Even if an inmate's sentence is not oppressively long, their treatment while incarcerated can still constitute subhuman treatment. Prisons are not medical facilities, but they regularly are forced to deal with mental health problems and care for elderly and terminally ill inmates. Food, if it's even edible, usually lacks enough nutrition for inmates' health to not deteriorate. Plus, with a lack of opportunities to see family, read, or gain skill sets, inmates are placed in buildings which lack any resemblance of the civilized world.
“The book's author, Georgetown University Professor Paul Butler, said he never understood why his book was considered contraband, but he is grateful the pressure campaign caused Arizona corrections officials to rethink their position.“
NPR
June 21, 2019
Read More“In a statement Thursday, the ACLU says the new policy allows incarcerated people to order books and publications directly from publishers and vendors. The ACLU says it's pleased with the change, but remains concerned that incarcerated people are deprived of reading opportunities.“
Corrections One
June 8, 2019
Read More“San Francisco will stop charging jail inmates for phone calls and stop marking up the cost of items in the jail store, Mayor London Breed and Sheriff Vicki Hennessy told KQED, a change that will save inmates and their families about $1.7 million a year and, city officials hope, make it easier for them to keep in touch with their families.“
KQED San Francisco
June 12, 2019
Read More“There are more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States, and for many of them, access to books and other learning materials is not guaranteed and can even be purposely denied. One Illinois prison recently removed more than 200 of its books, many about race, from its library.“
New York Public Radio
June 5, 2019
Read More“When I was a teenager, my father and I shared books. We didn’t share the physical copy, at least not often—my dad was serving a ten-year sentence in California, and I was at school in Bath, England—but we did share the imaginary landscape offered within its pages, a place we could occupy together from afar. “
Literary Hub
June 4, 2019
Read More“Ensuring that people are not prevented from staying in contact with their loved ones or their attorney — that a child growing up with an incarcerated parent feels just a little less distant — is a small step in chipping away at the system of mass incarceration that has swollen over the past half-century. For some a phone call is simply a phone call, but for others it is one of the only ways to stay connected to a world you’re scared will forget you. “
TIME Magazine
May 24, 2019
Read More“Dean Williams, the new head of Colorado’s Department of Corrections, says he wants to bring a ‘culture change’ to prisons so that the state’s 20,000-plus inmates have a more normal human existence. To that end, the state DOC this month lifted its ban on inmates receiving greeting cards, drawings and certain other personalized forms of correspondence from the outside world.“
The Colorado Independent
May 16, 2019
Read More“Such hope is in short supply at Georgia prisons. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of electronic book catalogues in 12 state prisons found wide disparities in the number and availability of reading material. Baldwin State Prison Library, for example, offers fewer than 2,000 books for about 1,000 prisoners, about one tenth the offering of comparably sized Central State Prison in Macon.“
Atlanta Journal Constitution
May 11, 2019
Read More“But increasingly, jails across the nation are cutting off these visits. Instead, all communication must take place through a digital screen. On March 18, the Newton County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri announced that, effective immediately, no in-person visits would be permitted. Visitors to the jail would use a video portal in the same area where visitations had always taken place. But the person they came to see would remain in the jail common spaces at a different video portal. Incarcerated people could still meet with one person face-to-face: their attorney.”
The Appeal
April 22, 2019
Read More“Religious seders (which means “order” in Hebrew) are not prison-friendly. They involve food and drinks that are inaccessible to inmates. Things like four cups of grape juice per person, and stacks of unleavened bread called matzoh. I was anxious imagining how the administration would react to me wanting to celebrate Passover. I went to our rabbinical chaplain and asked for help.“
The Marshall Project
April 18, 2019
Read More“The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that a Georgia sheriff is violating the rights of jail inmates by prohibiting them from receiving outside books and magazines. The ACLU sent a letter to Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher urging him to rescind a new policy that says inmates at the county jail in Savannah can no longer receive books or magazines by mail or from visitors. The policy restricts inmates to selecting reading materials from book carts managed by jail staff.“
Minnesota Star Tribune
April 10, 2019
Read More“In 1995, Michigan prison officials implemented a controversial new policy: Any inmate found guilty of two substance-abuse violations would lose all rights to visits, except from their lawyer or minister. The state prison population had grown significantly in the early 1990s, as had the use of drugs inside. Guards worried contraband was being smuggled into facilities and wanted to limit the number of outsiders coming in.“
The Marshall Project
April 9, 2019
Read More“They did some digging on the DOC website last Friday and found a memo that had been posted over two weeks ago. The memo implies that "used publications" are a security risk and that the DOC is "moving away from allowing used publications to enter our correction facilities." The exceptions are books accepted by the Washington State Library, or, for incarcerated students, books approved through their school's official bookstore.“
The Stranger
April 1, 2019
Read More“My ambition is for News Inside to be distributed throughout all 50 states; we are fundraising to expand the program. Over the years I watched many friends go home. I always felt a surge of jealousy, followed by a wave of guilt, accompanied by a hope that the departing friends would not forget me. Maybe they would send a letter, photos, food packages or something to make us smile, to show they cared. Now that I have been released, News Inside is my way of not forgetting.“
The Marshall Project
March 28, 2019
Read More“But in jail, the cost of a phone call is set by the county sheriff. Nationwide, the cost of a 15-minute in-state phone call from jail varies widely. In some places, it can cost more than $1 per minute.“
WOSU Public Media
March 27, 2019
Read More“All this being said, there is nothing inherently wrong with tablet technology, in or out of a prison setting. It’s certainly possible to imagine using tablet technology to substantially improve prison life. But before states can write better contracts, they – and the public – must learn to distinguish truly innovative policies from high-tech ploys to cut costs.“
Prison Policy Initiative
March 7, 2019
Read More“The nomadic aspect of prison life isn't generally seen on TV dramas or movies about "the big house." Most people, when they think about it at all, assume that cellmates are often stuck together for decades, in a pact of camaraderie born of shared circumstances. On the contrary, even the best buddies don't usually stay together for long. We live like hermit crabs, schlepping our stuff here and there, taking up a new shell for a while, when we're told to, then moving on.“
The Marshall Project
February 14, 2019
Read More“Print media kept prisoners connected to the social justice movements of the day and enabled them to be active participants. Allies created opportunities and platforms for prisoners to be heard. Prisoners’ voices were given spaces to articulate their issues and solutions. Allies knew that “those closest to the problem are the ones closest to the solution.” These arrangements kept prisoners and their allies informed about what was happening inside and outside the prison walls. These connections, enabled by print media, were critical to successfully opposing the Prison Industrial Complex.“
Prison Legal News
February 5, 2019
Read More“Global Tel-Link Corp. is one of two corrections phone companies that dominate the national $1.2 billion per year industry. It paid the Hampden County department $725,000 for phone calls to and from all its facilities between July 2016 and June 2017, according to records supplied by the department. Phone calls to and from the women's jail during that same period netted the department $110,000. “
San Francisco Chronicle
February 4, 2019
Read More“At a time when the cost of a typical phone call is approaching zero, people behind bars in the U.S. are often forced to pay astronomical rates to call their loved ones or lawyers. Why? Because phone companies bait prisons and jails into charging high phone rates in exchange for a share of the revenue.“
Prison Policy Initiative
February 1, 2019
Read More