They also represent recurring themes in our nation’s prisons – not only by prisoners, but also by guards and other staff members.
PLN’s August 2006 cover story, Guards Rape of Prisoners Rampant, No Solution in Sight, profiled ...
Prisoner’s Death, Abusive and Incompetent Guards Give Black Eye to Maryland Prisons & Jails
by Gary Hunter
On June 27, 2008, Ronnie L. White, 19, was arrested for the death of Maryland State Police Cpl. Richard S. Findley after hitting him with a truck. Police reports claim that White “intentionally ...
Wisconsin Prisoners Sexually Assaulted by 20 Staff Members Over Five Years
by Gary Hunter
According to John Dipko, public information director for the Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections, twenty state prison employees have faced charges of rape or sexual assault involving prisoners since 2003. Several recent cases are detailed below.
Dwight ...
Administrators at the already-troubled Texas Youth Commission (TYC) have succeeded in creating a new scandal. Only 18 months ago, Texas citizens and lawmakers were rocked by revelations that two senior TYC officials, Ray Brookins and John Paul Hernandez, had been molesting young boys at the West Texas Youth Facility in ...
Double Standard of Punishment for Supervisors, Line Staff in Colorado DOC
by Gary Hunter
Records show that supervisors who break the rules at the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) are punished less severely, if at all, in comparison with low-level prison employees.
In 2006, Director of Prisons Gary Golder was ...
