State Prison System Takes Over County Jail by Edward Lyon by Ed Lyon In a public move, shrouded in a cloak of utter secrecy, the Bedford County, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners suspended with pay their jail’s senior and assistant wardens, ceding operational authority to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC). …
PA Lawsuit Claims Allegheny County Jail Sergeant Brutalized Disabled Women by David Reutter by David M. Reutter Three former women detainees with psychiatric and physical disabilities allege that Sergeant John Raible “brutally assaulted” them while they were held at Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Jail (ACJ). The complaint alleged other officials and …
News in Brief by Alabama: In February 2021, Huntsville TV station WHNT reported a delay in the trial on theft and ethics charges of Mike Blakely, sheriff of Limestone County, Alabama. According to the report, retired Colbert County Circuit Judge Pride Tompkins, who had been appointed to hear the case …
Lawsuit Over Pennsylvania Prisoner’s Fatal Asthma Attack Allegedly Triggered by Excessive Use of Pepper Spray by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke The estate of a Philadelphia man who died of asthma in a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) prison filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the DOC and officials …
Study Shows Misaligned Economic Incentives Fuel Mass Incarceration by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke An academic study by a University of Pennsylvania professor published in November 2020 shows that mismatched economic incentives — local governments making sentencing decisions while the state government pays the costs of incarceration — are an …
Activist, Political Prisoner, and Journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal Diagnosed With COVID-19, Energizing Calls for His Release by Juliette LaMarr by Juliette LaMarr Mumia Abu-Jamal has contracted COVID-19 but is recovering, according to a March 8, 2021 story in The Philadelphia Tribune. A political prisoner and journalist — as well as a …
COVID-19 Continues Rampage Through Pennsylvania State Prisons by Derek Gilna by Derek Gilna Pennsylvania state prisons continued to suffer through a spike in COVID-19 cases in March 2021, with Albion Correctional Institution in Erie County and the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Huntington each reporting 100 new cases in the …
Clark v. Feliciano, PA, Settlement, Medical Neglect, 2021 RELEASE AND SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT WHEREAS, I, Mark Anthony Clark (ccReleasor"), brought three lawsuits pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 pending in the United States District Court for the Eastem District of Pennsylvania before the Hon. Jeffrey L. Schmehl; and WHEREAS, the three …
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Prisoners Can Challenge Deductions Taken From Their Accounts by David Reutter by David M. Reutter The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that prisoners who had deductions taken from their inmate account under Act 84 are entitled to a post-deprivation process. The court’s October 1, 2020, opinion was …
News in Brief by Arizona: In January 2021, two women who worked at an Arizona state prison operated by Florida-based GEO Group pleaded guilty to having sex with inmates there. Melony Petrovffsky, 50, ran the commissary for the private contractor at a prison in Golden Valley, where she was allegedly …
Lawsuit Against Pennsylvania County Over Prisoner’s Death in Restraint Chair Settled for $3 Million by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke On September 14, 2020, a federal judge approved a $3 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by the family of a Pennsylvania jail prisoner who died after being held in …
Audits Reveals Problems With Privatized Food Service at Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Jail by Jayson Hawkins by Jayson Hawkins Two audits released July 20, 2020 revealed a series of shortcomings by a food service contractor tasked with providing meals to juvenile detainees and in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County. Florida-based contractor Trinity Services …
No Sentence Reduction for Former Pennsylvania Judge Who Was Caging Kids for Kickback Cash by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke On August 24, 2020, a federal judge rejected reducing the sentence of a former Pennsylvania judge who became infamous for taking bribes to keep a private juvenile prison full of …
News in Brief by Afghanistan: As fighting continued between Taliban forces and the Afghan military on September 3, 3020, both parties announced they had nearly completed a prisoner exchange negotiated the previous February. According to a report by Japan’s public broadcasting company, HNK, the Taliban said all 1,000 Afghan prisoners …
Pennsylvania Correctional Emergency Response Teams Face New Scrutiny in “Noose” Controversy by Derek Gilna by Derek Gilna A Correctional Emergency Response Team, also known as CERT, is under investigation for allegedly placing a noose on the bunk of a Black prisoner, Aaron Tyson, at State Correctional Institution Houtzdale, in Pennsylvania. …
News in Brief by Alabama: On August 21, 2020, Sylvester Hartley became the seventh prisoner to die of complications from COVID-19 at Alabama’s St. Clair Correctional Facility, according to a report in the St. Clair News-Aegis. The 60-year-old, who was serving a life-without-parole sentence for three counts of first-degree kidnapping, …
Former Pennsylvania Prisoner’s Complaint Cures Failure to Exhaust Administrative Remedies by David Reutter by David M. Reutter The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that a former Pennsylvania prisoner’s civil rights action was not barred for failing to exhaust administrative remedies. The court found the prison’s grievance policy for a …
Pennsylvania Prisoner Off Death Row After 33 Years by David Reutter by David M. Reutter A Pennsylvania prisoner whose death sentence was tossed by a federal court 17 years ago has finally won release from the state’s death row after spending more than three decades in solitary confinement there. In …
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 …
Privatized Food Service Problems at Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Jail by Jayson Hawkins by Jayson Hawkins A recent audit at an Allegheny county jail revealed a series of shortcomings by a food service contractor tasked with providing meals to prisoners. Florida-based contractor Trinity Services Group was paid $3.5 million to provide …
