by David M. Reutter
After being in business for twenty-three years, one would think that Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) would have refined the art of running prisons and jails. Yet an examination of CCA's three jails in Florida reveals a pattern of gross mismanagement and substandard or indifferent care ...
With this issue of PLN we are back on our regular publishing schedule of sending each issue to the printer around the end of the month. We got behind last summer due to switching over to a new layout program and a trial in Florida. Hopefully we now stay on ...
by David M. Reutter
For the fifth time in five years a juvenile has died in a Florida boot camp. A videotape of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson being counseled at a Bay County boot camp facility in Panama City shows guards abusing and battering him while he lays limp on ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
In a little-known program, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has been allowing unescorted prisoners to transfer between prisons using Greyhound and other civilian buses. Not surprisingly, some never show up at their destination.
The program is considered a form of furlough by the BOP, related ...
Prison Systems co-workers Joe Reynoso and Dave Lewis both were called heroes by their peers. One was an investigator digging into prison crime, and one was accused of a crime. Guess which one was supported by the guards union.
In her letter supporting the nomination of investigator Joe Reynoso for ...
by David M. Reutter
An Iowa federal district court has held that the legal assistance program at Iowas Anamosa State Penitentiary (ASP) was an unconstitutional impediment to a prisoners access to the court because it did not provide a reasonable adequate opportunity to present claimed violations of fundamental constitutional rights ...
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 ...
by Bob Williams & G.A.Bowers
What would a woman do for her man? Run a frontend loader through a jail wall? Drive her lover out of prison in a food service truck? Murder witnesses? Smuggle in guns and drugs? Melt her lover out of prison using acid? Gun down a ...
by John E. Dannenberg
A federal jury awarded $9 million to the family of a Scottsdale, Arizona prisoner who suffocated in a restraint chair in the Maricopa County Jail (MCJ) in 2001. Found negligent and liable were Sheriff Joe Arpaio and nurses from contract healthcare provider Correctional Health Services (CHS). ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 22
The former owners of U.S. Correctional Corporation (USCC) have agreed to settle a lawsuit over misuse of the employee stock-ownership plan for $13.2 million.
Prior to 1998, when it was purchased by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for $225 million, USCC ran four private prisons in Kentucky: Marion County Adjustment ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 23
The California State Auditor reported in September 2005 that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), when contracting with private prison contractors for two minimum security Community Correctional Facilities (CCF), issued no-bid awards to companies who had hired recently retired senior CDCR and Finance employees with economic interests in ...
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 ...
Fraud takes many forms but few as bizarre as the one allegedly concocted by D.C. prisoners Shawn Gray, Jamal Jefferson, Leonard Johnson and Fredrick Robinson.
On December 20, 2003 all four men were wounded by gunfire inside of the Southeast Washington prison. Originally, it was believed that the shootings resulted ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
A federal grand jury has indicted four men--two of whom have been prisoners at the California State Prison-Sacramento (New Folsom Prison)--with conspiracy to levy war against the United States, to possess and use firearms in the furtherance of violence, and to kill U.S. and foreign officials. ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Fifth Circuit court of appeals held that a parolee who has never been convicted of a sex offense is entitled to a due process hearing prior to being required to register as a sex offender and attend sex offender treatment as a condition of parole. ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) settled a prisoner class action federal lawsuit on October 6, 2005 by stipulating to comprehensive improvements to its prisoner medical care, grounded in adding 321 medical personnel to the existing 540 and in overhauling its medical facilities. In ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 29
On January 10, 2006, a South Carolina jury awarded $825,000 to a state prisoner who received inadequate medical treatment for a life threatening infection.
State prisoner Jason Bynum was diagnosed with a serious mouth infection on January 9, 2002, while imprisoned at the Turbeville Correctional Facility. The untreated infection began ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 29
A more accurate motto for the show me state may be the show me the money state. In 2005 Attorney General Jay Nixon confiscated $748,682 from Missouris most oppressed residents--state prisoners.
The money was seized under the 1988 Missouri Incarceration Reimbursement Act, which allows the state to pirate up to ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 29
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a federal prisoners habeas corpus petition seeking advance good time credits because the claim was not ripe. The appellate court further opined that even if it were ripe, a reasonable interpretation of the controlling statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b), would permit only 47, ...
The California Court of Appeal upheld the Del Norte County Superior Courts 2003 ruling [case no. HCPB 00-5164] requiring supermax Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) officials to cease locking down Southern Hispanic prisoners endlessly solely based upon their ethnicity. In an unpublished ruling in 2004, the appellate court rejected PBSP ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 30
Platte County (Wyoming) Detention Center control clerk Jeremy King was charged with two counts of second-degree felony sexual assault for having sex with a female Jamaican prisoner convicted of federal drug offenses. The woman, who was not named, had served her entire sentence and probation period in jail but was ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 31
In a 6-3 decision, the Washington Supreme Court reaffirmed its earlier holdings that the state may be held liable for negligent supervision of offenders. However, the court vacated a $22.4 million verdict resulting from a 2000 jury trial, which had ballooned with interest to $33 million, because the trial court ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 31
In a 6-3 decision, the Washington Supreme Court reaffirmed its earlier holdings that the state may be held liable for negligent supervision of offenders. However, the court vacated a $22.4 million verdict resulting from a 2000 jury trial, which had ballooned with interest to $33 million, because the trial court ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 32
South Carolina Jury Awards $28.5 Million For Diabetic Jail Prisoners Death
A South Carolina jury has awarded $28.5 million to the family of a mentally ill diabetic man who died from insulin deficiency while imprisoned at the Sumter County Detention Center. The verdict against Eastern Health Care Group, the jails ...
Paraded in pink boxers, pink flip-flops and pink handcuffs more than 2,600 Arizona prisoners walked four blocks to new jail facilities in downtown Phoenix. Most moved from the Madison Street Jail, which closed for remodeling, to either the Towers Jail, the new Lower Buckeye Jail or the new Fourth Street ...
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 ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 34
Julie Wilkerson was a Rend Lake College associate music professor and band director making under $40,000 annually when she was hired as an assistant warden at Indianas Big Muddy River Correctional Center at a salary of $65,000 a year. Two other newly-minted Illinois assistant wardens were formerly an auto-parts store ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
In another bizarre twist to an already bewildering prosecution history, on September 9, 2005, Texas federal district judge Lynn Hughes, by judicial fiat, acquitted Andy Collins, the former executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), and Yank Barry, the Canadian ex-con owner of ...
Prisoners in an Alabama work-release program have been working without getting paid. Problems have come mostly from prison employees who have hired prison workers then defaulted on their debt.
Prisons located in Decatur, Birmingham and Loxley posed the greatest problems. A 2004 audit noted several questionable practices. Based on an ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 35
OBriens Pharmacy in Ballston Springs has a pretty good deal in supplying the Saratoga County Jail in New York with prescription drugs for prisoners. The county, which paid OBriens $247,000 in FY 2004, has been paying the average wholesale price plus a $2.60-per-prescription filing fee in accordance with a 1992 ...
In 1988, a 17-year-old Josiah Sutton was convicted in a Texas court of a rape he did not commit and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Sutton spent close to five years in prison before new DNA tests performed in 2003 proved the tests previously performed by the discredited Houston ...
Louisiana sheriff Ronald Gun Ficklin faces 22 counts on charges of conspiracy, trafficking in motor vehicles with removed or altered vehicle identification numbers (VINs), removing or altering VINs, aiding and abetting the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, misprison of a felony for not reporting a felon with ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 36
On December 9, 2005, a Lee County, Illinois, grand jury returned indictments against former Illinois Department of Corrections official Ron Matrisciano and former Illinois Parole Board member Victor Brooks. Matrisciano was indicted for five counts of official misconduct and two counts of wire fraud while Brooks faces one count each ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 37
Los Angeles Jail Pays $375,000 To Assaulted Keep Away Prisoner
Los Angeles County, California, should pay $375,000 to a former prisoner who was severely beaten after being improperly celled with his assailant, the County Claims Board recommended on December 8, 2005.
On May 13, 2002, prisoner Martin Davis was transported ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 37
Attempts to get jail medical services on the cheap may have backfired for Marylands Queen Anne County. CONMED, a private jail medical services company, has a contract to provide medical services at the countys 80-bed jail and 11 other Maryland jails. CONMED does this by hiring off-duty Emergency Medical Technicians ...
The United States District Court for the District of Colorado on April 26, 2005, awarded $232,700 in fees and costs after a Settlement Agreement was reached over the rejection of numerous magazines and books by the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC).
Several publishers and prisoners sued the CDOC when magazines ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 38
Washington Ex-Cons Cant Be Denied Voting Rights Because of Unpaid LFOs
On March 27, 2006, Judge Michael Spearman, of the Superior Court of King County, Washington held that withholding voting rights from released felons, solely because they owe legal financial obligations (LFOs) is unconstitutional.
Plaintiffs Daniel Madison, Beverly DuBois, and ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 38
On April 12, 2005, a Bronx, New York, jury awarded $25,000 to a man who was severely beaten by other prisoners in the mental health section of the Rikers Island jail complex.
The 18-year-old plaintiff was imprisoned at Rikers Island for a robbery that he was later acquitted of. Following ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 39
Prisoners in the Connecticut Department of Corrections (CDOC) can now receive free and gift publications that were previously banned under Administrative Directive 10.7, according to the terms of a March 18, 2004, settlement agreement.
A.D. 10.7 prohibited prisoners from receiving publications paid for or donated by a third party--whether from ...
Second Circuit Holds PLRA Fee Cap Inapplicable To So-ordered Stipulated Dismissals
by Bob Williams
In a case of first impression, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that the fee cap provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which limits attorney fees to 150 ...
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 ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 40
On May 23, 2005, a New York court of claims awarded $4,000 to a state prisoner who suffered a head injury when another prisoner attacked him.
While imprisoned by the State Department of Correctional Services in Elmira, New York, William Crenshaw was attacked by another prisoner. During the June 8, ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 40
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has remanded for further proceedings a prisoners civil rights complaint that alleged he was forced to strip and masturbate by a female guard, and was then retaliated against for reporting her nefarious activities.
Boxer X, a prisoner at Georgias Smith State Prison, sought relief ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 41
On July 2, 2005, a prisoner who was raped by a guard settled her lawsuit against the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) for $15,000.
While imprisoned at the Dixon Correctional Center on May 26, 2000, the plaintiff, Rose Marie Smith 51, was raped by an unknown male guard. According to ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2006, page 42
Afghanistan: On July 10, 2005, four captured Arab guerrillas escaped from the Bagram Air Base where they were being held and tortured by United States military forces. They were the first political prisoners to escape from the torture camp since it was opened in 2001 shortly after the US invasion ...
Reviewed by John E. Dannenberg
Taking Californias Solano State Prison as a model, author John Irwin exposes the warehouse concept of Californias prisons and its debilitating effect on prisoners and their struggle for reintegration. Dr. Irwin, conflating his unique perspectives as both a San Francisco State University Professor of Criminology ...
