by Kevin Bliss
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) was accused of not providing nutritionally fit meals in an article published October 24, 2020. Prisoners say portions are too small to be of value, there are little to no vegetables, and starches are overused to make up caloric deficits.
The ...
by Kevin Bliss
Ex-offenders are having a tougher time finding employment amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. With a national unemployment rate of 6.7% in December 2020, employers are able to pick applicants who do not have the stigma of a past felony conviction, and who historically have more job skills than ...
by Kevin Bliss
Republican Senator Jeffrey Brandes of Saint Petersburg filed a bill to exclude certain Florida citizens from benefiting from the increased minimum-wage measure, known as Amendment 2, passed by well over 60% of the state voters in November 2020.
Brandes is a long-time GOP member who also has ...
by Kevin Bliss
On January 28, 2021, Parnall Correctional Facility’s chief medical officer announced an extreme infestation of scabies, and the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) declared an institution-wide outbreak. The DOC said all 1,286 prisoners, their clothing and their bedding would be treated, and their personal property quarantined.
MDOC ...
by Kevin Bliss
After 25 years of alternative sentencing through the use of drug courts, experts are still divided on their effectiveness and the ethics that drive the system, according to a November 2, 2020, story in The Boston Globe.
The tough-on-crime policies that dominated the 1980s were soon ...
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
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
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 ...
