Search | Prison Legal News

News in Brief

Article • August 1, 2025 • from PLN August, 2025

Filed under: Staff-Prisoner Assault, Private Prisons, Misconduct/Corruption, Guard Misconduct, Systemic Medical Neglect, Male Reproductive, Malpractice, Escapes, Guard Brutality/Beatings, Stun Guns/Tasers, Pepper Spray/Tear Gas, Restraints, Excessive Force (Wrongful Death), Juvenile Prisons, Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Bribery/Extortion/Theft

News in Brief by Alabama: On Sunday, June 15, 2025, state Department of Corrections (DOC) guard Airika Dorsey was arrested for allegedly smuggling food to a prisoner at St. Clair Correctional Facility, according to WABM in Birmingham. The DOC confirmed that Dorsey was caught in the act and subsequently booked …

News in Brief

Article • May 1, 2025 • from PLN May, 2025

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: A Jefferson County Jail guard was briefly abducted and assaulted by detainee Reontay Harley, 33, on January 13, 2025. WBMA in Birmingham said that after Harley took the unnamed guard hostage inside a cell, responding jail Extraction Unit guards rescued their fellow guard and restrained …

News in Brief

Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Australia: Brisbane Correctional Center prisoner Jack James Peterson, 29, was sentenced to an additional 18 months in January 2023 for assaulting a guard with a squash racket, the Courier reported. Peterson struck the unnamed 34-year-old during a confrontation involving a riot response team, leaving him with …

News in Brief

Article • December 15, 2024 • from PLN December, 2024

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: Wiregrass Daily News reported that Mobile Metro Jail guard Timothy Lee Scarbrough, 39, was arrested on September 9, 2024, and charged with first-degree sodomy for the alleged sexual assaulting of a detainee who was still under the effects of anesthesia after eye surgery. Scarbrough had …

News in Brief

Article • July 15, 2023 • from PLN July, 2023

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: A guard with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was indicted on April 27, 2023, on charges he sexually abused two prisoners at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Aliceville, according to a report by the Birmingham News. Robert D. Smith allegedly had sexual intercourse …

News in Brief

Article • June 15, 2023 • from PLN June, 2023

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Arizona: A private prison guard in Arizona was picked up on drug charges in California on April 18, 2023, as he made his way back from Mexico with his wife and kids – along with almost 53 pounds of meth and heroin stashed in the gas …

Wellpath Subsidiary Out of Australian Women’s Prison After Indigenous Prisoner’s Death

Article • June 15, 2023 • from PLN June, 2023

Filed under: Private Contractors, Medical Neglect/Malpractice

Wellpath Subsidiary Out of Australian Women’s Prison After Indigenous Prisoner’s Death by Keith Sanders by Keith Sanders On January 19, 2023, Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan announced that the Australian state of Victoria is booting the private healthcare contractor from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (DPFC). Effective July 1, 2023, Wellpath …

News in Brief

Article • March 1, 2023 • from PLN March, 2023

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by News in Brief Alabama: On January 9, 2023, the Montgomery Police Department (MPD) arrested a guard at the city jail for an alleged off-duty assault, the Birmingham News reported. It’s unclear who filed the misdemeanor complaint against Reba Foulks, 36; MPD didn’t begin its investigation until …

News in Brief

Article • January 1, 2023 • from PLN January, 2023

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: On November 2, 2022, a former state prison guard at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility near Birmingham pleaded guilty to federal contraband smuggling charges. The Birmingham News reported that Wilson Brian Clemons, 32, was arrested on November 23, 2021, on state counts of marijuana …

News in Brief

Article • November 30, 2022 • from PLN December, 2022

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: A detainee assaulted aguard at the Calhoun County Jail on August 6, 2022, the Anniston Star reported. Sheriff Matthew Wade blamed an ongoing staffing shortage, which has typically left three guards on duty to supervise 300 detainees. One of them, Jacob Hammett, was out of …

News in Brief

Article • September 30, 2022 • from PLN October, 2022

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: A jail guard in Chilton County, Alabama, was arrested on July 21, 2022, and charged with promoting contraband, the Clanton Advertiser reported. The guard, Tyler Ryan Couch, is accused of organizing an effort to smuggle drugs to detainees. Though jail policy forbids guards from transmitting …

Former Australian Prisoner Partners With Former Guard to Become Porn Stars

Article • September 16, 2022

Filed under: Guard Misconduct

Former Australian Prisoner Partners With Former Guard to Become Porn Stars by Jo Ellen Nott by Jo Ellen Nott They came from opposite sides of the bars in prisons down under and now are “royalty” in Australia’s porn industry. The improbable partnership of adult film stars Dale Egan, 31, a …

News in Brief

Article • December 1, 2021 • from PLN December, 2021

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: A 20-year-old guard at the Lauderdale County Detention Center in Florence, Alabama, was arrested on October 29, 2021, on charges that he attempted to smuggle methamphetamine into the jail. According to a report by Huntsville TV station WHNT, the guard, Matthew Moran, faces one count …

News in Brief

Article • October 1, 2021 • from PLN October, 2021

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: On August 19, 2021, twoconvicted robbers were convicted of murder in the death of a fellow prisoner they and two others attacked in 2017 at Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent, Alabama. According to a report by Montgomery TV station WSFA, Dominique Covin and Roderick DeLaune …

News in Brief

Article • August 1, 2021 • from PLN August, 2021

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: On June 9, 2021, a former guard at the Federal Correctional Institution in Aliceville, Alabama, agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that he had sexual intercourse with a prisoner in the laundry room at the women’s prison west of Tuscaloosa. According to the Birmingham …

News in Brief

Article • June 1, 2021 • from PLN June, 2021

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Australia: A February 2021 ruling by the Supreme Court in the Australian province of Victoria presented “a rare win” for a prisoner contesting prison procedures, according to a report by The Conversation. The convict, 56-year-old Craig Minogue, argued that Barwon Prison’s random drug testing and strip-searching …

News in Brief

Article • December 1, 2020 • from PLN December, 2020

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Alabama: Chanting “not one more,” about 30 carloads of protesters from “Alabamians Who Care” caravanned to the governor’s mansion in Montgomery on August 1, 2020, protesting a plan by Gov. Kay Ivey (R) to build three new “mega-prisons.” According to a report by Montgomery TV station …

News in Brief

Article • July 1, 2020 • from PLN July, 2020

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Arizona: A Maricopa County grand jury indicted Daniel Davitt, 60, on January 14,  2020 on charges of second-degree murder in the death of Lower Buckeye Jail guard Gene Lee on October 30. Buckeye Jail video shows Davitt talking to Lee on October 29, then suddenly grabbing …

Australian Woman Gives Birth in Cell After Guards Can’t Unlock the Door

Article • October 12, 2018 • from PLN October, 2018

Filed under: OB/GYN, Guards/Staff, Mothers in Prison

Australian Woman Gives Birth in Cell After Guards Can’t Unlock the Door by Monte McCoin by Monte McCoin In January 2018, an unnamed prisoner at Western Australia’s Bandyup Women’s Prison was forced to give birth alone and crying for help while guards struggled to unlock the door to her cell. …

News in Brief

Article • September 2, 2018 • from PLN September, 2018

Filed under: News in Brief

News in Brief by Arizona: The Pima County Board of Supervisors passed a historic resolution on December 19, 2017 to prohibit the county from entering into contracts with private prison companies like CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) and GEO Group. “Big for-profit corporations operate on the cheap by cutting …