by Ashleigh N. Dye
Settlement agreements totaling $177,500 were approved in the winter of 2021-22 by the Board of County Commissioners of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, resolving claims by a pair of former detainees at the county jail who were allegedly assaulted by guards.
The first agreement was approved on December ...
by Ashleigh N. Dye
A disabled woman, who suffers from a severe seizure disorder, ended up spending eight weeks hospitalized in a coma with a black eye and bruises, after spending ten days in Texas’ Tarrant County Jail.
Kelly Masten, 38, was sent to the jail after her grandmother and ...
by Ashleigh Dye
“Hey guys, this is Kay coming from Lowell CI, where the day is as dark as black coffee.”
So begins each video in a series recorded by a woman while she was incarcerated at Lowell Correctional Institution in Florida in 2021, which were then posted to the ...
by Ashleigh N. Dye
A sex discrimination suit against filed by a female guard at the Maine State Prison against the state Department of Corrections (DOC) was settled for $400,000 in June 2022.
The guard, Autumn Dinsmore, filed the suit in federal court for the District of Maine in July ...
by Ashleigh Dye
On December 7, 2021, Maryland lawmakers voted to override the governor’s veto and take away his power to overrule parole recommendations for state prisoners serving a life sentence.
After the bill, SB 202, passed earlier in the year, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed it in May 2021, ...
by Ashleigh Dye
When prison telecom company Global Tel*Link (GTL) agreed to slash the price for calls that it charges detainees held by the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) in November 2021, it was only because advocates of the incarcerated convinced county officials to forfeit kickbacks the firm ...
by Ashleigh Dye
A woman who gave birth in a cell in 2017 at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, has been awarded $250,000 to settle a lawsuit she filed the following year against Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern and jail employees, including its privately contracted healthcare staffers. The ...
by Ashleigh Dye
On April 18, 2022, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) signed House Bill 863, legislation that will repeal the 32-year-old law creating the Mississippi Prison Industries Corporation (MPIC), a non-profit entity tasked with providing job training that ultimately reduces recidivism for prisoners. Barring further action by state legislators, ...
By Ashleigh Dye
In October 2021, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC) paid $920,000 to settle a four-year-old lawsuit filed against the small town of Ridgeland after it threatened to cut off water and sewer service over unpaid bills owed by DOC’s prison there, Ridgeland Correctional Institution (RCI).
The ...
by Ashleigh Dye and Jayson Hawkins
A New Jersey prison guard was arrested on October 1, 2021, on charges he ran a “fight club” in the kitchen he supervised at Bayside State Prison, regularly beating and torturing prisoners who worked under him there.
“A badge is not a license to ...
