by Matt Clarke
In an attempt to bridge a budget shortfall, the Austrian Justice Ministry has set up call centers in prisons and con-tracted them out to private companies that might otherwise outsource the work overseas. The move has prompted criticism about prisoners handling private customer information.
Austrian prison officials ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 7, 2009, three private prison guards were convicted of charges involving the unjustified beating of a New York prisoner in 2007. [See: PLN, Sept. 2009, p.50; July 2009, p.50]. A fourth guard was convicted of related charges in January 2010.
Rex Egurido, 28, a Nigerian ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 4, 2009, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that a state prisoner who had been erroneously released through no fault of his own, and who had not violated any of the conditions of his release, was entitled to credit against his sentence for the ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 5, 2010, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the Sheriff of Bristol County could not charge fees for certain jail services.
In 2002, prisoners at the Bristol County House of Correction and Jail in Dartmouth, Massachusetts filed a complaint in state Superior Court ...
by Matt Clarke
On December 18, 2009, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a federal class-action suit brought by illegal immigrants arrested in sweeps following the 9/11 attacks and incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in New York City. The Court of Appeals affirmed the ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 5, 2010, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Michigan district court’s denial of Eleventh Amendment immunity for a claim involving both a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12131, et seq., and the Equal Protection Clause of the ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 18, 2010, a New York federal judge sentenced Bernard “Bernie” Kerik, 54, to four years in federal prison after Kerik pleaded guilty to five counts of making false statements to federal agents, two counts of tax fraud and one count of making a false statement ...
by Matt Clarke
A U.S. Dept. of Justice memo, released in April 2009, indicated the CIA had 94 people in secret prisons scattered around the world as of mid-2005, and the agency had “employed enhanced techniques to varying degrees in the interrogations of 28” of those prisoners which is the ...
by Matt Clarke
In September 2009, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) released a 74-page report on the state of America’s drug and mental health courts, reflecting the knowledge gleaned from over 130 expert witnesses who testified at hearings held in seven different states and questionnaires completed by ...
by Matt Clarke
Two private manufacturing companies have opened shops in Arkansas prisons. Actronix, Inc. employs 65 female prisoners at the McPherson Unit to produce wiring harnesses for medical imaging devices such as MRI machines and CT scanners, while Glove Corp. employs 55 male prisoners from the Pine Bluff Unit ...
