by Kevin W. Bliss
Most Americans were taught that slavery was banned in 1865 with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But prisoner rights advocates note that the amendment’s exception clause actually allowed slavery to persist – in prisons.
The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery and involuntary ...
by Kevin W. Bliss
A July 2018 report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found the number of alleged incidents of sexual victimization among state and federal prisoners increased 180 percent from 2011 to 2015. However, the number of substantiated claims grew just 63 percent during that same ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania state prisoner Gregory L. Ricks against Paul Keil and D. Shover, guards at SCI Graterford, after his case was dismissed by a district court for failure to state a claim.
Ricks was on his way ...
by Kevin W. Bliss
In June 2018, a death penalty task force commissioned by Pennsylvania’s General Assembly in 2012 finally released its report. Finding that neither judicial economy nor fairness is served – because 97 percent of all capital cases are converted to lesser sentences after post-conviction judicial review – ...
by Kevin Bliss
Employees at the Lackawanna County Prison (LCP) in Scranton, Pennsylvania have been under a year-long investigation into the sexual abuse of women prisoners at the facility. The culture of abuse, said to have continued for over a decade, is so pervasive that those accused include the highest-ranking ...
Daniel Martin was booked into the Clay County, Indiana, jail on December 13, 2013, for drunk diving. His intake was performed by officers Landon Herbert and Zachary Overton. The two logged a 0.16 percent blood-alcohol content on Martin, and stated that he was coherent and without great impairment of coordination. ...
by Kevin Bliss
Victor Smith was found not guilty of aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, stemming from an incident when he was employed as a jailer with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) in Mississippi. He is also being sued by the family of Joseph “Joey” Sturdivant ...
by Kevin Bliss
On March 29, 2018, a federal magistrate judge in California held that prisoners in a class-action lawsuit over long-term solitary confinement, who entered into a settlement agreement with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), had not proven a material breach of the agreement. That decision ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) has been accused of not being transparent or competent when it comes to conducting investigations into deaths that occur in state prisons. The DOC is responsible for the care and treatment of numerous dangerous and mentally ill prisoners, yet death reviews ...
by Kevin Bliss
On March 28, 2018, a federal district court entered a summary judgment order that held Humanism was in fact a faith group that must be recognized by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS).
Kwame Jamal Teague, incarcerated at the Lanesboro Correctional Institution, continually asked prison ...
