by Matt Clarke
Citing a need to stop the smuggling of drugs and other contraband, some prisons and jails have placed new and stringent restrictions on both prisoner mail and visitation.
Beginning in April 2017, prisoners in the Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) must be strip-searched and change into new ...
by Matt Clarke
The estate of a man who died in a Colorado jail of a treatable foot malady has settled a lawsuit alleging Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic) and other defendants caused his death by denying him medical care and surgery.
When Dennis Choquette was booked into the ...
by Matt Clarke
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s judgment dismissing a lawsuit brought by a prisoner who sought an injunction requiring the Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC) to allow him to wear dreadlocks. In its decision, the Court declared the DOC’s grooming policy violated the ...
by Matt Clarke
After leading a 12-year legal battle that secured an agreement from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to recognize the right of Orthodox Jewish prisoners to receive kosher meals, Max Moussazadeh was released from prison in 2017. That same year, prisoner Aharon L. Atomanczyk filed a ...
by Matt Clarke
Since 2004, the Kansas Department of Corrections (DOC) has drained over $6.7 million from the prison system’s Inmate Benefit Fund (IBF), and spent it on goods and services prohibited by state law.
The IBF is funded by prisoners and their families through commissary sales, vending machines in ...
by Matt Clarke
In May 2017, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing Texas state Senator Carlos Uresti of accepting substantial bribes from a company that provides healthcare to prisoners at the Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC) in West Texas.
Uresti allegedly received payments of $10,000 per month from the company, ...
by Matt Clarke
In April 2017, the University of Texas School of Law’s Human Rights Clinic published a report that found living conditions on death row in Texas violate “basic human rights as well as a number of international treaties that were voluntarily ratified by the U.S. and which are ...
by Matt Clarke
Some prisoners in the Idaho Department of Correction (DOC) who exhibit suicidal tendencies end up with other prisoners as companions, charged with engaging with them and helping to prevent self-harm.
The DOC has a population of 8,000 prisoners and reported 13 suicides between 2011 and 2016 – ...
by Matt Clarke
A Mississippi federal district court has issued an agreed declaratory judgment in a case brought by two defendants who were held for long periods of time in the Scott County Detention Center without an individualized hearing on bail or appointment of counsel. The court declared that, under ...
by Matt Clarke
Through December 2016, Cochise County, Arizona had paid over $42,000 to resolve an accident caused by a Cochise County prisoner transport van that struck a Kia Sorento after exiting the Pima County Jail.
Guard Armando Cruz was driving the 2006 Chevrolet van transporting a female prisoner on ...
