War on Terror Whistleblowers, Dissenters are Fired, Prosecuted; Plaintiff's Lawyers Help Turn Them In
by Alex Friedmann
In January 2005, Lt. Commander Matthew M. Diaz was a Navy staff judge advocate serving a six-month tour of duty at the legal office in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ...
Joe Arpaio: America?s Toughest Sheriff or Most Corrupt?
by Alex Friedmann
Joe M. Arpaio, the head lawman over Maricopa County, Arizona, bills himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff." While "toughest" may be subject to debate (literally -- in September, 2006 Arpaio debated L.A. County Sheriff Leroy Baca over who ran the ...
Hate is a strong word. Many prison employees and DOC officials are contemptuous of or indifferent to the prisoners in their custody. Detention facility staff are sometimes negligent, retaliatory and even abusive,(1) but they seldom display a fanatical hatred toward prisoners. There is, however, one group whose deep burning hatred ...
According to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of June 2005 approximately 2.2 million people were incarcerated in prisons and jails nationwide not including immigration detention centers and juvenile facilities. This enormous imprisoned population is not static; prisoners are moved both intrastate and interstate on a regular basis for a variety of reasons, including court appearances, medical visits, detainer extraditions, Interstate Compact transfers and bail bond remands. A mobile, constantly-shifting prison on wheels is an apt analogy.
While there are no firm statistics for the total number of prisoners transferred and extradited annually, the U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for the transportation of prisoners and immigration detainees in federal custody, receives around 1,000 transport requests per day and moves nearly 300,000 prisoners each year through its Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS).
On the state and local level, individual jurisdictions are responsible for their own prisoner transportation needs. Although almost all sheriff''s offices and state Departments of Correction maintain their own prisoner transport services, they also rely heavily on privately-operated companies, especially for interstate trips. The reasons for using such for-profit transport services boil down to cost and convenience, both ...
With some level of irony, on June 7, 2005 the Tennessee Attorney General's office sent a letter to the state's Board of Probation and Parole, recommending that the Board limit the amount of time between parole hearings and suggesting that over 375 prisoners be granted early re-hearings.
The letter was ...
Previously, PLN has reported problems at the Lea County Corr. Facility in Hobbs, New Mexico, one of two prisons in the state operated by Wackenhut Corrections Corp. Violent incidents at the Hobbs facility have included at least 9 stabbings, two of them fatal [PLN, June 1999], and an April 6, ...
by David Cole, The New Press 218 pages, $25.00 hardcover.
Review by A. Friedmann
Those people who have long believed that this nation's criminal justice system is steeped in systemic racism and class-based bias will find vindication in No Equal Justice by Georgetown University law professor David Cole. Those people ...
As criminals receive longer sentences and serve a greater portion of them under threestrikes, truth-in-sentencing and mandatory minimum laws, the number of elderly prisoners with health problems has increased accordingly. Some consider this trend to be the result of a misplaced emphasis on incarceration as a solution to crime. Others ...
Florida prisoner John Edwards, 28, an HIV+ double-murderer serving a life sentence, was transferred to the Charlotte Corr. Institution (CCI) on Aug. 18, 1997 after biting a Zephyrhills prison guard on the cheek. According to federal prosecutors, once Edwards arrived at CCI he was subjected to beatings and sadistic abuse ...
When Thomas Pizzuto entered the Nassau Co. jail in East Meadow, New York to serve 90 days for traffic violations, he didn't know the jail term would become a death sentence.
Pizzuto, 38, a recovering heroin user who was in daily methadone treatment repeatedly asked for his medication and argued ...