by Jordan Arizmendi
Life in prison is difficult for anyone, but especially for deaf people. Without a video phone or teletypewriter (TTY), a deaf person cannot communicate with loved ones by phone. Under a new rule that takes effect in 2024, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will require prison phone companies to provide video communication services for prisoners who are deaf and hard of hearing. Announced on September 29, 2022, the new order applies to prisons, jails, immigration detention, juvenile detention and mental health lockups across the nation.
Under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., the deaf have a right to communication “as effective as” that enjoyed by others. Prisoners must navigate complicated prison bureaucracy, besides being able to comprehend what happens around them. Without special accommodation, a deaf prisoner unable to read English would find it almost impossible to obtain medical care, file a grievance, understand a disciplinary write-up or even read a prison handbook.
The new rule covers point-to-point video calls, which allow direct communication between two signing people. It also covers video relay services, a three-way system that allows a deaf user to sign to a speaking interpreter. ...
by Jordan Arizmendi and Chuck Sharman
Attendance at parole hearings by all five members of the Nebraska Parole Board has improved, after a 43-month stretch from 2018 to 2021 when all five showed up for just 37% of parole hearings. [See: PLN, Nov. 2022, p.53.]
When media reports in March 2022 highlighted that statistic, attendance jumped. It jumped again after state lawmakers introduced a bill in January 2023 to define “neglect of duties” – a reason for removal from the board – as missing three hearings in a year.
Over the next two months after LB 631 was introduced by Sen. Terrell McKinney (D-Omaha), attendance at parole hearings for the full board quickly climbed to 63%. The bill was still pending after a floor debate in the state legislature on March 31, 2023.
Board members pointed to reasons other than media attention for their attendance improvement, including the waning COVID-19 pandemic and fewer family deaths, as well as medical leave in 2021 and 2022 for board chair Rosalyn Cotton, leaving her attendance rate over the past five years – missing 22.7% of hearings – the lowest of any board member.
Board counsel Nicole Miller called the earlier low attendance ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
On June 20, 2023, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a new law to “eliminate involvement in immigration detention” by local governments in the state. When it takes effect in 2024, House Bill 1100 will terminate detention agreements with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Teller ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
On May 7, 2023, at roughly 8:30 p.m., two detainees escaped from the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center. But it was not until the next day that guards realize they were missing.
That was after Ameen Hurst, 18, and Nasir Grant, 24, missed three headcounts within an 18-hour ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
As a result of a significantly depleted work force, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD), is imploring judges to send its most troubled and violent youth to the adult prison system operated by the state Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).
A report by the Texas Tribune on ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Three years after retiring, and 16 years after the first rape allegations surfaced at Mississippi’s Noxubee County Jail (NCJ), former Sheriff Terry Grassaree has been indicted on federal charges. On October 5, 2022, Grassaree and a former deputy were accused of bribing a detainee with a cellphone to send nude selfies with it, and then lying when questioned about it by federal agents.
NCJ staff has faced allegations of sexual misconduct with detainees since Grassaree was a deputy. That’s also something he was accused of turning a blind eye toward during an eight-year term as Sheriff that began in 2011. Whenever an allegation surfaced that led to a lawsuit, the Noxubee County insurer paid to settle the claim, and NCJ staffers escaped any charges.
When Grassaree was promoted to Chief Deputy in the 1990s, the jail reportedly was already a free-for-all spot with few rules. Detainees roamed the building without having to log in and with practically no supervision. One detainee even showed up at a court hearing without a deputy; he had driven from the jail by himself, according to the district attorney at the time.
Detainees and prisoners allegedly had such freedom at the jail ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
In its final rule that took effect on May 4, 2023, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) declared that prisoners placed on home confinement by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) under eligibility criteria expanded by Congress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic would not have to return to prison, now that the pandemic has ended.
In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The law considered incarcerated individuals highly vulnerable to COVID-19 because the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that those in close contact with an infected person – less than six feet – are likely to get infected with the novel coronavirus that causes the disease. As a result, spending a night in a crowded prison cell could turn any term into a death sentence.
The CARES Act expanded eligibility for home confinement under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c)(2). Previously, it was available only to federal prisoners with no longer left to serve than “the lesser of ten percent of a prisoner’s sentence or six months.”
However, the expansion lasted only “for the period of the covered emergency.” As a result, in January 2021, former Attorney ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Anyone who watches news or primetime television shows may think that crime by violent youths is on the rise. However, a study released by The Sentencing Project in May 2023 proves the opposite is true: Between 2000 and 2020, the number of youths held at U.S. juvenile ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Children prosecuted as adults have sadly been ignored by criminal justice reform. On May 9, 2023, a new study was released by the nonprofit Human Rights for Kids that put the problem in context. Abstracting data from 45 states, the group found that 32,359 prisoners – about ...
by Jordan Arizmendi and Chuck Sharman
A huge fire inside an immigration detention facility in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Mexican border from El Paso, killed 38 men on March 28, 2023. Another 28 were left with injuries, according to Mexico’s National Immigration Institute.
While smoke filled the building and ...
