by Matt Clarke
Brentwood, Tennessee-based CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) operates the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center (TTCC), the state’s largest prison, and three other Tennessee prisons for the state Department of Corrections (DOC). But despite the company’s large footprint in Tennessee, its legacy is dismal at best …
by Matt Clarke
The death rate at the Dallas County jail increased around 50% during the first eight years of Sheriff Marian Brown’s tenure, according to investigative reporting by The Dallas Morning News. Many of the deaths could have been easily been prevented with timely and competent medical …
by Chuck Sharman
In a Facebook post on May 21, 2026, Albert Pugh reported hearing news from both prisoners and guards at Alabama’s Bullock Correctional Facility that Facility Administrator Jermaris Porter was arrested and walked off the job the day before by Law Enforcement Services Division (LESD) agents …
by Douglas Ankney
In February 2024, Commissioners Lina Khan, Chair; Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, and Alvaro M. Bedoya of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) determined that the facts substantiated the allegations made against Respondents Global Tel Link Corporation (“GTL”); Telmate, LLC; and TouchPay Holdings, LLC (collectively “ViaPath” or “Respondents”). …
by Chuck Sharman
Five former officials at Louisiana’s Catahoula Parish Correctional Center (CPCC)—including the former warden, assistant warden and chief of security—were indicted on May 7, 2026, by a federal grand jury that charged them with civil rights violations for using an electrified riot shield to brutalize 13 …
by Chuck Sharman
On April 29, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky awarded exonerated state prisoner Jeffrey Dewayne Clark $24,350,000 from Meade County officials, after finding that they fabricated evidence to wrongfully convict him and fellow exoneree Garr Keith Hardin …
by Chuck Sharman
After New Mexico’s Otero County agreed to pay a $1,050,000 settlement, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico granted dismissal on January 20, 2026, to a suit filed over the death of Jacob Gutierrez, 27, who committed suicide while he was detained …
by Douglas Ankney
“Many of the risk factors for suicide are overrepresented in the population of people who come into contact with the criminal justice system every year, (including) high rates of psychiatric illness, high rates of substance use, trauma exposure, people living in unsafe environments. So we …
by Matt Clarke
On March 27, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit failed to grant an en banc rehearing of a panel decision holding that small deposits of money from outside sources that gradually accumulated in a federal prisoner’s trust fund account are …
by Chuck Sharman
Under the terms of a settlement reached on April 16, 2026, Colorado’s La Plata County agreed to pay $5 million to the estate of Daniel Foard, 32, whose death in the County lockup was both “gruesome and preventable,” according to the complaint filed on his …
Loaded on
June 1, 2026
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2026, page 21
On May 14, 2026, the state of Texas executed its 600th prisoner with the killing of Edward Busby Jr., a man that experts for both prosecutors and defense attorneys testified to be intellectually disabled, via lethal injection.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, …
by Chuck Sharman
On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a jury verdict awarding $10 million in damages to exonerated Michigan prisoner Alexandre Ansari, who served six and a half years in a state prison for murder before his conviction was …
by Matt Clarke
On March 17, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the summary dismissal of a prisoner’s civil rights claims against prison dental staff for deliberate indifference to his serious need for dental care. It let stand the district court’s ruling …
by Douglas Ankney
On November 26, 2025, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that Columbiana County Sheriff Brian McLaughlin did not violate Ohio’s Public Records Act (“Act”), RC 149.43 and declined to award sanctions to prisoner Terry Brown.
In August 2023, Brown requested numerous records from McLaughlin …
by Chuck Sharman
A former New Mexico prisoner’s excessive force complaint against guards morphed into a public records suit over his stonewalled demand for documentation of the incident before the state agreed to a settlement on March 4, 2026. Under its terms, $112,500 was paid to the former …
by Chuck Sharman
A massive six-year-old class-action challenge to conditions of confinement in the San Diego County jail system moved a step closer to resolution on March 12, 2026, when the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California granted preliminary approval to a partial settlement resolving …
by Matt Clarke
On April 15, 2026, Nebraska State Penitentiary (NSP) Warden Barb Lewien issued a memo stating that “NSP will resume the Native American religious land use schedule in effect prior to the suspension period.” This cut short a 60-day suspension that effectively prevented many followers of …
by Matt Clarke
On March 31, 2026, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida reluctantly granted a federal prisoner early release after the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) dropped the ball multiple times in scheduling an urgently needed appointment with a breast surgeon to …
Loaded on
June 1, 2026
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2026, page 33
Economic inequality has paved the way to a prison closure in Asheville. North Carolina Department of Adult Correction (NCDAC) officials announced on May 14, 2026, that the agency would be permanently shuttering the century-old Craggy Correctional Center due to short staffing. When the facility closes later this summer, the …
Loaded on
June 1, 2026
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2026, page 34
On May 13, 2026, the former warden of Smith State Prison in Glennville was indicted for taking part in a contraband smuggling operation tied to a gang inside the prison he was tasked with overseeing. As PLN reported, Brian Dennis Adams, now 52, was fired and arrested in February …
by Matt Clarke
On March 13, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit dismissed as moot a federal prisoner’s appeal of a district court’s dismissal of his habeas action under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the calculation by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) …
by Matt Clarke
On December 3, 2025, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia granted partial final judgment to the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) for its implementation of Senate Bill (S.B.) 185, a state law prohibiting …
Loaded on
June 1, 2026
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2026, page 37
Washington state officials asked a federal judge on April 28, 2026 to force The GEO Group to let health inspectors into the Northwest ICE Processing Center, an immigrant detention center the private company runs in Tacoma for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Washington has received over 3,500 complaints …
by Chuck Sharman
Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County Council voted on April 28, 2026, to pay $75,000 to Jerome Williamson, a former prisoner in the county lockup who accused a guard of shoving him to the floor and breaking his wrist.
The incident unfolded in September 2023 at the …
by Chuck Sharman
New York City has reached nearly $5.2 million in settlements resolving two suits that accused staffers at the Rikers Island jail complex of ignoring detainees suffering fatal methadone overdoses. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order on May …
by Matt Clarke
On February 19, 2026, a federal jury awarded $2,500 in punitive damages to a Wisconsin prisoner who was sexually assaulted by a female guard.
Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoner Nate A. Lindell was incarcerated at the Columbia Correction Center when, in November 2020, …
by Jo Ellen Knott
The fate of the at least ten guards involved in a brutal beating death of a prisoner in 2025 is moving towards its inevitable end with two more guards facing prison time.
Former Midstate Correctional Facility prison guard Caleb Blair accepted a plea …
by Chuck Sharman
On February 17, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted dismissal to the mother of a detainee who committed suicide five years earlier at the Dorchester County Detention Center (DCDC), after she accepted $1 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit …
by Michael Dean Thompson
Derek Batton, 34, died from an overdose of heroin he ingested in 2018. He was in the custody of the Grant County Jail at the time for DUI and traffic warrants. Batton, who had struggled with addiction, acquired the drugs from Jordan Tebow. Tebow …
by Jo Ellen Knott
The Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) overhauled oversight protocols on May 6, 2026, following a disturbing use-of-force incident at the Washington Corrections Center for Women.
According to KING-TVin Seattle, a September 2024 altercation led to a state investigation after video showed guards deploying …
by Phillip Luna
This article was originally published in Prison Journalism Project.
Last October, Dylan Sanchez received some of the most exciting news one can receive in prison: He would become a free man sooner than expected. Instead of leaving his Oregon prison in 2030, …
by Douglas Ankney
Following the murders of prisoners Robert Brooks and Messiah Nautwi in two facilities of the New York Department of Corrections and Community Services (DOCCS), the state legislature passed landmark legislation aimed at enhancing prisoner and staff safety, security training, and accountability.
Senate Bill 8415 …
