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.
"Nobody realized that would happen. Probably [the guard] didn’t, either. But the problem is that there’s protocol and if you say you’re not safe or you need to move they’re supposed to go in and assess the situation. And maybe that wouldn’t have happened if [the guard] did.”
Bangor Daily News
August 3, 2018
Read More"The mentors and staff at York brought the W.O.R.T.H name to life—putting in countless hours of hard work in partnership with Vera’s Restoring Promise team to ensure that the unit is a success: It prioritizes family engagement, self-expression, peer support, personal growth and development, education, and career readiness."
Vera Institute
August 2, 2018
Read More"Six prisoners in Sacramento County’s jails filed a federal class action lawsuit today, claiming that jail conditions do not meet minimum standards under the U.S. Constitution and federal law. The lawsuit asserts that the County’s jails are overcrowded and dangerously understaffed, and that they fail to provide adequate mental health and medical care."
Disability Rights California
July 31, 2018
Read More"The idea that somebody is just going to sit there and think about what they did and magically know how to handle a situation differently in the future is not accurate. So we have to be pro-active in helping people know how to change."
NPR
July 31, 2018
Read More"While many promising changes have long been underway in New York City—even with its largest jail still years away from its promised closure—could replacing Rikers Island be the catalyst for a more root-and-branch reform of the system, and the opportunity to meaningfully address the harms caused by decades of an over-reliance on incarceration, especially to communities of color?"
Center for Court Innovation
July 31, 2018
Read More"Ohio Gov. John Kasich has finished dealing with executions for the remainder of his time in office following a modern-era record of death penalty commutations."
Cincinnati Enquirer
July 30, 2018
Read More"National advocacy groups say New Hampshire is the only place in the country where the ward for people at risk of hurting themselves or others, called a secure psychiatric unit, is located in a prison."
The Marshall Project
July 30, 2018
Read More"Given how it affects the brain, solitary is akin to being “buried alive,” according to some accounts. That’s not what Manafort experienced. But Moochie did."
The Marshall Project
July 30, 2018
Read More"Department officials have said all four drugs were purchased in the United States, but declined to say how the drugs were obtained or who provided them. They're currently fighting lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and Nebraska media outlets that could force them to release documents identifying the supplier. Nebraska's last execution was in 1997, using the electric chair, but the state Supreme Court later declared the chair unconstitutional."
New York Times
July 27, 2018
Read More"Records reviewed by the SPLC show dozens of poultry companies employed more than 600 prisoners in at least seven states in 2016. The SPLC investigation also turned up documents from Georgia and North Carolina showing at least two dozen prisoners have been injured at their poultry jobs since 2015."
Southern Poverty Law Center
July 26, 2018
Read More"Each day I was not called for medical chain, I grew more anxious. Two weeks later, I requested another appointment. Two more weeks passed before I once again sat on a paper-covered exam table in the prison medical unit. The almost-doctor had no knowledge of my request, he said."
The Marshall Project
July 26, 2018
Read More"This time, we looked at the sources of goods rather than spending patterns among incarcerated people, and discovered a couple of surprising findings alongside the usual major vendors."
Prison Policy Initiative
July 26, 2018
Read More"Last week, the City Council passed a law that will make all calls in and out of city jails free. Once signed into law by the mayor, the legislation will be the first of its kind in the country. The prison phone industry has grown to a $1.2 billion a year business, mostly run by private companies that can charge as much as $1.22 a minute."
The Appeal
July 26, 2018
Read More"That death came even as the jail was working to drive down its suicide numbers, which were already below the national average. At the same time, the jail has worked to lower its solitary confinement population, slashing the number in half over a five-year period."
Houston Chronicle
July 25, 2018
Read More"Taylor estimates there could be 300 prisoners affected by the settlement, but he doesn't know exactly how many Illinois inmates are deaf. He says part of the problem is that until now, the Department of Corrections has not had to screen people for hearing loss."
NPR Illinois
July 25, 2018
Read More"In 2011, before the national standards were issued, there were 8,768 allegations of sexual assault and harassment nationwide. By the end of 2015, that total had jumped to 24,661, a leap of more than 180 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, which compiles the numbers it collects from corrections departments. Still, the report shows, corrections administrators rarely decide that the alleged attacks actually happened."
The Marshall Project
July 25, 2018
Read More"The Northwest Arkansas Democrat reports on the upcoming launchof a remote video visitation system in Benton County, Arkansas, that will cost 50 cents a minute in 15-minute increments. The jail will no longer allow in-person visits, the only free way to visit inmates for those who are not attorneys."
American Bar Association Journal
July 24, 2018
Read More"Yet in the El Paso County Jail in Colorado, Sheriff’s Deputy Sandra Rincon was celebrated with a tiara, a “princess” plate, and a cake with the number “50” on top. The number, however, wasn’t her age. It referred to the number of times she had used force against prisoners, ranging from handcuffing to punching and kicking. She was the winner of what one of the county jailers called a “fight club,” crowning whoever used force most often as the champion."
ACLU
July 24, 2018
Read More"More than 40 inmates in jails and prisons in the Washington, D.C. area have died by suicide in custody since 2014, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team. Records obtained from correctional agencies in D.C., Virginia and Maryland under the Freedom of Information Act show 400 other inmates attempted suicide since 2014, many of whom were saved by correctional officers and jail staff."
NBC Washington
July 24, 2018
Read More"The suit was filed in June 2017 by the family of Henry Clay Stewart, an inmate who died Aug. 6, 2016, because of internal bleeding from a perforated stomach ulcer. Inmates at the Portsmouth facility said that on Aug. 5, 2016, or the day after, Stewart 'appeared not to be breathing and was foaming at the mouth,' according to the lawsuit. The suit alleged that correctional officers and medical staff provided Stewart with inadequate and delayed care in response."
Richmond Times-Dispatch
July 24, 2018
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