by Matt Clarke
On February 14, 2021, a winter storm with temperatures far below freezing swept through Texas causing an unprepared electrical grid to falter and resulting in at least 57 deaths. The storm caused widespread power outages and rolling blackouts. The frigid temperatures and lack of power also caused ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 12, 2020, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that 18 U.S.C. §§ 111 and 1114, which criminalize assaulting federal officers, apply to private prison guards detaining federal prisoners. The court affirmed a federal prisoner’s conviction for punching a guard at a federally contracted privately ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 26, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law measures to protect the state’s LGBTQ population, including special provisions that empower them to choose the pronoun and honorific that prison staff, volunteers, and contractors are required to use when referring to them and whether to ...
by Matt Clarke
An academic study by a University of Pennsylvania professor published in November 2020 shows that mismatched economic incentives — local governments making sentencing decisions while the state government pays the costs of incarceration — are an important factor in increased incarceration. The study found that when the ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 3, 2020, the GEO Group, one of the largest private prison companies in the nation, revealed that it had suffered a ransomware attack in August of that year that exposed sensitive personal information of employees, immigrant detainees and prisoners.
GEO said it was sending data-breach ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 5, 2020, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal criminal convictions of two former New York prison guards for their assault of an unresisting prisoner and subsequent cover up.
When prisoners Kevin Moore and Tyron Hollmond arrived at New York’s Downstate Correctional Facility, ...
by Matt Clarke
A 63-year-old grandmother filed a lawsuit on October 8, 2020 after she was arrested and jailed while having a mental health crisis. While jailed, she was forced into a restraint chair and then placed in a cell without access to water for days, forcing her to drink ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 14, 2020, a federal judge approved a $3 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by the family of a Pennsylvania jail prisoner who died after being held in a restraint chair with his face covered by a “spit mask” because guards mistook a seizure for ...
by Matt Clarke
In a timely report published on September 10, 2020, the Brennan Center for Justice examined the impact of video proceedings on fairness and access to justice in court. It recommended caution in the expansion or long-term adoption of video proceedings initiated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 24, 2020, a federal judge rejected reducing the sentence of a former Pennsylvania judge who became infamous for taking bribes to keep a private juvenile prison full of children. He became known as the “kids-for-cash” judge.
Former Luzerne County juvenile court president Judge Mark Ciavarella, ...
