Bernard Ammerman, the District Attorney of Willacy County, Texas believes that debt for privately-operated prisons may overwhelm the county's finances. In July 2012, he publicly complained that the county may not be able to repay the debt incurred for the construction and later renovation of a private "tent city" prison ...
Of the fifteen physicians employed by the Louisiana prison system, nine have received medical board disciplinary sanctions. Of those nine, two have served time in federal prison, five are on probation, two have their practice limited to "institutional settings," two can't treat patients under 18 years old and one has ...
Hepatitis C is a slow-progressing potentially-fatal viral disease that ultimately destroys the liver. Unlike HIV, the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is resilient, capable of surviving for weeks outside the human body. It is spread by blood-to-blood contact and is very common among users of intravenous drugs. The immune systems of ...
On August 26, 2012, the Seventh Circuit court of appeals held that the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC) must provide a procedure by which persons listed on the state's "Sex and Violent Offender Registry" (SVOR) may appeal errors in their registry information.
Any resident of Indiana convicted of one of ...
With around 4,000 of its 11,000 prisoners classified as mentally ill, Rikers Island jail holds more psychiatric patients than all 24 of the psychiatric hospitals in New York State combined. In 2006, prisoners with mental illness comprised about 20% of the jail's population. The percentage had almost doubled since then. ...
Listing numerous instances of its medical, mental health and dentistry employees being assaulted by Rikers Island prisoners, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Corizon Health, Inc. for willful violation of Section 5(a)(1) of the OSHA Act of 1970 by failing to provide a workplace that was "free ...
In 2008, Montgomery County, Texas built the 1,293-bed Joe Corley Detention Center (JCDC) for $45 million. The voters who approved the bond issue believed the JCDC would be used to expand the capacity of the 1,251-bed Montgomery County Jail, which was built in 1987. In approving the tax-exempt status of ...
The crime rate in Texas prisons has remained about the same despite a decrease in prisoner population of about 9,000 over the past ten years.
Since 2009, 3,001 Texas prisoners and 584 Texas prison guards have been charged with crimes that occurred within the prison system. The most charges were ...
The Alaskan state legislature held a hearing in July 2014 after five Alaskan prisoners died between April and June of that year.
According to Joe Schmidt, director of the Alaska Department of Corrections, the 2010 national prisoner death rate was .217% and the death rate for Alaska was .23%, putting ...
A report released by the Osborne Association found American prisons facing a crisis of aging in which an increasing percentage of older prisoners who are at low risk for recidivism are driving up the cost of running prisons while parole officials continue to deny release due to the nature of ...
