Amid numerous scandals and investigations into wrongdoing and prisoner mistreatment by staff, the director of the Snohomish County jail in Everett, WA was relieved of her duties in mid-April 2003. Corrections department director Andrea Bynum was fired due to her mismanagement of the jail.
No less than five active investigations ...
North Carolina Juvenile Prisons Plagued by
Physical, Sexual Abuse, and Medical Neglect
by Lonnie Burton
After four separate lawsuits were filed by prisoners serving sentences at two North Carolina juvenile facilities alleging a wide range of mistreatment from sexual and physical abuse to medical neglect state officials have launched an ...
Federal Prisoners Enlisted for Dangerous
Computer Refurbishing
by Lonnie Burton
In February 2002, it was announced that prisoners at a new federal prison in California will soon be partnering with companies such as Dell, IBM and Hewlett-Packard in a program that will refurbish and recycle used computers. The U.S. Penitentiary ...
Although described as a troubled kid, 16-year old Chad Franza didn't deserve to die they way he did. Only 24 days after entering a juvenile boot camp in Bartow, Florida, the teenager was found dead after hanging himself with his boot laces in 1998. Now Franza's parents have agreed to ...
Since 1997, when a court deemed her too dangerous to live in society, Laura McCollum has remained the lone female prisoner at Washington's civil commitment center for sexually-violent predators on the grounds of the state's women's' prison near Purdy. McCollum, 43, who has been confined in an, 1,100-square-foot manufactured home, ...
On April 25, 2002, United States District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein approved a settlement agreement reached between the King County Jail in Kent, Washington, and a class of female prisoners who had sued alleging discriminatory practices in relation to access to work release, good time and trustee programs. The suit ...
On February 25, 2002, a county jail prisoner in Port Hadlock, Washington brought a class action lawsuit against the Jefferson County jail alleging near barbaric jail conditions that include inadequate health care, frigidly cold cells, broken plumbing, flooding, and inadequate clothing and bedding.
The prisoner who filed the suit, Shawn ...
Former Georgia Sheriff Sidney Dorsey was convicted on July 10 for ordering the assassination of his political rival, a man who defeated him for sheriff in the 2000 elections.
Dorsey was convicted of first-degree murder for the slaying of Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown. Brown ran against Dorsey in the 2000 elections ...
New York's Revised "Son of Sam" Law Leads to $100 Million Verdict Against Cop Killer
by Lonnie Burton
The 2001 revisions to New York's so-called "Son of Sam" law, which now allows crime victims to sue their perpetrators and confiscate their money anytime they receive in excess of $10,000, has ...
When prisoners at the Richmond, Virginia jail buy goods from the inmate store, the profits were supposed to be used for the benefit of the prisoners. Instead, an investigation has revealed that Richmond's sheriff, Michelle B. Mitchell, has been spending the money on social club memberships, photographs of herself, and ...
