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.
"Having worked at the Louisiana Department of Corrections for decades, retiring as state education director after 33 years, I've seen firsthand the dramatic changes that better education can bring for those who are incarcerated. Through the Correctional Education Association and American Correctional Association, I was made well aware that recidivism is one of the biggest challenges facing our local, state and federal prison systems."
The Advocate
August 29, 2018
Read More"The concept of banned books and magazines—reading materials deemed too dangerous or subversive—may seem anachronistic and even Orwellian. But prisons across the United States have long attempted to restrict what prisoners can read, and some are currently attempting to limit inmates’ access to a particular magazine."
Freedom of the Press Foundation
August 28, 2018
Read More"A rogue competition that rewarded participating deputies for using force on inmates at the El Paso County jail only spurred a formal investigation after a deputy became convinced that a fellow deputy had slammed a woman face-first on a cell floor just to boost his ranking."
The Gazette
August 27, 2018
Read More"Inmate protests have been happening for generations, but it is only in the last few years that organizers have had success coordinating from penitentiary to penitentiary and state to state."
New York Times
August 26, 2018
Read More"An appeals court has breathed life back into a lawsuit alleging policies at Cook County Jail in Illinois that limit the number of books inmates can have at a time violates their First Amendment rights."
ABC News
August 26, 2018
Read More"Until the mid-1990s, the Illinois Department of Corrections had a robust vocational training program and on- and off-site job opportunities for inmates. In more recent years, however, prison jobs, apprenticeships, and educational programs have all but disappeared. Most inmates in IDOC now spend more than 20 hours a day confined to their cells—even if they're not technically in solitary confinement or segregation"
Chicago Reader
August 25, 2018
Read More"They are making some very, very significant changes that will impact recidivism, rehabilitation and ultimately will increase safe communities in Texas...I'm extremely, extremely proud of them helping us out today."
Houston Chronicle
August 24, 2018
Read More"These findings, along with others, help support the view that aspects of contemporary psychology rest on a deep, evolved rationality. They also have more immediate, practical implications: The ability of scientific psychology to better understand the peripheral factors that shape beliefs about the death penalty may be, for some, the difference between life and death."
Arizona State University
August 24, 2018
Read More"It was the kind of moment that you witness but your brain just rejects; you can’t believe what you just saw."
Marshall Project
August 23, 2018
Read More"The Virginian-Pilot tracked the cases of 404 people with mental illness who have died in America’s jails since 2010. The total number is likely much larger, but it's untraceable – what little information the federal government keeps on jail deaths does not accurately track the mental health of inmates."
The Virginian Pilot
August 23, 2018
Read More"The Senior Rehabilitation Pod Program is believed to be the first in the nation to segregate seniors from younger inmates, Suffolk Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. said during a recent interview. The program began in mid-July and will start offering a full array of health, counseling and employment services by early September."
Newsday
August 23, 2018
Read More"Nicholas Turner is the president of the Vera Institute of Justice. He spoke with guest host of The Takeaway Matt Katz about why American prisons can be so dehumanizing."
The Takeaway
August 22, 2018
Read More"Jail staff identify brain injury survivors by asking screening questions; those who test positive are then given a symptom questionnaire to pinpoint their cognitive deficits or neuropsychological impairments. The jail uses those results to help them learn coping mechanisms."
US News & World Report
August 22, 2018
Read More"The Bureau of Prisons claims that 'solitary confinement does not exist' in the federal prison system and considers placement in the SMU to be 'non-punitive.' It’s a rosy characterization roundly rejected by criminal justice advocates, incarcerated people, and reporters alike; 'USP Lewisburg might be the worst place in the federal prison system,' Justin Peters wrote in Slate in 2013, 'so bad that some inmates there actually dream of being transferred to the famously isolating Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado'."
The Appeal
August 21, 2018
Read More"Instead, they offer it as a warning of what can happen when oppressive conditions and prisoner mistreatment are not addressed. 'We’re sending out the message that, unless things change, you’re risking another Attica,' D told me."
The Intercept
August 21, 2018
Read More"The ages of the seven deceased inmates range from 29 to 78. Three were housed at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, two were at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility and two were at Parchman. Four of the deceased were black and three were white. The manner and cause of death has not been made public in any of the seven deaths."
Mississippi Clarion Ledger
August 20, 2018
Read More"What happens when an institutional kitchen transitions from being run by municipal employees to operating as part of a for-profit company? At the Michigan Department of Corrections’ (MDOC) prison kitchens, a five-year experiment in privatization led to a whole host of problems, including a dramatic decline in food quality and safety, destabilized prisons and a drop in fair-wage jobs. It also may have caused a riot, put people’s lives in danger, created an odd alliance between inmates and guards against the MDOC administration, and failed to save the state money."
Civil Eats
August 20, 2018
Read More"New Jersey, however, is trying to solve this issue. It is one of the first states in the country to devote an entire prison to treating inmates with addictions, and offers all three forms of medication-assisted treatment at all state prisons. The state is also working on introducing the treatment into county jails. The Acting Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Corrections, Marcus O. Hicks, talks about the state’s new strategy for handling incarceration and addiction. "
The Takeaway
August 20, 2018
Read More"I spent the next five years in isolation. Some days, the walls of my cell seemed to close in on me. Imagine being stuck in an elevator — for years. All day and night, people would bang on their lockers and scream in agony."
New York Daily News
August 18, 2018
Read More"Still, the jail is ill-prepared to be the state’s largest mental health care provider. A quarter of county inmates are on psychiatric medication, according to Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jason Spencer. There have been 15 suicides at the county lock-up since 2009, and staff intervene in an average of about 10 suicide attempts per month, according to jail data."
Houston Chronicle
August 17, 2018
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