From the Editor
by Paul Wright
After reporting on prisons and jails for 35 years now, I have learned that these are the least transparent of American institutions. It is not much exaggeration to say that among American news consumers, they know more about what is happening in North Korea or the Middle East than they do about their local or statewide detention facilities. When it comes to state and federal prisons, the lack of news coverage can be explained by the fact that all or most of them are located in desolate, rural areas far from the population centers where the media resides. The lack of reporting on jails cannot be explained by this theory since, especially big city jails, are located, well, in the big city with the media outlets.
Over 10 million people are arrested and processed into American jails each year and on any given day, jails hold over 600,000 people. Yet they receive relatively little scrutiny or coverage. Despite their proximity to media and power centers the deaths, rapes and abuses that occur in local jails receive little coverage. In smaller towns and counties there is often a veritable media blackout on jail coverage as the sheriffs that run the facilities are usually the most powerful government officials in the area and powerful controllers of jobs, patronage and power. I will get back to this shortly.
This month’s cover story looks at the Memphis jail in Tennessee. While the Memphis police department has long been infamous for its use of brutality and excessive force and fatal shootings, the jail to date has received relatively little coverage. Not surprisingly, the jail is as bad if not worse than the police department.
Several times a year I speak to journalism classes around the country about the challenges in reporting on prisons and jails; since it is such a niche topic and not very glamorous or sexy, my talks generate interest but not a lot of follow up. Eventually two or three journalists who attended one of these presentations will contact me and say they have a job at a small media outlet and not much seems to be happening newswise, do I have any suggestions? I always tell them to look at the local jail. How many prisoners have died there in recent years. Suicides? How about sexual assaults? How much are prisoners and their families being charged for phone calls and what is the sheriff doing with the telephone kickbacks? Invariably they wind up generating news stories that have not been previously reported.
One jail that the Human Rights Defense Center sued back in 2017 over its total ban on books, magazines, newspapers, letters and radio is the Baxter County jail in Arkansas. After two bench trials and a second appeal—after we won the case on remand—the Eighth Circuit court of appeals affirmed the lower court’s injunction last month, finding the ban on publications and mail to be unconstitutional. PLN will report the details of the ruling in an upcoming issue. The court also affirmed an award of almost $260,000 in fees and costs for litigating the case.
One would think this would be big news in Arkansas and certainly in Baxter County. Surely it is newsworthy that the local sheriff, John Montgomery, is being enjoined for his unconstitutional jail mail policy and the county is on the hook for more than a quarter million in attorney fees? One would think wrong. The Baxter Bulletin has not reported on the rulings. I personally e-mailed the ruling to the newspaper’s news editor. As this issue of PLN goes to press the Mountain Home Observer gave a detailed analysis of the litigation and its history. Hopefully the taxpayers and voters of Baxter County elect leaders who respect the constitution in the future.
The Illinois DOC has been censoring HRDC publications for at least the past seven years. Last month the federal court in Chicago held that prison officials had acted unlawfully by censoring copies of Prison Legal News and Criminal Legal News. We will report the details in an upcoming issue of PLN.
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