by Jordan Arizmendi
Life in prison is difficult for anyone, but especially for deaf people. Without a video phone or teletypewriter (TTY), a deaf person cannot communicate with loved ones by phone. Under a new rule that takes effect in 2024, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will require prison phone ...
by Jordan Arizmendi and Chuck Sharman
Attendance at parole hearings by all five members of the Nebraska Parole Board has improved, after a 43-month stretch from 2018 to 2021 when all five showed up for just 37% of parole hearings. [See: PLN, Nov. 2022, p.53.]
When media reports in ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
On June 20, 2023, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a new law to “eliminate involvement in immigration detention” by local governments in the state. When it takes effect in 2024, House Bill 1100 will terminate detention agreements with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Teller ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
On May 7, 2023, at roughly 8:30 p.m., two detainees escaped from the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center. But it was not until the next day that guards realize they were missing.
That was after Ameen Hurst, 18, and Nasir Grant, 24, missed three headcounts within an 18-hour ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
As a result of a significantly depleted work force, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD), is imploring judges to send its most troubled and violent youth to the adult prison system operated by the state Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).
A report by the Texas Tribune on ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Three years after retiring, and 16 years after the first rape allegations surfaced at Mississippi’s Noxubee County Jail (NCJ), former Sheriff Terry Grassaree has been indicted on federal charges. On October 5, 2022, Grassaree and a former deputy were accused of bribing a detainee with a cellphone ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
In its final rule that took effect on May 4, 2023, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) declared that prisoners placed on home confinement by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) under eligibility criteria expanded by Congress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic would not have to ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Anyone who watches news or primetime television shows may think that crime by violent youths is on the rise. However, a study released by The Sentencing Project in May 2023 proves the opposite is true: Between 2000 and 2020, the number of youths held at U.S. juvenile ...
by Jordan Arizmendi
Children prosecuted as adults have sadly been ignored by criminal justice reform. On May 9, 2023, a new study was released by the nonprofit Human Rights for Kids that put the problem in context. Abstracting data from 45 states, the group found that 32,359 prisoners – about ...
by Jordan Arizmendi and Chuck Sharman
A huge fire inside an immigration detention facility in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Mexican border from El Paso, killed 38 men on March 28, 2023. Another 28 were left with injuries, according to Mexico’s National Immigration Institute.
While smoke filled the building and ...
