by Kevin Bliss
The Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC) and its medical health-care provider, Centurion Managed Care, have been under investigation by the Vermont Defender General’s Prisoners’ Rights Office (PRO) and the law firm of Downs Rachlin Martin after the death of Kenneth Johnson, a 60-year-old Black prisoner at Northern ...
by Kevin Bliss
Within the first six days of office President Biden signed the ‘‘First Step’’ executive order preventing the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) from renewing any of its contracts with private companies to run its prisons. Activists say the order was nothing more than a token gesture and ...
by Kevin Bliss
Prosecutors dismissed felony aggravated assault charges against jail detainee Mike Neal and placed three guards under criminal investigation for battery and official misconduct after previously unreported video surfaced of the incident at the Miami-Dade County Jail, Metro West Detention Center, according to a July 29, 2020 story ...
by Kevin Bliss
The number of people who died in federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) detention centers during its fiscal year that ended September 30, 2020 — 21 in all — was more than double the previous years’s total, according to a recent report by the Vera Institute of ...
by Kevin Bliss
Pay-to-stay fees are charged by over 30% of the county jails and detention centers in the state of Wisconsin. Critics contend that the system contributes to recidivism and that the penalties are so high that they violate the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
Wisconsin Watch, a watchdog ...
by Kevin Bliss
Sheriff Scott Jones of Sacramento, California has been exposed for failing to report deaths at two Sacramento County jails. California Department of Justice records show that at least nine people died in the county jail in 2019 — the same as had died in the previous three ...
by Kevin Bliss
"In the last 10 years, Minnesota counties have paid out more than $10 million in settlements and legal fees following lawsuits accusing jails of providing inadequate to non-existent health care to inmates,” KARE 11 reported in a major investigative report on October 29, 2020.
One of the ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women (Mahan) in Clinton, New Jersey is again headlining the news with 32 guards now under investigation for assault and sexual abuse. The Department of Justice had completed an investigation there last April 2020, finding the prison violated the prisoners’ rights ...
by Kevin Bliss
New York’s parole system is considered one of the nation’s worst, reincarcerating parolees at twice the national average, while parolees are the only segment of the state’s prison population that is still increasing. Reform advocates denounce the system as costly and harmful and call for the state ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York was investigated by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concerning its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A report released November 10, 2020 stated that MDC was insufficiently prepared to cope with the pandemic ...
