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Articles by Michael Rigby

Report Blasts South Carolina Plan to Privatize Prison Health Care

South Carolina's disastrous 15-year experiment with prison health care privatization should be a warning to those hardheaded state leaders who plan to do it again, according to a report sponsored by Grassroots Leadership and South Carolina Fair Share. Authored by Dr. Marguerite Rosenthal, sociology professor at Salem State University in ...

The Citebook

by Tony Darwin, Starlite, Inc., 2004, 20th ed., 308 pp., $35.95, soft cover

Review by Michael Rigby

For anyone not trained in the law, navigating the U.S. judicial system can be a daunting prospect. But with knowledge comes confidence, and that's exactly what Tony Darwin provides with The Citebookthe nation's ...

Virginia Guards Acquitted of Assaulting Prisoner

Three former prison guards were acquitted March 27, 2002 on charges of beating a shackled prisoner at the Wallens Ridge State Prison, a Virginia supermax. Lt. Jeffrey Compton, Sgt. Mathew Hamilton and Michael Bliley were charged with felonious assault and fired after allegations they kicked and beat Thomas Plummer in ...

Mexican Sweatshops Go Behind Bars

For years U.S. citizens have screamed about losing jobs to cheap overseas labor. Now it seems that U.S. prisoners are in danger of losing jobs to even cheaper prison labor in Mexico. In an effort to stimulate its economy, Mexico is allowing maquiladoras to open up shop in its prisons. ...

Prisoner Killed in California Prison

On the morning of Sept. 29, 2001, after his very first night in prison, Gary Avila was found dead in his cell, apparently strangled by his cellmate. Inside the cell Paul Posada paced nervously and muttered to himself. "Yeah, I did it," he allegedly confessed to a prison lieutenant. "He ...

DOJ Investigates CMS Health Care at Missouri Prison

DOJ Investigates CMS Health Care At Missouri Prison

by Michael Rigby


Allegations of improper medical treat-ment, lack of medical treatment, and several suspicious deaths at the Women's Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, a state women's prison in Vandalia, Missouri, has prompted an investigation by the Civil Rights Division of ...

Wrongfully Convicted in California and New York Awarded Damages

California


On April 29, 2003, then California Governor Gray Davis signed legislation awarding two wrongfully convicted prisoners $100 per day for every day they were in prison. Ricky Daye, who spent 10 years in Folsom Prison, and Leonard McSherry, who served nearly 13 years, will receive $389,000 and $481,000, respectively. ...