Hurricane Katrina destroyed the 800 plus bed Plaquemines Parish Detention Center (PPDC). Plans to house out-of-jurisdiction prisoners and corruption by the former sheriff resulted in building a state-of-the-art facility. As of October 2014, the construction of this facility--much larger that the area requires--threatened to wreck the community’s budget just to ...
Four years after Pennsylvania passed legislation prohibiting the shackling of pregnant prisoners after their second trimester, the law is frequently disobeyed. As a result, many prisoners are enduring “barbaric” shackling while in labor.
PLN previously reported on this inhumane practice and the law’s passage. [See: PLN December 2014, p. ...
America’s drug czar is an alcoholic who is approaching his job differently than his predecessors. In leading the White House Office of National Drug Control, Michael Botticelli is following the Obama administration’s policy of shifting away from the “war on drugs.”
Botticelli said the approach is a “very clear pivot ...
The State Attorney for Florida’s Gadsden County has petitioned a state court to hold the sheriff in contempt for allowing prisoners an eight hour furlough without court approval.
“The inmates involved were supposed to have been held on bond or no bond pursuant to court order,” states the petition filed ...
One Florida community has initiated the newest indignity against sex offenders: the placement of signs outside homes warning an occupant is a sexual predator. The move is one another community is hoping to make law.
In April 2013, the Bradford County Sheriff’s office went to the homes of 18 registered ...
231 pages, $35.00 softcover
Book review by David M. Reutter
“In prison, people can discover new things and improve themselves in many ways; faith, fitness, a new language, education, skills and qualifications that may lead to job opportunities,” writes author L.J. Flanders. “In my case, I decided to make use ...
Suicide is the leading cause of death among jail detainees according to an August 2015 report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. While 80% of jails in the U.S. reported no deaths in 2013, six percent reported two or more. Florida’s Alachua County Jail (ACJ) fell into the latter ...
In an ironic twist, a Florida drug court judge was removed from the bench after enrolling in a substance abuse treatment program herself.
In December 2013, Broward County Judge Gisele Pollack, 57, took a two-week leave to participate in a substance abuse program after admitting to consuming alcohol before work. ...
An unlikely alliance between a prison guard and a former prisoner ended in both being charged with enslaving two teenagers and forcing them into prostitution.
While serving time for a parole violation and drug offense from February 2007 to September 2008, Pennsylvania prisoner Rasul Abernathy, 32, met guard Postauntaramin Walker, ...
by David Reutter and Joe Watson
Former Louisiana death row prisoner John Thompson has spearheaded an organization that aims to help the wrongfully convicted and former prisoners successfully rebuild their lives.
Thompson was sentenced to death for the 1984 fatal shooting of a hotel executive from a prominent New Orleans ...
