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Articles by Matthew Clarke

9-11 Detainees' Illegal Detention Claims Dismissed, Prisoner Abuse Claims Remain

In a 99-page, unpublished opinion dated June 14, 2006, New York federal district judge John Gleeson dismissed the illegal detention claims by eight ex-prisoners arrested in a post-9-11 sweep of illegal immigrants. He refused to dismiss their conditions-of-confinement claims.

The eight men had all been born in the Middle East ...

Texas Judge and District Attorney Allegedly Bribed to Let Killer Escape

In a case that is beyond the pale of the usual high level of corruption in south Texas, a state district judge, the District Attorney of Cameron County and an attorney who was formerly a state representative are all accused of accepting bribes to allow a man who had been ...

Confidential Report Reveals Rampant Violence at CCA-Run Idaho Prison

FIN has gained access to a confidential report by Tim Higgins, the Investigation and Intelligence Coordinator for the Idaho Department of Corrections (DOC) regarding rampant prisoner-on-prison violence at the Idaho Correctional Center (ICC), a Boise prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America. The report blamed the extraordinarily high level of ...

Washoe County, Nevada Institutes Web-Based Jail Visits for a Fee

On August 1, 2010, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office began a pilot program of web-based jail visitation. Two years later, the web-based visitation had grown to encompass about two-fifths of all visits.

In 2010, a local company approached the sheriff's office and asked them to permit a pilot test of ...

Hurricane Sandy Facilitates Mass Escape from New Jersey's Logan Hall

Hurricane Sandy and a lack of preparation or training for unusual weather helped prisoners at the notorious Logan Hall halfway house to run rampant, including a mass escape of fifteen prisoners.

Although designated a "halfway house," Logan Hall, which is operated by Community Education Centers (CEC), a private corporation based ...

Travis County (Texas) Jail Initiates Video Visitation for a Fee

Travis County intends to be one of the first places in Texas that allows video visitation for jail prisoners. Under an agreement with Securus Technologies, Inc. approved by the county commissioners on October 30, 2012, the county jail will soon have a Skype-like video system for prisoner visitation. Installation of ...

Suspension Over for Texas Judge Who Beat Daughter on Viral Video

In November 2011, the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct (TCJC) temporarily suspended Aransas County judge William Adams after a 2006 video of him viciously beating his then-16-year-old daughter, Hillary Adams, went viral. The Supreme Court of Texas reinstated Adams on November 9, 2012.

The brief, one-page order reinstating Adams contained ...

Many Nevada Jewish Prisoners Opting Out of Proposed Kosher Meals

On August 12, 2012, a Nevada federal court approved a notice of proposed settlement of a class-action civil rights lawsuit brought by a Jewish Nevada state prisoner over the announced intent of the Nevada Department of Corrections (DOC) to cease offering kosher meals to Jewish prisoners. However, 45 of the ...

Four Oklahoma State Penitentiary Staff Fired After Smoke Kills Prisoner

Four employees of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary (0SP) were fired and two resigned after a prisoner died of smoke inhalation while guards ignored smoke billowing from his cell and a sabotaged smoke alarm system failed to alert anyone to the danger.

No one knows why OSP prisoner Julius Parker, 26, ...

Unusually High Rate of Prisoners Suicides at San Antonio, Texas Jail

In 2009, all five of the Bexar County Adult Detention Center's (the jail) prisoner deaths were suicides by hanging and a sixth Bexar County prisoner being held in the Crystal City jail due to overcrowding at the jail, committed suicide. That was the year Bexar County Sheriff Amadero Ortiz took ...