by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals remanded a civil rights action that claimed a prison doctor’s care was deliberately indifferent to an ex-Illinois prisoner’s serious medical needs. The Court, however, affirmed dismissal as to non-medical prison officials who answered the prisoner’s grievances.
Before the appellate court ...
by David M. Reutter
There are more than 10.65 million people in prisons worldwide. That figure includes 850,000 in “administrative detention” in China. Almost half of all prisoners are held in only three countries: Russia, China and the United States.
Those conclusions were published in the eighth edition of the ...
by David M. Reutter
For hundreds of years the cramped, overcrowded and often filthy confines of dungeons, prisons, jails and other places of imprisonment have served as incubators for infectious diseases, which have killed more prisoners than any other single factor. Thus, the recent outbreak of H1N1 virus, commonly known ...
by David M. Reutter
The systemic failure of medical care at California’s Sacramento County Main Jail (SCMJ) resulted in a prisoner’s avoidable death that has cost taxpayers $1.45 million. For years, SCMJ’s healthcare system has been severely deficient – yet jail officials continue to use the county’s Correctional Health Services ...
by David M. Reutter
Despite federal oversight of its prison medical care, Delaware “continues to have a great deal more to achieve before it comes into substantial compliance with all provisions of the MOA” (Memorandum of Agreement) the state entered into with the U.S. Department of Justice.
That was the ...
by David M. Reutter
Three Florida prison guards have been arrested and charged in the December 16, 2008 beating of a handcuffed prisoner at the Charlotte Correctional Institution (CCI). The criminal proceedings can be viewed as a fulfillment of Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) Secretary Walter McNeil’s vow to prosecute ...
by David M. Reutter
In denying a motion to dismiss, the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts held on July 1, 2009 that prison supervisors could be held liable for the sexual abuse of a prisoner because they failed to train, supervise and investigate claims concerning repeated rumors of a guard’s ...
by David M. Reutter
After nearly thirty years, a class-action lawsuit challenging conditions of confinement at the State Prison of Southern Michigan-Center Complex is on the cusp of ending. The end is in sight not because prison officials have fully complied with a court-monitored consent decree, but because they closed ...
by David M. Reutter
Businesses seeking to profit from the exponential expansion of our nation’s prison population are now turning to visitation. Florida-based JPay is implementing its “video-conference visitation” in Indiana’s prison system, while other companies, such as einmate.com, are developing similar prison-based video visitation programs.
The use of technology ...
A New Hampshire jury awarded two former prison guards nearly $2 million upon finding that two of their co-workers had lied about a confrontation with a prisoner, which resulted in their firing.
After guards Shawn Stone and Todd Conner accused fellow prison guards Timothy Hallam and Joseph Laramie of participating ...
