by Kevin W. Bliss, Matt Clarke, Ashleigh N. Dye and Keith Sanders
As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes from the headlines, its full effect on prisoners and detainees is coming into clearer view. One of the first glimpses was provided in a December 2021 report by the federal Department of Justice ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) entered into another agreement with Disability Rights Florida, Inc. (DRF) on November 8, 2021, denying it had breached an earlier 2017 agreement regarding treatment of disabled prisoners, but promising to make several changes to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, ...
by Kevin Bliss
n October 22, 2021, federal Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida certified a class of plaintiffs in a suit accusing the state Department of Corrections (DOC) of housing juveniles and juveniles with disabilities in solitary confinement under unconstitutional conditions.
G.H. and R.L. are ...
by Kevin Bliss
When the Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails (BLRJ) met unannounced and in closed session on April 20, 2022—in plain violation of the state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—Executive Director Ryan McCord shrugged it off as a “typo” on the calendar.
But BLRJ has an enormously ...
by Kevin Bliss and Ed Lyon
In September 2021, a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, the nonprofit research and advocacy group Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) gave a failing grade to 42 U.S. states for their efforts to mitigate the spread of the disease in their prisons and ...
by Kevin Bliss
Despite a watchdog report finding state prisons so short-staffed that some guard supervisors sought demotions to take advantage of ballooning hourly overtime pay, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (DCS) will not see any help from lawmakers this session, after an ambitious prison overhaul bill died in ...
by Kevin Bliss
On November 19, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned a lower court’s decision to rule there was sufficient evidence requiring a jury finding in a case against the City of Miami Beach and one of its police officers, who is accused of ...
by Kevin Bliss
On December 14, 2021, the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) canceled its contract with the Keefe Group as provider of prison commissary items. The next day, the state’s chief procurement officer, Ellen Daley, released a 25-page ruling determining the firm’s bid was improper and erroneous.
DOC had ...
By Kevin W. Bliss
Audio released on February 8, 2022, captured Oklahoma County Jail (OCJ) administrator Greg Williams and Oklahoma County Detention Center communications director Mark Opgrande in a discussion two months earlier about how the COVID-19 pandemic had benefitted the jail, with Williams commenting that the disease which has ...
by Kevin Bliss and Jo Ellen Nott
On February 5, 2022, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a nine-year sentence had been handed down to the last of four Alabama prison guards convicted of beating state prisoners they suspected of smuggling contraband at Elmore Correctional Facility (ECF).
Three days ...
