by Kevin Bliss
On October 5, 2021, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down a California statute, Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), barring private companies from entering new contracts with any government—including the federal government—to operate jails, prisons, or detention centers in ...
by Kevin Bliss
A Pennsylvania prisoner’s long and contentious history with the state Department of Corrections (DOC) came to a bitter end on September 29, 2021, with an agreement by the state to pay $100,000 to his brother after the prisoner hanged himself.
The prisoner, Joel Snider, 44, was found ...
by Kevin Bliss
On January 6, 2022, Ryan Shapiro, the 44-year-old founder of prison financial services firm JPay, was charged in federal court in Boston with conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Also named in the criminal complaint was Shapiro’s friend and neighbor in Florida, hedge fund manager Kris Bortnovsky, 40. ...
by Kevin Bliss
When 55-year-old William Brown, a pretrial detainee from Brooklyn, suffered a medical emergency and died on December 15, 2021, it was the 16th death recorded for the year of someone incarcerated at Rikers Island, the sprawling and troubled New York City jail complex. Former Mayor Bill ...
by Kevin Bliss
Class-action status was granted on May 25, 2021, to a federal lawsuit brought by a half-dozen prisoners held by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at its Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, who said that when the power went out in January 2019 and ...
by Kevin Bliss
Black women in pretrial detention were treated worse than any other group of detainees due to the inherently racist, sexist, and economically prejudiced practices in the criminal justice system, according to an Al Jazeera report published July 7, 2021.
The United States currently incarcerates over two million ...
by Kevin Bliss
Louisville, Kentucky’s Metro Department of Corrections (MDOC) who operates the city jail has been ordered by the Metro Council Budget Committee to stop charging prisoners for phone calls from the jail by December 31, 2021.
MDOC currently contracts with Dallas, Texas communications giant Securus Technologies for its ...
by Kevin Bliss
Staffing shortages in Wisconsin’s maximum security prison, Waupun Correctional Facility, prompted the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WDOC) in June of 2021 to ask for guards at the state’s other prisons to voluntarily report to Waupun to work a two week pay period on a rotational basis through ...
by Kevin Bliss
Joel Castón, 44, a prisoner of the District of Columbia Jail, may be the first incarcerated elected official in the nation. He won the special election June 15, 2021 for the Ward 7 Advisory Neighborhood Commission seat, beating out four others for the position—who were also fellow ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Virginia Mercury reported this year that the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that a vast majority of contraband being introduced into the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) has not been coming from visitation as indicated by the Department. Statistics show stopping visitation did not have the effect ...
