by Matt Clarke
In August 2017, Oklahoma state prisoners and the non-profit All In One Project filed a federal civil rights suit arguing political contributions made by private prison firms to state officials led to contracts with those companies that included a 98 percent occupancy rate at private prisons. The ...
by Matthew Clarke
In August 2017, the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC) agreed to settle a prisoner’s conditions of confinement lawsuit after he alleged DOC officials had retaliated against him for filing the complaint.
Robert L. Holleman, an Indiana state prisoner, filed a pro se federal civil rights suit complaining ...
by Matthew Clarke
Soon after he was sworn in as sheriff for Maricopa County, Arizona, Paul Penzone began phasing out the infamous Tent City jail erected by his predecessor, Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of criminal contempt by a federal court in July 2017 but later pardoned by President ...
by Matthew Clarke
Over a decade ago, with the promise of cost savings as well as stable jobs for the community, local governments in Texas agreed to issue bonds to finance the construction of prisons and jails operated by for-profit companies. But when state and federal authorities stopped sending enough ...
by Matt Clarke
In August 2017, a lawsuit brought by a woman who was pepper sprayed at the Montgomery County jail in Dayton, Ohio – despite being held in a restraint chair – settled for $375,000.
Amber Swink was 24 years old when police received a domestic disturbance call at ...
by Matt Clarke
An Austin, Texas couple wrongly convicted of sexually abusing a child at the day-care center they ran in the 1990s has been declared innocent and received over $3.4 million in compensation from the state.
Starting in the 1980s, the United States experienced an episode of mass hysteria ...
by Matthew Clarke
The family of a prisoner who died at the Bi-State Jail in Texarkana has filed a federal civil rights suit alleging his death resulted from inadequate medical care.
The jail is unique in that it straddles the border of Texas and Arkansas in a city that spreads ...
by Matthew Clarke
On August 26, 2017, Benjamin Davis, 42, the founder and leader of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211 Crew, was found hanging in his cell at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins. Davis was suspected of having ordered the 2013 murder of Tom Clements, director ...
by Matthew Clarke
On December 5, 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed in part the dismissal of a prisoner’s lawsuit challenging the denial of Rastafarian group religious services at a North Carolina state prison.
Torrey F. Wilcox is an adherent of the Rastafarian faith incarcerated at the Marion ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 1, 2017 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) changed its policy on prisoner discipline to eliminate solitary confinement as a punishment for violating institutional rules, though thousands of prisoners remain in segregation for other reasons.
According to the TDCJ, 76 state prisoners were held ...
