by Jo Ellen Nott
Convicted murderer Aaron Gunches is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Arizona on April 6, 2023. But Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both newly elected in November 2022, say the state is not ready, after the last three executions ran into trouble. ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Five years after they were cruelly separated from their parents at the southern U.S. border, at least 1,000 migrant children have still not been reunited with them. That was the key takeaway from a fact sheet released on February 2, 2023, marking the two-year anniversary since ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On a Friday in October 2020 at Camp Kilpatrick, a juvenile facility in Los Angeles County’s Malibu, a teenage detainee went looking for something to eat in the common area. “Beckham” was hungry and frustrated that he found only a carton of milk. The young man ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
From 2019 to 2021, guards at Maine State Prison in Warren used a Facebook Messenger group chat to mock prisoners, joke about using force on them and sharing confidential information about them. Yet the none was fired by the state Department of Corrections (DOC), despite the ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 28, 2022, Acting Warden Mike Pallares referred a former Central California Women’s Facility guard to the Madera County District Attorney’s (DA’s) Office. A six-month investigation had uncovered accusations that Gregory Rodriguez sexually assaulted 22 prisoners at the state’s biggest lockup for women.
Just over ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 1, 2022, Florida’s Flagler County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) arrested two ex-felons for orchestrating a beat-down in the county lockup. Sheriff Rick Staly called Margaret Watkins, 37, and her boyfriend, Raymond Dukes, 52, a pair of “dirtbags,” vowing he “won’t allow this kind of behavior ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
When Richard A. Carter, died in Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County Prison (DCP) on Christmas Eve 2022, officials released key details that showed they had not neglected him. A nurse visited the 63-year-old at 9:31 p.m. the night before he died, making sure he took his medication for ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 19, 2022, a six-month investigation into contraband smuggling at the Dougherty County Jail (DCJ) in southwest Georgia resulted in charges against 11 suspects. In a stunning display of rampant corruption, the group included four DCJ guards, a former nurse at the lockup and a ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On January 14, 2023, a fire broke out just before 11:00 a.m. in a cell block at Indiana State Prison (ISP), killing prisoner Michael W. Smith, 48. He was the second prisoner to burn to death at the lockup in five years; Joshua Devine, 30, also ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
When parents are incarcerated, their children are often placed in foster care. A little-noticed federal law from the “tough on crime” Reagan era requires states to bill those parents for a portion of their kids’ foster care. But since federal subsidizing of foster care applies only ...
