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Articles by John Dannenberg

Aramark: Prison Food Service with a Bad Aftertaste

by John E. Dannenberg

Aramark, Inc. is a Philadelphia-based $10 billion/yr. Fortune 500 company providing diverse institutional food services. Its Illinois-based subsidiary, Aramark Correctional Services, Inc., (ACSI), which bought out Wackenhut's Correctional Foodservice Management division in 2000, contracts with 450 prisons and jails in 40 states, serving over 300,000 prisoners. ...

How to Exit Californias Sexual Predator Prison: Refuse Treatment

How to Exit California's Sexual Predator Prison: Refuse Treatment

by John E. Dannenberg

California, with 538 sexually violent predators (SVP) civilly committed at its Department of Mental Healths Atascadero State Hospital (ASH), has an efficacious five-step psychological treatment program to prepare its wards for reentry into society. The problem is ...

Robotic Medicine Dispensers Pillage Jails Cost Savings

Robotic Medicine Dispensers Pillage Jail's Cost Savings

by John E. Dannenberg

ROBOT, a $1 million automatic pill dispensing system installed at the Contra Costa County (California) jails in February 2005 and advertised to save the county $240,000, has so far instead cost the county $60,000 in overtime pay for people ...

Federal Court Orders California DOC to Pay $58 Million In Overdue Medical Bills

by John E. Dannenberg

On March 30, 2006, the U.S. District Court, N.D. Cal., ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to pay its backlog of overdue medical subcontractors bills within 60 days. The bills, some as old as four years, and totaling $58 million, had been submitted ...

BOP Must Let Prisoners Control Their Outside Assets; Pays $10,500 To Settle Grievances

by John E. Dannenberg

In a convoluted pro per suit, two federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) prisoners, who had been retaliated against after they grieved the BOP's having infracted them for controlling their legitimately-acquired outside assets from inside the walls [running a business], won a damage settlement totaling $10,500 and ...

NY Appellate Court Reverses Denial of Parole

by John E. Dannenberg

The Appellate Division (1st Dept.) of the New York Supreme Court granted a non-life prisoners article 78 petition challenging the Parole Boards denial of his parole that had been based upon the nature and seriousness of the offense, alleged limited insight into his criminality, and alleged ...

Bacterial Contamination In Prison-Made Milk Fells 1,344 Prisoners and 14 Staff in 11 California Pris

Bacterial Contamination In Prison-Made Milk Fells 1,344 Prisoners and 14 Staff in 11 California Prisons

by John E. Dannenberg

Between May 16 and May 23, 2006, a milk-borne illness caused by the bacterium campylobacter caused vomiting, diarrhea, fever, headaches and dehydration in 1,344 prisoners and 14 staff in eleven California ...

PLRA Administrative Exhaustion Requirement Distinguished in Two California

Excessive-Force Suits

by John E. Dannenberg

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals consolidated two interlocutory appeals from U.S. District Courts in California that distinguished under what circumstances administrative exhaustion is deemed satisfied if the grievance process has been truncated below the highest available level.

Californias four-level grievance process (Form ...

San Francisco Jails Strip Search Policy Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Court

San Francisco Jails Strip Search Policy Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Court

by John E. Dannenberg

The U.S. District Court (N.D. Cal.) ruled on motions for summary judgment that the City and County of San Franciscos blanket jail policy of strip-searching all pre-arraignment detainees, regardless of offense or adjudication status, violated ...

Ninth Circuit: Total Exhaustion-Dismissal Rule Not Required Under PLRA

by John E. Dannenberg

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that a prisoners 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against prison officials should not be summarily dismissed under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) for containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims, but rather should be ...