A battle is raging in Maryland over how best to improve prison safety. Some advocate hiring more guards and medical personnel. Others want to expand prisoner rehabilitation services. Neither side seems to be considering the possibility that both are needed. Meanwhile, violence, neglect, and contraband are on the rise.
I'm ...
On January 25, 2006, a federal court in Wisconsin issued an emergency injunction to prevent the state from discontinuing hormone therapy for three transgender prisoners, despite a new state law banning the therapy.
In January 2006 the Wisconsin legislature enacted the Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act, Wis. Stat. § 302.286(5m). ...
EMSA Negligent In Florida Jail Prisoners Death, County Pays $65,000
by Michael Rigby
On April 1, 2005, a jury in the 19th Circuit Court of St. Lucie County, Florida, found EMSA Correctional Care negligent but not liable for damages in a prisoners allegedly drug-related death. EMSAs co-defendant, St. Lucie County, ...
Federal Judge Strikes Down Iowa Prisons Faith-Based Rehabilitation Program
by Michael Rigby
A federal judge in Iowa has ruled that the states partial funding of a Christian rehabilitation program is unconstitutional. In a 140-page opinion issued on June 2, 2006, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt ordered the Iowa Department ...
As Rita churned westward through the Gulf of Mexico, at times a monstrous Category 5 hurricane with wind speeds of 175 mph, officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) ordered the evacuation of entire prisons in coastal and low-lying areas of Southeast Texas. More than 9,000 prisoners were ...
The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated a prisoners $100,000 award against two Indiana prison employees, overturning a district courts reversal of the jury verdict.
On September 9, 1998, Robert Pierson, 51, was attacked by fellow prisoner Jeremy Wilkinson while he slept. Wilkinson, 19, bludgeoned Pierson with brass ...
Texas Prison Slaves No Savings for Direct Marketing Firm; Data Mining Results in $ 15 Million Settlement Fund
by Michael Rigby
A class action lawsuit involving thousands of women who received threatening letters from prisoners employed to process data for a private company has settled for amounts ranging from $100 ...
U.S. businessman Joe Robertson has a dream: A global system of foreign-owned factories employing prisoners and their families for low wages and with few benefits. But for now his sights are set on Mexico, where he hopes to establish maquiladoras both inside and outside the prison gates.
Maquiladoras--foreign-owned companies that ...
The North Carolina Department of Corrections prison industries program routinely violates state purchasing guidelines and lacks adequate internal controls, a state audit has confirmed. The audit, released on October 19, 2005, also found that guards were sometimes overpaid, disbursement procedures were defective, prisoner work hours werent properly recorded, and prison ...
Wexford Health Sources and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have agreed to pay $2.15 million to the family of an asthmatic prisoner who died after her medication was denied at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Muncy.
Erin Finley, 26, was transferred to SCI-Muncy on July 2, 2002, to serve out ...
