by Kevin Bliss
Florida is one of a handful of states that doesn’t pay prisoners to work, constituting what some consider slave labor. Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) continues to use prison labor during the coronavirus pandemic, despite the obvious risk it poses.
The Florida Times-Union reported in ...
by Kevin Bliss
More than 200 guards, prisoners and civilians have been convicted of corruption at the Baltimore Department of Corrections’ prison system over the last four years. In a major new case revealed in December 2019, then-acting Captain Kevin Hickson and 24 other members of the Baltimore Central Regional ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Illinois Supreme Court on December 19, 2019 held that settlement agreements reached by private contractors, if directly related to the services they provide, are public record. It said the plain language of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), when viewed in light of legislative intent, showed ...
by Kevin Bliss
In March 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that federal Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents will begin collecting DNA samples for criminal investigation from immigrants designated for detention in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, including children and those legally seeking asylum.
During the ...
by Kevin Bliss
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed a request for bids on its website in March 2020 for 45,000 N95 protective face masks for 26 of its enforcement and removal operation field offices. This came at a time that the nation’s frontline healthcare workers are experiencing a mass ...
by Kevin Bliss
Clarence Delaney, Jr. was granted $40 per day for 88 days of unlawful confinement by the State of New York, receiving a total payment of $3,250. He also was able to recover his 42 USC § 1983 filing fee, in a state Court of Claims ruling on ...
by Kevin Bliss
A prisoner advocacy group in April began urging residents to call Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and the state Department of Corrections (DOC) Commissioner Robert Carter to demand the release of nonviolent prisoners, the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions amid the COVID-19 health threat, one of ...
by Kevin Bliss
Current and former prisoners at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, California, filed a class action lawsuit on November 18, 2019 against the county, Sheriff Gregory Ahern, and Aramark Correctional Services for violating a California prison labor law, the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and the Thirteenth ...
by Kevin Bliss
The surviving family of Kevin Lee McLaughlin, who died of a heart attack in California’s San Luis Obispo County Jail (SLOCJ) in April 2017, attempted to withdraw from a $41,850 settlement negotiated in its wrongful death lawsuit, which claimed deliberate indifference to McLaughlin’s emergency medical needs resulting ...
by Kevin Bliss
An Illinois federal district court held on September 9, 2019, that Larry Harris was retaliated against when he was punished and transferred to a less-desirable prison because of what his daughter, Amanda Carrasco, posted on her Facebook account.
Harris filed a § 1983 complaint against officials of ...
