The fact that prison slave labor can cut costs and generate revenue has never been a secret. Private businesses nationwide are vying to exploit prisoner workers to reduce operating expenses and gain a competitive advantage, while government agencies are increasingly using prisoners for jobs that otherwise would go to public ...
by David M. Reutter
“Like dormitory gossip or the childhood game Whisper-Down-the-Lane,” the assertion that “over 100,000 sex offenders [are] ‘missing’ from registries across the country has galvanized the urban legend that over years of telling, took on a life of its own,” states a July 14, 2011 report published ...
by David M. Reutter
The Augusta City Commission voted in July 2011 to extend a contract with the Georgia Department of Corrections to house state prisoners at the city-owned Richmond County Correctional Institution (RCCI), despite the city facing a $9 million budget deficit and the contract costing local taxpayers almost ...
This month celebrates PLN’s 22nd year of publication. One constant in our news coverage for the duration of our existence has been the exploitation of prison slave labor. Some things change, others do not. Until fairly recently most farm work in the U.S. was done by ruthlessly exploited American laborers ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 21, 2011, a U.S. District Court held that state prisoners in Arkansas have no First Amendment right to less expensive phone rates, a decision that was subsequently affirmed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Arkansas state prisoners Winston Holloway and Joseph Breault filed a ...
As the result of a Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent lawsuit filed by Prison Legal News, litigation payouts in cases involving the District of Columbia’s prison system have been publicly disclosed.
In January 2008, PLN filed a request with the District of Columbia’s Department of Corrections (DC DOC) ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 16
by Alexandra Cox
Employment has been at the center of national debates about the economy, as evidenced by the bickering in Congress and the protests on Wall Street. A number of jobs have been lost through the deinstitutionalization of prison systems in recent months, with layoffs of a number of ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 9, 2011, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that executives with the Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly publication, could sue a special prosecutor who arranged for their late-night arrests after the New Times criticized Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, County Attorney Andrew P. ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 18
A June 2011 law review article by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Senior Judge Arthur L. Alarcón and Loyola Law School Professor Paula M. Mitchell, Alarcón’s longtime law clerk, analyzes the costs to taxpayers of administering California’s capital punishment system, the misrepresentations repeatedly made to voters regarding those costs and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 20
The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, has held that the state cannot be held liable for the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) adding post-release supervision to prisoners’ sentences when such supervision had not been ordered by the sentencing court.
Farrah Donald, Shakira Eanes, Jonathan Orellanes and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 20
A pilot program enacted by the California legislature in 2009 appears to be achieving its intended goal of reducing recidivism, according to a June 2011 report prepared by Dorothy Korber with the California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes.
With three-year recidivism rates hovering around 65 percent on average, California ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 21
The Court of Appeals of Georgia held on October 21, 2011 that a county housing state prisoners under a contract with the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDOC) is an independent contractor; therefore, the state is entitled to sovereign immunity against negligence claims brought by prisoners housed at county facilities.
That ...
Aleshia Napier was 18 years old in 2006 when she hung herself with a bed sheet at the Broward Correctional Institution in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after being placed in solitary confinement despite her diagnosis of clinical depression and bipolar disorder.
The attorney hired by the young woman’s devastated family, Randall ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 24
In an interlocutory appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed a Hawaii district court’s denial of qualified immunity to prison officials who, in apparent conformity with Hawaii state law, treated a prisoner’s sentences issued at different times for different crimes as being presumptively consecutive rather than concurrent. This was despite the prisoner’s ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 16, 2010, an Indiana U.S. District Court held that a prison regulation prohibiting prisoners from advertising for pen-pals and receiving materials from services that advertise for or provide pen-pals did not violate the First Amendment. The district court’s order was affirmed by the Seventh ...
by Matt Clarke
Tougher immigration enforcement efforts coupled with fast-track procedures in immigration cases have combined to dramatically increase the number of Hispanics entering the federal prison system. Statistics released in June 2011 indicate that Hispanics, who make up only 16% of the U.S. population, accounted for almost half of ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 26
State officials have settled a federal lawsuit against California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation medical staff that alleged lengthy delays in the diagnosis and treatment of a prisoner’s stomach cancer.
Gerardo Richardo Gallegos was a California state prisoner who did not speak or read English. Beginning in 1996, he began ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 27
An October 5, 2011 federal Bill of Information charged Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Irvin F. “Jiff” Hingle, Jr., 59, with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and bribery concerning a program involving federal funds.
Hingle, the sheriff of Plaquemines Parish since 1992, entered into a contract with Benetech, LLC in 2007 ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 28
In November 2011, a Pennsylvania U.S. District Court sentenced the former owner of two for-profit juvenile detention centers to 18 months in prison for his role in a kickback scheme that included two judges. The scandal, involving the juvenile justice system in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, came to be known nationally ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 28
The Ninth Circuit has held that a § 1983 prisoner litigant who wants to raise new claims based on conduct that occurred after an initial complaint was filed may do so by exhausting available administrative remedies (relative to the new claims) prior to filing an amended complaint. In so doing, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 30
The Florida legislature did an end-run around a veto by the Governor by eliminating funding for the state’s prison medical oversight agency, thereby causing it to disband.
With Florida turning to private companies to provide prisoner healthcare services, there is concern that medical care will decline and potentially subject the ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 7, 2011, a Pennsylvania federal judge issued an order reducing a prisoner’s jury award for destruction of legal materials to $75,005. The award had previously been reduced from $185,000 to $115,000.
Andre Jacobs, a Pennsylvania state prisoner, filed a pro se civil rights lawsuit in ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 31
The new executive director of the Tennessee Corrections Institute (TCI), an agency that oversees standards, inspections and certification of the state’s jails, faces an inherent conflict of interest in certifying the Wilson County Jail, as that county’s sheriff is her husband.
Despite being made aware of the conflict, Governor Bill ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 32
Prison officials tend to frown on public records requests. In fact, employees at a Florida facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) were so ruffled by a citizen’s request for records that they called the cops.
Joel Chandler, 47, has made himself the self-appointed leading advocate for Florida’s Sunshine ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 32
On August 8, 2011, a California federal district court approved an increase in the hourly rates for the plaintiffs’ attorneys due to additional experience the attorneys had accrued since the beginning of the litigation.
The court had entered an order on September 20, 1996, granting an injunction that required California ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 33
The workforce for Ohio Penal Industries (OPI) has been reduced by more than 35% since 2007. With budget cuts due to the economic downturn forcing state agencies – OPI’s largest customers – to reduce spending, revenue at OPI has spiraled downward.
Net sales at OPI were $36.4 million in FY ...
by Matt Clarke
Eldon Vail, the Secretary for the Washington Department of Corrections, submitted a letter of resignation on July 1, 2011 when it was publicly revealed that he had been having an affair with a subordinate.
Shortly before Vail resigned, several Seattle-area television stations received copies of a video ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 34
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in a revised ruling that Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca could be held liable for his subordinates causing dangerous conditions in the Los Angeles County Jail system (LACJ). The appellate court also found that Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (2009) [PLN, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 35
Legal concerns have led the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole (BOPP) to order probation officers to discontinue the use of polygraphs, better known as lie detector tests, in their supervision of sex offenders.
Polygraphs are to be used for treatment purposes only, said Gary Tullock, director of field services ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 36
Following the death of a guard at a Cleveland, Ohio juvenile detention center, the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program (PSOB), which provides payments to the families of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, made an award of $157,873 to the guard’s widow. However, that award is now ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 36
On April 27, 2011, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law House Bill 2154, which resulted in the privatization of medical care for prisoners in the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC). The move comes three years after ADC’s food services were privatized. The Republican-dominated state government favors privatization as a ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 37
The California Court of Appeal, Third District, has held that release from prison moots a prisoner’s habeas corpus petition challenging an adverse decision by the Board of Parole Hearings (“Board”).
Convicted of second-degree murder in 1984, Damian Miranda was sentenced to an indeterminate term of 19 years to life. In ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 37
In late April 2011, the New York Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) formally adopted a regulation permitting same-sex married partners and those in civil unions to participate in the prison system’s family reunion program, also referred to as conjugal visiting. The regulation, Directive No. 4500, formalizes a policy change initiated ...
A former case manager at Pioneer Fellowship House, a halfway house in Seattle, Washington, has been accused of having a sexual relationship with one of the released prisoners she supervised and providing him with money to buy heroin.
According to records filed in federal court by Special Agent Wayne Hawney ...
Two lawsuits have challenged the Arizona Department of Corrections’ newly-adopted policies of imposing a background check fee on prison visitors and deducting a fee from deposits made into prisoners’ accounts.
On July 20, 2011, Arizona began charging visitors what prison officials termed a “background check fee” of $25, requiring the ...
In July 2011, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced that it had eliminated a backlog of over 90,000 DNA samples from federal prisoners. This milestone occurred more than a decade after Congress passed the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act in 2000.
Florida Congressman Vern Buchanan, who had drawn attention ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 40
A former federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) employee and a former contractor were indicted and have pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud UNICOR, the prison industries arm of the BOP.
The indictment, handed down by a grand jury in the Northern District of Florida, alleged that James Bailey, formerly employed ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 41
The Washington State Court of Appeals, Division Three, has ruled that a 2011 state law “eliminates tolling of the term of community custody while the offender is serving a sanction for violation of the conditions of that community custody.” The appellate court also held the law applies retroactively.
Christopher Brady ...
by David M. Reutter
Was Ohio’s attempt to sell off and privatize five of its state prisons in 2011 a race to the bottom? That’s the question raised and analyzed in a report titled Cells for Sale: Understanding Prison Costs & Savings, released by Policy Matters Ohio in April 2011. ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 43
In an unpublished opinion, the California Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment against a prisoner who sued a surgeon for medical malpractice, but then failed (due to limited resources) to refute the expert testimony submitted on behalf of the surgeon, which established that the treatment ...
In response to the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits states from forcing people with mental health disabilities to live in state mental institutions when they are capable of living in community settings, state governments turned to using jails and prisons instead. Although this trend continues today, there is ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 45
Alabama allocated 11% of its federal education stimulus funds to its prison system. Of the $1.1 billion the state received from the U.S. Department of Education from 2009 to 2010, the state gave more than $118 million to the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC).
Not a penny of that money ...
by David M. Reutter
An Indiana federal district court certified a class and allowed claims to proceed that challenged unsafe conditions, lack of medical privacy and an alleged incentive scheme that rewarded staff for providing less medical care to prisoners at the Marion County Jail #2 (MCJ) in Indianapolis. Four ...
A federal prisoner challenging his or her civil commitment detention under the Adam Walsh Act (Act) as a “sexually dangerous person” may not resort to habeas corpus for such challenges, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held on December 6, 2010. Following remand and another appeal, all ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 48
New Mexico State District Judge Albert S. “Pat” Murdoch – the chief criminal court judge in Albuquerque – was arrested on July 19, 2011 and charged with criminal sexual penetration and intimidation of a witness. According to the criminal complaint, a detective was told by an informant that Murdoch had ...
Third Circuit: § 2241 is Proper Vehicle for BOP IFRP Challenges
by Mark Wilson
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held on December 2, 2010 that a federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 is the proper vehicle to challenge the Bureau of Prison’s (BOP) Inmate Financial Responsibility ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 49
During the time of Argentina’s American-backed dirty war against political dissidents, from 1976 to 1983, the military junta that was running the country ran a network of prisons and concentration camps, including a prison in a working class suburb of Buenos Aires. About 2,500 prisoners passed through the army’s “El ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2012
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2012, page 50
Arizona: Former state prison guard Anthony Rinaldi, 26, allegedly shot and killed his wife on December 13, 2011, telling a 911 operator, “She is definitely dead – I put two to the chest and one to the head.” He then left his house, drove up behind a police officer and ...
