by Kevin Bliss
The fourth director of the federal Bureau of Prisons and the man who developed the super maximum-security prison model, Norman Carlson, died August 9, 2020, in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. He was 86.
Carlson grew up in Sioux City, Iowa where he summered with a local ...
by Kevin Bliss
The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) stated that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency refused help controlling the COVID-19 pandemic in its detention centers, jeopardizing detainees’ lives and stonewalling efforts for intervention and information, as detailed in a September 10, 2020 story by Reveal ...
by Kevin Bliss
Colorado Governor Jared Polischanged the state’s coronavirus vaccination plan after Republican district attorney George Brauchler railed in a Denver paper op-ed that it was unfair for the state to inoculate someone like Nathan Dunlap, convicted of murdering four people at a Chuck E. Cheese in 1993, before ...
by Kevin Bliss
Developers in Fairfax County, Virginia, are remaking the Lorton Reformatory historical landmark into a suburban village. County officials are using the prime real estate just off I-95 with good roads to D.C. and a growing tech industry in northern Virginia to create a suburb utilizing much of ...
by Kevin Bliss
An outbreak of COVID-19 began September 29, 2020, at the Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) in Fairfax County, Virginia, with eight staff and six juveniles testing positive over the next 10 days for the novel coronavirus that causes the disease. It was the worst outbreak in a juvenile ...
by Kevin Bliss
Claire Bodkin, Matthew Bonn and Sheila Wildeman wrote an article in March 2020 for The Conversation addressing the need for more comprehensive opioid testing and treatment programs in Canada’s prisons and jails. The crisis has killed 14,000 Canadians since 2016.
They point out that Canadian and international ...
by Kevin Bliss
Lockdowns instituted because of the coronavirus pandemic have had a benefit for Scottish prisoners. The Scottish Prison Services (SPS) spent over 160,000 pounds on mobile phones for prisoners to stay in touch with their families.
The SPS introduced mobile phones into its prison system as a means ...
by Kevin Bliss
An analysis published on October 26, 2020 by Reuters showed U.S. jails that contracted with private health care companies had higher death rates on average among prisoners and detainees than those with government-run health-care programs. Reuters reviewed over 500 jails and found that of the five leading ...
by Kevin Bliss
Christopher Hampton and Cortney Rolley, represented by Eric Artrip of Mastando & Artrip, LLC, filed a class-action suit against a group of guards at Elmore Correctional Facility (ECF) located near Montgomery, Alabama. They say the guards, who accused them of trying to obtain contraband during a visit, ...
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson agreed to commute Willie Mae Harris’ sentence after 34 years in prison for accidentally shooting her abusive husband. She was released on June 5, 2020.
Harris, 72, from Bradley, Arkansas was charged with murder in 1985 after an argument with then-husband Clyde. She tried to beat ...
