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Articles by Matthew Clarke

Private Prisons Are a Risky Business for Local Governments

Local governments in Texas and across the nation are bearing high costs for building private prisons that are now unwanted due to a sharp decline in incarceration rates. This has led some local governments to adopt radical strategies such as closing, or even selling, the publicly-financed, privately-operated prisons that were ...

Family of Dead Registered Sex Offender Still Receiving Registry Letters

When 17-year-old Justin Fawcett admitted to having consensual sex with a 14-year-old student at the same West Bloomfield, Michigan high school he attended he probably never thought that he would die for his crime, but he did. Hounded by the public shaming of his being listed on the Web site ...

Oklahoma DPS Hires Former DOC Guard Dismissed for Excessive Force

On November 15, 2011, Oklahoma Department of Public Safety (DPS) Commissioner Michael Thompson 'created a high-rank, $60,000-per-year job and hired an old friend, who had been fired for beating prisoners while a guard captain in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) in 1994 Scott Barger, Thompson's new executive assistant, supervised ...

Escapes and Crime at New Jersey's Privately-Run Halfway Houses

New Jersey has embarked on a grand experiment – shifting state prisoners from expensive state prisons into less expensive, privately-run halfway houses. The state prison system bas less than 25,000 beds while the around two dozen halfway houses in the New Jersey system house about 3,500 state prisoners and parolees. ...

$200,000 Settlement in Pennsylvania County Prison Unsafe Conditions Case

On August 17, 2012, a federal lawsuit over a guard allowing prisoners to be beaten by other prisoners at a county prison and officials generally allowing unsafe and violent conditions at the prison was settled for $200,000.

John Julius Mucha was a prisoner at the Northampton County Prison in Easton, ...

Illinois Jail Doctor Leaves Trail of Medical Misery Across Several States

A doctor has been associated with the medical maltreatment of multiple jail prisoners across several states during close to two decades of practice. Some of the prisoners died. Yet Dr. Stephen Austin Cullinan of Peoria, Illinois still retains his medical license.

On August 14, 2012, the Illinois Department of Financial ...

Second Circuit Upholds $286,000 Attorney Fees Award in $30,000 Civil Rights Case

On November 14, 2012, the Second Circuit court of appeals upheld the award of $290,997.94 in costs, of which $286,065.00 were attorney fees, in a case with a $30,000 judgment for plaintiffs.

Deja Barbour, Shinnel Gonzalez and Rakayyah Massey were leaving a diner in White Plains, New York early in ...

Illinois Prisoner Receives $12 Million Jury Award in Medical Neglect Suit

On January 18, 2013, an Illinois federal jury awarded an Illinois prisoner $12 Million against an Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) Correctional Medical Technician (CMT) who failed to provide him his anti-seizure medication which allowed him to have a seizure that resulted in severe and permanent brain damage.

Ray Fox ...

Iowa's Governor Commutes Juvenile Life-Without-parole Sentences to 60 Years Flat

In a controversial reaction to a recent Supreme Court ruling declaring mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad commuted the sentences of the 38 Iowa juvenile who had been sentenced to life without parole to a sentence requiring a mandatory 60 years in prison before being considered ...

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 ...