Company Uses Prison Slave Labor for $100 Million Military Contract by The prison and military industrial complexes have collided, with a private military contractor poised to make millions off the sweaty backs of prisoners. Pennsylvania-based Woolrich Inc. plans to use the labor of federal prisoners to fulfill two multi-million-dollar contracts …
Texas Jails Troubled by Deaths, Negligence and Failed Inspections by Gary Hunter For decades Texas jails have been cesspool's of misery, medical neglect, brutality and over crowding. Class action litigation in the 1970's alleviated some of the worst aspects of the Texas jail system and led to modest improvements. By …
Texas State Auditor Questions Necessity of Prison Health Care Oversight Board by by Matthew T. Clarke The Texas State Auditor's Office has released a report which scathingly criticized the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee (Committee) for failing to perform its contractual duties and having several conflicts of interest with the …
Death Penalty for Texas Prison Horses Stirs Controversy by Between February 2003 and November 2004, the Texas prison system sold 53 horses to the Dallas Crown slaughterhouse in Kaufmann, Texas, for processing into meat for human consumption. This violates § 149.003 of the Texas Agriculture Code. The first offense is …
Ex-Prisoners Barred From Nursing in Texas by by Matthew T. Clarke Recently, the Dallas Morning News (DMN) generated articles decrying the presence of convicted drug and sex offenders in the nursing profession. Texas, like many states, has statutes denying ex-prisoners licensing in many state-licensed professions. In some professions, being convicted …
Texas Enacts Life Without Parole Law by On June 17, 2005, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law legislation that allows Texas juries to sentence defendants to life without the possibility of parole in capital cases. Senate Bill 60 replaces the previous non-death-penalty option of 40 years without the possibility …
Lethal Injection Painful, Study Suggests; U.S. Supreme Court to Consider Issue by by Michael Rigby Hundreds of prisoners killed by lethal injectionthe preferred method of execution in 37 states and the federal Bureau of Prisonsmay have suffered agonizing deaths due to a routine failure to administer enough anesthesia, according to …
Guards Flee Texas Prisons After Overtime Eliminated by Michael Rigby The virtual elimination of overtime pay for guards--a cost-cutting move by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ)--has contributed to rising turnover rates and probably comprised safety in the state's chronically understaffed prisons. In March 2003, TDCJ began awarding comp" …
Federal Prison Problematic For Texas Officials by Michael Rigby A 500-bed federal detention center may have caused more problems than it solved for cash-strapped Willacy County, Texas. Three county commissioners have already been convicted of accepting kickbacks from companies involved with the prison, and a state senator's ties to three …
Tulia Undercover Deputy Tom Coleman Convicted of Perjury by Hans Sherrer Tom Coleman was on top of the world after being honored as the Texas Department of Public Safety's 1999 Outstanding Lawman of the Year. The award was for his undercover investigation between January 1998 and July 1999 in the …
Cameron County, Texas, Jail Guards Indicted for Drug Smuggling, Theft, Sexual Misconduct by by Michael Rigby The problems began almost as soon as the Cameron County Jail system's newly built Carrizales-Rucker Detention Center opened in the summer of 2002. Just months after the $19 million maximum security jail began operations …
USP Beaumont, Texas: Murder and Mayhem in the Thunder Dome by Leah Caldwell Located in East Texas, the Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) at Beaumont is made up of a trio of federal prisons that are home to 5,667 prisoners. These prisons are run by the Bureau of Prisons, which is …
Houston Grand Juries Mostly Law-Enforcement by Matthew Clarke Houston Grand Juries Mostly Law-Enforcement and Government Employees by Matthew T. Clarke Ever since a ruling by the U. S. Supreme Court in Smith v. State of Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L.Ed. 84 (1940), grand juries have been …
Texas Prison Expert Pays the Price for Telling the Truth by Matthew Clarke by Matthew T. Clarke Tony Fabelo was the head of the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council for two decades. He survived multiple changes of administration by doing a great job as the state's top number-cruncher on prison …
Antibiotic Resistant Staph Infections Continue to Plague Prisons, Jails by Michael Rigby Antibiotic Resistant Staph Infections Continue to Plague Prisons, Jails by Michael Rigby Chelsea Johnson, 30, said it began as a small pimple that formed on her right cheek shortly after she arrived at the Orange County Jail in …
Arbitrary Draconian Restrictions on Texas Parolees by by Matthew T. Clarke Texas parolees have been subjected to a number of draconian measures not necessarily related to their conviction. For instance, parolees who were not convicted of sex offenses have been made to register as sex offenders and take sex offender …
Texas Attorney General Clarifies Confiscation Law Governing Prisoner Art Sales by Michael Rigby Texas prisoners can sell artwork over the internet and retain the proceeds as long as the value is not increased because of their notoriety, an opinion by Attorney General Greg Abbott has confirmed. The Attorney General's January …
Wackenhut Settles Suit Over Premature Birth for $98,000 by On August 12, 2004, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, now known as GEO Group, Inc., settled a suit alleging that inadequate medical care at a 640-bed Wackenhut-run jail caused a prisoner to give birth prematurely. Melissa Villarreal, 32, a former prisoner at the …
Suit Over Rape of Prisoner By TDCJ Employee Settled for $118,318.56 and Beach Property by By Matthew T. Clarke On November 19, 2004, a Texas prisoner who was raped by a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) guard settled his suit against the guard and TDCJ for a total of …
Sex Offenders Living In Nursing Homes by by Matthew T. Clarke A recent study revealed that hundreds of sex offenders live in state-regulated nursing homes nationwide. An Oklahoma-based advocacy group, A Perfect Cause, performed a computer search of the nation's sex-offender registries and cross-matched it with the addresses of the …
