News in Brief by Alabama: A state Department of Corrections (DOC) guard in Birmingham was arrested on March 9, 2022, for allegedly beating a prisoner to death, according to the Alabama Political Reporter. As PLN previously reported, prison officials at first insisted no foul play was suspected in the death of Victor …
News in Brief by Alabama: In Mobile on January 21, 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama announced that an 18-month federal prison sentence for bribery had been handed down by a federal court to Lakerdra Shanta Snowden, 31, a former guard at the Escambia County …
Activists Play Whack-a-Mole Closing ICE Detention Centers by David Reutter by David M. Reutter A Bloomberg Equality report published on January 11, 2022, gave little hope that the omicron variant behind a resurgence in the COVID-19 pandemic would spare immigrant detainees held for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with …
Sherburne County, MN, Settles with HRDC for $98,000 Plus New Jail Publications Policy by Chuck Sharman by Chuck Sharman A settlement was reached on May 11, 2021, in a censorship complaint filed in August 2020 against Sherburne County, Minnesota, and its Sheriff, Joel Brott, by the Human Rights Defense Center …
Eighth Circuit Clarifies Legal Standards for Conditions-of-Confinement Lawsuits Brought by Civilly-Committed Sex Offenders by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke On February 21, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued an opinion clarifying the legal standards to be applied to lawsuits over conditions of confinement brought …
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 …
Prisoner’s Suicide in Sherburne County Minnesota Jail Results in $2.3 Million Settlement by Keith Sanders by Keith Sanders A recent investigation by KARE 11, a Minnesota-based NBC news affiliate, has brought much-needed attention to systematic failures at jails throughout Minnesota. Many local and state correctional facilities in that state, according …
$30,001 Jury Verdict Over Discriminatory ICE Notification Policy By Minnesota Jail by Kevin Bliss by Kevin Bliss Myriam Parada was awarded $30,001 from the Minnesota District Court January 28, 2021 for false imprisonment in the Anoka County Jail. The county’s unwritten policy was to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) …
Planned Massive Shortfall in Funding to Maintain Minnesota Prisons by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso Despite an urgent and growing need for maintenance in Minnesota’s prisons, the governor and legislature are proposing a token amount be spent while deferring the vast majority of the growing problem. Traditionally, the state …
Resisting a Prison Without End by Jayson Hawkins, Panagioti Tsolkas by Jayson Hawkins and Panagioti Tsolkas The fantasy of those who profit off the Prison Industrial Complex has long been perpetual incarceration. This dream has seeped into reality in recent decades as many states began adopting LWOP (life without parole) …
Minnesota Mothers to Receive More Bonding Time with Their Newborn Children by Kevin Bliss by Kevin Bliss The Healthy Start Act in Minnesota will allow mothers who give birth while incarcerated more time to bond with their children. Signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz, the bill transfers expectant mothers …
News in Brief by Alabama: According to a report by the Alabama Political Reporter, a state prisoner was fatally stabbed by another man incarcerated with him at Fountain Correctional Facility in Atmore on May 4, 2021—just one day before his scheduled release, which would also have been his twenty-fourth birthday. …
From a Picture Grew Thousands of Words by Edward Lyon by Ed Lyon When Minnesota state prisoner C. Fausto Cabrera was transferred to the Rush City Correctional Facility (RCCF), he came across a photo by acclaimed photographer Alec Soth on a book cover of a poetry collection. It was of …
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 …
Prisoners Find Their Voice in Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop by Edward Lyon by Ed Lyon Jennifer Bowen Hicks wandered the United States for many years freelancing for literary magazines and teaching writing classes before making her home in Minnesota. In 2011, she decided to share her unique writing skill with …
Minnesota Counties Pay Out More Than $10 Million For Prison and Jail Settlements by Kevin Bliss by Kevin Bliss "In the last 10 years, Minnesota counties have paid out more than $10 million in settlements and legal fees following lawsuits accusing jails of providing inadequate to non-existent health care to …
Lynas v. Stang, MN, Settlement, Wrongful Death - Medical Neglect, 2021 RELEASE OF ALL CLAIMS I For and in consideration of the total sum of One Million Three Hundred Thousand Dollars and 00/100 ($1,300,000.00), the sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged, I, David W. Lynas, as trustee for the next-of-kin …
Minnesota State and Federal Prisoners COVID Case Surge Sparks ACLU Lawsuit by Derek Gilna by Derek Gilna According to statistics compiled by The Marshall Project, one in five U.S. prisoners has already contracted COVID-19, a rate more than four times that of the general population. The problem has been particularly …
Minnesota Man Out of Prison After Being Exonerated of Murder by Edward Lyon by Ed Lyon Javon Davis, aka James Lamar Davis, was talking to his girlfriend on the phone during the wee hours of April 12, 2014 as two men were gunned down while leaving their workplace at Target …
How Jails Became a Breeding Ground for the Coronavirus by Keith Sanders by Keith Sanders Back in August 2020, “things at Waseca were calm,” recalled Channing Lacy. Like many other women incarcerated in the low-security Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Waseca, Minnesota, the 33-year-old considered herself lucky that the prison …
