As a follow-up to PLN’s October 2009 cover story, this article examines in greater detail findings by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) related to conditions at the Harris County jail in Houston, Texas.
From 2001 through June 2009, 142 jail prisoners died in Harris County. The DOJ twice performed ...
Violence against blacks in the U.S. has dropped dramatically over the last decade. The Bureau of Statistics for the U.S. Justice Department showed that, between 1993 and 2001, violent victimization of blacks decreased by nearly 57% and remained stable through 2005. These rates were consistent for all age subgroups except ...
A random sampling of 2,000 prisoners in five county jails found that, on average, nearly 15 percent of male prisoners and 31 percent of female prisoners suffer from serious mental illness.
The study was headed by Dr. Henry Steadman, Ph.D and Dr. Steven Samuels, Ph.D of Policy Research Associates Inc. ...
On January 6, 2009, three former employees at the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia, New York pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of theft of government property.
Richard Lawson, a captain and pharmacist; Lisa Schwab, a pharmacist technician; and Leonard Iannello, a contract guard at the facility, admitted they had ...
Despite a finding of homicide by the Dallas County Medical Examiner, an Angelina County grand jury ruled that jail guards involved in physically subduing a prisoner were not negligent in causing his death.
In November 2008, Thomas Joseph Kirksey, 28, died while in the custody of the Angelina County Jail. ...
In March 2009 a report by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) organization indicated that blacks continue to be arrested at disproportionately high rates in this country’s war on drugs.
The study spanned almost three decades and showed that from 1980 to 2007 blacks in the U.S. were arrested from 2.8 ...
Orange County Sheriff Sentenced to 5½ Years in Prison
by Gary Hunter
“I need a sheriff I can trust. Lying will not be tolerated in this courtroom, especially by the county’s highest-ranking law enforcement officer.”
That was what U.S. District Court Judge Andrew J. Guilford told former Orange County, California ...
Clarence Freeman’s hot check turned out to be his death warrant after it resulted in his arrest and incarceration at the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, where he was fatally assaulted by a guard.
On New Years Day in 2008, Freeman worked a double shift passing out meal trays ...
Timothy E. Helms remains paralyzed from the neck down following a confrontation with guards after he lit a fire in his cell at North Carolina’s Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville. The next day, on August 4, 2008, Helms arrived at Catawba Valley Medical Center in the back of a squad ...
Texas’ parole Condition X has come under scrutiny in a federal court case. On December 12, 2008, a U.S. magistrate judge issued a 30-page order granting partial summary judgment in favor of parolee David Brian Jennings, after concluding that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had illegally imposed “conditions ...
