by Barbara Koeppel, The Washington Spectator

Responding to several highly-publicized sex crimes and public fears, legislatures across the country have adopted statutes that allow the continued imprisonment of sex offenders after they have completed their sentences. Veteran investigative reporter Barbara Koeppel has spent the past 12 months reporting on this ...

by Derek Gilna

On July 30, 2018, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a partial summary judgment order issued by a district court that found the Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois liable for various violations of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

After holding an evidentiary ...

by Paul Wright

Prison Legal News published its first issue in May 1990. The month before that, Washington became the first state in the nation to enact a civil commitment process for sex offenders and to create a sex offender registry. Those laws were passed shortly after a mentally ill ...

by David M. Reutter

Illinois’ Whiteside County Jail (WCJ) agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a civil rights action alleging jail officials failed to treat Walter E. Divers, Jr. for severe alcohol withdrawal, resulting in his death.

Divers, 28, was arrested for failing to pay fines or appear in court ...

by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, Truthout.org

Our current historical moment demands a radical re-imagining of how we address various harms. The levers of power are currently in the hands of an administration that is openly hostile to the most marginalized in our society (Black people, Native people, the poor, ...

A settlement was reached in a civil rights action alleging guards at Alabama’s Madison County Jail (MCJ) used excessive force on a mentally ill prisoner during a cell extraction.

Haraesheo Rice, 31, was well known to MCJ staff, who were aware he suffered from mental health problems that included schizophrenia ...

by Kevin W. Bliss

A U.S. District Court has ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) to come up with an acceptable solution to address deplorable living conditions in the state’s prison system before the federal government steps in and does it for them. Alabama prisons have long been plagued ...

by Panagioti Tsolkas

More than three years after a controversial environmental review process for a new federal prison, conducted by the federal Bureau of Prisons and its consulting firm Cardno, attorneys filed suit in November 2018 on behalf of 21 federal prisoners spread across the country. The plaintiffs claim they ...

by Derek Gilna

Two federal lawsuits were filed by South Dakota prisoners in May and June 2018 against the state Department of Corrections (DOC) over the introduction of tablet computers to replace prison law libraries and paralegals and attorneys who assist prisoners. Billed as a cost-saving measure, the tablets are ...

The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee agreed to pay $550,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging a guard at the Davidson County Male Correctional Development Center (CDC) used excessive force on a pretrial detainee, leaving him a quadriplegic.

Edgar Mhoon was arrested in April 2015 following a search ...

by Christopher Zoukis

Under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), guards at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas are provided by Ahtna Support and Training Services – a subsidiary of Ahtna, Inc., which is one of 13 Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) created by Congress for the ...

by Dale Chappell

In May 2018, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed into law SB-13, a bill that will bring fairness and dignity to women and transgender prisoners, his office said.

The bill, which received unanimous votes in both chambers of the General Assembly, specifies that women prisoners will not ...

by Derek Gilna

In an August 23, 2018 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed in part and remanded a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a former Cook County, Illinois prisoner who alleged jail officials had confiscated books and magazines sent to him ...

by Ed Lyon

The Montgomery County Jail in Dayton, Ohio faces liabilities exceeding $10 million, as lawsuits continue to multiply.

Former chief deputy Scott Landis testified to having no memory of any of the incidents that gave rise to a spate of lawsuits over issues ranging from wrongful deaths and ...

by Steve Horn

He’s the descendant of a slave and the son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was the lead attorney in the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated U.S. public schools. An attorney who served as White House Cabinet Secretary during President ...

On November 15, 2018, the Human Rights Defense Center, PLN’s parent organization, as well as the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County, Florida and the law firm of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, announced a settlement in a lawsuit filed against the sheriff’s office in Palm Beach County.

In ...

by Christopher Zoukis

An investigative report issued in August 2018 by two advocacy groups, Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) and the Parole Preparation Project (PPP), found significant problems with the New York State Board of Parole’s (BOP) policies, practices and political dynamics that have led the board to deny ...

by R. Bailey

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, a federal district court was asked to resolve an attorney fees dispute as part of a settlement in a prisoner’s wrongful death case.

Robert Awalt died while in the custody of a jail in Grundy County, Illinois. His wife, Elizabeth Awalt, ...

by Dale Chappell

The FBI arrested seven people, including five Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) guards, for conspiring to smuggle drugs, tobacco and cell phones into state prisons.
In January 2017, an undercover FBI agent approached an IDOC contract nurse who had previously been caught smuggling contraband. The nurse put ...

by Kevin W. Bliss

In June 2018, Sheriff Todd Entrekin withdrew from his re-election campaign in Etowah County, Alabama, conceding to his only opponent, Rainbow City Police Chief Jonathon Horton. Entrekin will serve out the rest of his second term and hand over the position in January 2019. He withdrew ...

by Steve Horn

On December 21, 2018, President Donald Trump signed into law the 56-page First Step Act (S. 756), a bill that will usher in an array of reforms within the federal criminal justice system. The bill went to the president’s desk just days after passing the Senate on ...

by Kevin W. Bliss

After releasing a 67-page investigative report in May 2018 on the use of solitary confinement by the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) and the effects of solitary on prisoners, especially those with mental health issues, the ACLU of Virginia called on Governor Ralph Northam to curb ...

In June 2018, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reached a $75,689 settlement with a couple accused of trying to scam the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) into buying textbooks it had not ordered.

The civil complaint alleged John P. Ryan and Marie Motz Ryan operated Scholars in Print, a sole proprietorship ...

by Christopher Zoukis

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that the First Amendment protects both a prisoner’s right not to snitch and his or her right not to provide false information to prison officials. The May 9, 2018 opinion established new precedent in the Second ...

On July 10, 2018, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) had violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) by refusing to accommodate dietary restrictions required by a prisoner’s Nazarite Jewish faith.

As part of his ...

by Derek Gilna

On August 20, 2018, the Seventh Circuit granted a new trial to a prisoner whose multiple motions for appointment of counsel were denied in a federal lawsuit against guards employed by the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Fredrick Walker, incarcerated at the maximum-security Pontiac Correctional Center, claimed that ...

by Matt Clarke

In January 2018, Cibola County, New Mexico agreed to pay $5 million to settle a lawsuit over the death of a jail prisoner who was repeatedly denied medical treatment despite vomiting and defecating blood.

Douglas Edmisten, 50, was arrested on misdemeanor charges and booked into the Cibola ...

by Monte McCoin

On March 7, 2018, President Trump issued an executive order that launched the Federal Interagency Council on Crime Prevention and Improving Reentry. The order revoked a presidential memorandum that had established a similar Federal Interagency Reentry Council as a U.S. Department of Justice initiative during the Obama ...

In November 2018, shareholder resolutions were filed with CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, and The GEO Group – the nation’s two largest private prison companies – that would prohibit them from housing immigrant detainee children who have been separated from their parents, or parents separated from their ...

by Monte McCoin

The Harvard Organization for Prison Education and Advocacy, a student-led group known as HOPE, was established in the 1950s as part of Harvard University’s Phillips Brooks House Association. Since its inception the organization has provided tutoring and educational programs for incarcerated men, women and juveniles, but in ...

by Derek Gilna

Philippa Grace McCully, a 21-year-old college student and cancer survivor arrested in 2014 for erratic driving that she blamed on a reaction to various prescription psychiatric drugs, was taken to a jail in El Paso, Colorado for processing.

There, the 100-pound, 5-foot-tall woman was slammed to the ...

by Derek Gilna

In August 2018, a comprehensive audit report revealed that the private healthcare provider at Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County Jail and House of Correction (HOC) was not in compliance with the terms of a court-ordered consent decree requiring specific staffing levels for medical personnel. The time period under review ...

by Christopher Zoukis

A lawsuit alleging that private prison operator CoreCivic violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) by forcing immigrant detainees to work at one of the company’s detention centers will proceed in federal court. The class-action claim withstood a motion to dismiss on August 17, 2018.

CoreCivic, formerly ...

Prompted by claims of sexual abuse highlighted in a 2015 Miami Herald news report, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into Florida’s Lowell Correctional Institution (LCI), the largest prison for women in the state and the second-largest in the nation.

The DOJ’s probe of LCI mirrors ...

by Ed Lyon

During April 2018, prisoners in six housing units at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla participated in a hunger strike that lasted up to 10 days. Over 1,300 prisoners reportedly took part – around half the facility’s population, excluding those who were elderly or ill. Their ...

by Derek Gilna

Six female prison guards employed by the New Mexico Corrections Department (DOC) at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility (CNMCF) in Los Lunas entered into a $2.5 million settlement with the department in late January 2018, though the terms of the agreement were not made public until ...

by Mark Wilson

On July 24, 2018, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court held the state’s constitution requires adoption of a modified version of the “prisoner mailbox rule” when filing petitions for judicial review of prison disciplinary orders.

Maine prisoner Charles M. Martin was found guilty of a disciplinary infraction on ...

by Ed Lyon

Joseph Leiser was in an Illinois jail pending extradition to Coffey County, Kansas. Because Leiser had been Tased by federal marshals, Coffey County jail administrator Shannon Moore asked Illinois officials to have him thoroughly examined, including chest X-rays and a CT scan, to see if he suffered ...

by Derek Gilna

On August 30, 2018, the Vera Institute of Justice announced an expansion of federal assistance to provide housing for prisoners who are reentering society. The “Opening Doors to Public Housing Initiative,” a program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), seeks to ...

by Dale Chappell

On March 14, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled that a prisoner’s lawsuit against Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) guards could move forward, denying the FDOC’s motion for summary judgment.

Christopher Sanders filed suit in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § ...

A Florida federal jury awarded $1 million to two women who were sexually assaulted by a guard at the Bay County Jail (BCJ).

Brandy Carnley and Virginia Lindsey alleged in a May 2017 civil rights complaint that they were forced into sex acts by guard Pedro Reyes. Both women were ...

by Ed Lyon

Prisoners who peacefully advocate for their rights, such as by filing lawsuits and grievances, and engaging in non-violent protests, regularly risk retaliation by prison officials.

That was the case following a nationwide work strike that was called by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS) – a prisoners’ rights advocacy ...

by Ed Lyon

During the noon meal on February 5, 2014, Illinois prison guard Nathan Berry found alcohol and an altered TV in a property box in a cell shared by Osbaldo Jose-Nicolas and Edgar Diaz at the Menard Correctional Center.

Both prisoners were directed to a holding cell when ...

by Derek Gilna

In June 2018, Illinois lawmakers voted to end the practice of charging $5.00 co-payments to state prisoners for each medical visit – a disproportionate fee, since prison wages in the state range from $0.09 to $0.89 per hour. The move came shortly before the release of a ...

by David Reutter

On June 23, 2012, Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) guard Roland Clarke placed Darren Rainey, a prisoner at the Dade Correctional Institution (DCI), into a shower and locked the door. He then turned on the hot water using specially-rigged controls in another room. The 50-year-old Rainey, who ...

by Matt Clarke

According to a recent study by the U.S. Department of Justice, about 11% of the state and federal prison population in 2016 was over age 55. Of those prisoners, numbering roughly 160,000, around 38,000 were 65 or older. The share of prisoners over age 50 is expected ...

by Kevin W. Bliss

Sheriff Jimmy Brown and Captain Adam Brewer, with the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, were arrested in May 2018 following an investigation into inappropriate conduct.
At the request of 22nd District Attorney General Brent Cooper, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury ...

Alaska: Illness among state prisoners exposed to tainted lettuce was key to solving a nationwide E. coli outbreak in April 2018. Eight prisoners at the Anvil Mountain Correctional Center were stricken by an especially nasty strain of the bacteria, though none were hospitalized or died. The outbreak sickened more than ...

by Monte McCoin

PLN previously reported the 2017 arrests of a trio of Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) guards for repeatedly and violently sexually abusing at least six female prisoners who had been housed at the federal jail in Brooklyn, New York. [See: PLN, Nov. 2017, p.1; Jan. 2018, p.63].

On ...