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.
“After inmates in the Douglas prison complained their drinking water was brown and tasted like diesel fuel, the Arizona Department of Corrections has confirmed water at the prison had a “noticeable petroleum odor and taste.” Spokesman Andrew Wilder said the complex was forced to change water sources.“
KJZZ 91.5 Arizona
October 21, 2019
Read More“Today, however, the jail complex — the second-largest in the United States — is nearly synonymous with the tolls of mass incarceration and its disproportionate effects on blacks and Hispanics. Thousands of inmates have been held there for years on end as they await trial, critics say, in facilities that have been rife with abuse, violence and mismanagement for decades. Now, Rikers will probably be closed for nearly the same reason it was opened.“
Washington Post
October 18, 2019
Read More“I like to think of myself as a legal problem-solver for incarcerated people. Identifying the problems to solve is often the hardest part. My heart goes out to the people whom I’ve been able to get to know and from whom I’ve learned about the struggles they face to stay alive in a prison cell for decades.“
The Marshall Project
October 17, 2019
Read More“The pair of proposals includes a $60 million retention-pay plan for correctional officers and a $29 million pilot program that would convert one third of the state prisons’ 12-hour shifts to 8-hour work days. Under the agency’s proposed retention-pay plan, correctional officers would get a $1,500 pay increase after 2 years of service and a $2,500 increase after 5 years of work. The hourly shift changes, which would be more costly and are expected to be a contentious part of union negotiations, are more complicated, Inch admitted.“
Sunshine State News
October 17, 2019
Read More“Owing in large part to the reforms, New York City officials project that by 2026 the city’s jails will be tasked with housing no more than 3,300 people. With that number in mind, the City Council is expected to vote this month on a plan to close the jail complex at Rikers Island completely by 2026 by sending New Yorkers instead to four jails spread across the five boroughs. The plan would be safer for inmates, safer for guards and more compassionate for the residents of a city that is playing a lead role in ending the era of mass incarceration.“
New York Times
October 13, 2019
Read More“In the years since it opened, the Bain Center has stayed relatively the same. Inside, the walls and ceilings are still colored an off-white gray. The barge sways with the waves. Inmates can exercise on the top floor inside a caged-enclosed recreational area that has views of Rikers Island. From their cells, inmates can look out through tiny portholes.“
New York Times
October 10, 2019
Read More“Driven by climate change over the past few decades, the average number of days each year with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees has increased from 5 to 15 in Houston. The Wallace Pack Unit was home to some of the TDCJ’s most elderly prisoners, part of some 13,000 state prisoners who have been deemed medically sensitive to excessive heat. Collier said 8,000 of those prisoners have already been placed in air-conditioned housing, with plans to move the other 5,000 within two years.“
Prison Legal News
October 7, 2019
Read More“Listening to her speak reminded me of reading de Blasio’s 2016 comment that the closure of Rikers was “unrealistic,” and made me think how little had truly changed since. It fell to the abolitionist Mariame Kaba to warn of the cost of failing to realize what’s possible: “We will be back in this room, I promise you, in ten years, if these four new facilities are built, calling these facilities inhumane.”“
New York Review of Books
October 4, 2019
Read More“The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to terminate a plan to replace the Men’s Central Jail facility with a $1.7 billion new jail. In doing so, the Supervisors voted to explore ways to invest the billions in a more sensible and progressive manner – like opting for a community based mental health care facility managed by the Department of Health, instead of a new shiny jail managed by the Department of Corrections.“
City Limits
September 27, 2019
Read More“The report details how U.S. prisons arbitrarily apply book bans in the name of institutional security. Texas, for example, bans The Color Purple but not Mein Kampf. Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow was banned in prisons in North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and New Jersey, although those bans were reversed after they received media attention. A New York prison tried to ban a book of maps of the moon, claiming it presented an escape risk.“
Reason Magazine
September 27, 2019
Read More““This is about treating people like human beings,” said Councilmember Keith Powers (D-Manhattan), the bill’s sponsor. “And this is one amongst many requirements we’re putting forward that will start treating people like human beings and start making these new facilities feel much different than what we’re leaving behind with Rikers Island.”“
The City
September 26, 2019
Read More“With over two million Americans incarcerated, the book-restriction regulations within the United States carceral system represent the largest book ban policy in the United States. The reality of book banning in American prisons is systematic and comprehensive. State and federal prison authorities censor content with little oversight or public scrutiny. Often the ultimate decision-maker about a person’s right to read is housed in the prison mailroom.“
Pen America
September 26, 2019
Read More“Ear Hustle is the award-winning podcast about life inside prison—specifically my prison, San Quentin—that has around 30 million downloads in total. It's the brainchild of Nigel Poor, a professor who taught for years at San Quentin, Earlonne Woods, a man who was serving a life sentence for attempted robbery under California’s three-strikes law, and Antwan “Banks” Williams. The original plan was to circulate the show only inside the prison, but then they got permission to enter a Radiotopia “Podquest” contest.“
The Marshall Project
September 26, 2019
Read More“Women endure many of the most abusive and humiliating practices associated with jail visitation. Working in the New York City jail system, one of us (HV) would see long lines with their children waiting to visit every day, and patients would relate stories of sexual harassment suffered by their loved ones during visitation. Verbal harassment was typical and illegal strip searches were conducted with little accountability or oversight.“
The Hill
September 24, 2019
Read More“Violence between inmates surged to 69.5 incidents a month for every 1,000 people in the jail population during the 2019 fiscal year, from 55.8 incidents the year before. Serious injuries in those attacks also jumped, from 2 to 2.5. Inmate assaults against staff jumped to 12.6 for every 1,000 detainees, up from 9.2 in 2018. Use of force by correction officers against prisoners jumped nearly 30 percent, from 5,175 incidents in 2018 to 6,670 in the most recent fiscal year, which ended in July.“
Politico
September 17, 2019
Read More“Twenty-five former cells have been converted to rooms. Instead of bars, each room has a door and its own bed, sink, toilet and television. Clients will eat in a communal dining area and receive services and some training. It will be a “one-stop shop” for people experiencing homelessness and job loss or living with poorly or untreated substance use disorders or mental illness.“
New York Daily News
September 17, 2019
Read More“The chronic presence of mold is frequently a component of what is referred to as Tight Building Syndrome or Sick Building Syndrome – terms that have been coined to describe a relatively new occupational health and safety problem for people who work or spend excessive amounts of time indoors. This is not a new phenomenon; it has been a source of concern for governmental entities such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the subject of numerous class-action lawsuits over several decades.“
Prison Legal News
April 2, 2019
Read More“In a photography course that she still teaches through the not-for-profit initiative Prison University Project, Poor engaged her students – incarcerated at San Quentin – with visual mapping exercises encouraging them to write and draw directly on to the found photos. Adding poetic musings, facts and speculative theories to the works, the students interpreted a range of scenes – from visiting-room weddings and ice sculpture-carving contests to family visits and attempted escapes. Presented without context, the diagrammed images are time capsules that chart how the culture of San Quentin has evolved from the 60s to the present.“
The Guardian
September 10, 2019
Read More“Roughly 600,000 people are released from federal and state prison each year, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Experts often say the first 72 hours after release are critical to determining whether a former inmate’s path will lead away from prison or make a sharp U-turn. But what resources prisons provide to help people navigate those first moments on the outside varies widely from state to state.“
The Marshall Project
September 10, 2019
Read More“But the most striking anachronism in the legal library is the electric typewriter, a true icon and state-of-the-art staple of the 1980s. It's always fun to watch the faces of criminal justice students touring the prison, wide-eyed and fearful. We are the wild beasts in the zoo that they've been told about and here we are in our natural habitat, here in the legal library fighting our cases on typewriters. They're probably thinking, Good Lord! How do you edit? How do you copy/paste? How do you spell-check?“
The Marshall Project
September 5, 2019
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