by Jo Ellen Nott
From 2019 to 2021, guards at Maine State Prison in Warren used a Facebook Messenger group chat to mock prisoners, joke about using force on them and sharing confidential information about them. Yet the none was fired by the state Department of Corrections (DOC), …
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 28, 2022, Acting Warden Mike Pallares referred a former Central California Women’s Facility guard to the Madera County District Attorney’s (DA’s) Office. A six-month investigation had uncovered accusations that Gregory Rodriguez sexually assaulted 22 prisoners at the state’s biggest lockup for women.
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by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 1, 2022, Florida’s Flagler County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) arrested two ex-felons for orchestrating a beat-down in the county lockup. Sheriff Rick Staly called Margaret Watkins, 37, and her boyfriend, Raymond Dukes, 52, a pair of “dirtbags,” vowing he “won’t allow this kind …
by Jo Ellen Nott
When Richard A. Carter, died in Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County Prison (DCP) on Christmas Eve 2022, officials released key details that showed they had not neglected him. A nurse visited the 63-year-old at 9:31 p.m. the night before he died, making sure he took his …
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 19, 2022, a six-month investigation into contraband smuggling at the Dougherty County Jail (DCJ) in southwest Georgia resulted in charges against 11 suspects. In a stunning display of rampant corruption, the group included four DCJ guards, a former nurse at the lockup …
by Jo Ellen Nott
On January 14, 2023, a fire broke out just before 11:00 a.m. in a cell block at Indiana State Prison (ISP), killing prisoner Michael W. Smith, 48. He was the second prisoner to burn to death at the lockup in five years; Joshua Devine, …
by Jo Ellen Nott
When parents are incarcerated, their children are often placed in foster care. A little-noticed federal law from the “tough on crime” Reagan era requires states to bill those parents for a portion of their kids’ foster care. But since federal subsidizing of foster care …
by Jo Ellen Nott
On January 31, 2023, a veteran Delaware prison guard was indicted by a state grand jury on a felony count of first-degree assault, for recklessly confining and causing the death of a law enforcement animal that was under his control. Darrel Wiley, 45, was …
by Jo Ellen Nott
On January 13, 2023, a former prison guard from the Graceville Correctional Facility in northwest Florida near the Georgia state line was arrested and charged with two counts of sexual misconduct, two counts of conspiracy to introduce contraband, and 67 counts of unlawful compensation …
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 27, 2022, in Missouri’s 19th Circuit Court, Judge Jon Beetem ordered the state Department of Corrections (DOC) to pay $2 million in punitive damages to a former nurse in a sexual harassment case she brought against DOC and three of it guards, …
