by Keith Sanders
A little-known provision attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2020 prohibits federal contractors from asking about a job applicant’s criminal history. Signed into law in December 2020 by former Pres. Donald J. Trump (R), the provision is intended to prevent prematurely excluding people who ...
by Keith Sanders
In the November 2022 elections, voters elected a new sheriff in Bristol County, Massachusetts: Democrat Paul Heroux defeated his Republican opponent, Sheriff Tom Hodgson. The local race garnered national headlines, not just because Heroux, a former Attleboro mayor and state representative, ousted a 25-year incumbent. Heroux was ...
by Keith Sanders
The November 2022 elections did more than send new faces to Congress and statehouses around the country. They also saw historic ballot measures passed to change the constitutions in four states. Voters in Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon, and Vermont approved measures to amend or rewrite their constitutions to ...
by Keith Sanders
On September 21, 2021, an agreement was fully executed by California’s Merced County agreeing to pay $175,000 to a state prisoner who was mauled by a county K-9 when recaptured after an escape.
While held at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, minimum-security prisoner Zechariah Lee walked ...
by Keith Sanders
Prison is big business in America. Not only do billion-dollar corporations compete to warehouse individuals, so do American cities. That’s why in 2021, the California city of Susanville sued the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to keep it from going through with plans to close ...
by Keith Sanders
Violence occurs inside America’s prisons every day. But those held or working inside Oklahoma’s Davis Correctional Facility (DCF) have endured an unprecedented amount of bloodletting at the lockup, which is operated by Tennessee-based private prison giant CoreCivic: Between New Years and mid-September 2022, at least 18 people ...
by Keith Sanders
On February 4, 2023, a crowd of 50 people gathered outside the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington. They were there to support a hunger strike staged by some 100 detainees held inside by private prison giant GEO Group under contract for federal Immigration and Customs ...
by Keith Sanders
On July 9, 2022, the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) rescinded a new policy that barred parole officers from getting arrest warrants for people who walk away from one of the state’s halfway houses. The move was a bow to law enforcement officials like Jefferson County Sheriff ...
by Keith Sanders
Many state prison agencies have in-house for-profit companies that utilize the labor of guards and prisoners to provide products and services to private companies and other state agencies. Not surprisingly, such public-private partnerships are often accused of corruption.
Take Arizona Correctional Industries (ACI), for instance, which is ...
by Keith Sanders
On September 7, 2022, the city council in California’s Costa Mesa voted to hire 11 full-time jailers to keep the city lockup open. But at an estimated cost of $1.12 million, the city will have to cough up more than $175,000 over the price it was paying ...
