by David M. Reutter

Movies and television often dramatize prison for entertainment purposes, and just as often the dramatizations are unrealistic. One aspect of prison life that cannot be overly dramatized—and is a reality for many of the imprisoned—is the prospect of being raped. For decades now, PLN has chronicled ...

by Paul Wright

For long time readers of PLN, this month’s issue may seem like déjà vu all over again with its national coverage of prisoners being raped, especially by guards and prison staff. For many years I wrote the “News in Brief” column and would print out the ...

The Mother’s Day riot at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution (TSCI) in 2015 ended with two dead and countless injuries to prisoners and staff. When one of the prisoners injured filed a lawsuit that prison officials failed to protect him during the riot and that their response was inadequate, the court ...

by Matt Clarke

On July 16, 2021, an Arizona federal court issued an order rescinding its 2015 approval of the settlement agreement (“Stipulation”) in a class action civil rights lawsuit challenging the adequacy of medical, dental, and mental health care in the Arizona Department of Corrections (DOC) as well as ...

The United States paid $50,000 to resolve a lawsuit alleging federal agents at Montana’s Fort Peck Tribal Jail failed to provide medical care for a detainee who was injured during an assault at the jail.

Tyler Headdress is a member of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. He was arrested on ...

by David M. Reutter

A Florida federal district court granted a protective order to protect “putative class members from retaliatory, chilling, or harassing conduct” and to prohibit “Defendants from improperly communicating with putative class members about th[e] lawsuit.” The court’s February 8, 2021, order was issued in a lawsuit challenging ...

by David M. Reutter

A bill that went into effect on July 1, 2021, allows individuals to access termination of felony probation after three years if they meet certain requirements. The bill impacts up to a quarter of Georgia’s current probationers, creating a huge savings for taxpayers.

Before the bill ...

by Erika Tyagi and Joshua Manson

UCLA COVID Behind Bars Project, August 12, 2021

In recent weeks, as the Delta variant has surged across the country, the rates of infection among prison workers are on the rise, while their vaccination rates remain dangerously low.

Of course, these trends are not unrelated. It’s now well-established that vaccines are highly effective at controlling the spread of the new variants of COVID-19, providing protection that is particularly critical in congregate settings like jails and prisons—places where maintaining physical distance is often impossible, and just one infection can cause massive outbreaks.

As infection rates climb, prisons are extending—and, in some cases, reimposing—restrictive measures that keep incarcerated people on lockdown for as many as 23 hours per day, without access to programming or in-person visits. This continues even as vaccination rates among incarcerated people are higher than the national average in many states, and much higher than that of prison staff.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that as long as large swaths of prison staff refuse vaccines, incarcerated people will not only remain vulnerable to infection and death, but will continue to be subject to harsh isolation measures because of staff intransigence.

We estimate ...

by Sharon Dolovich, Erika Tyagi, and Neal Marquez, UCLA COVID Behind Bars Project, August 20, 2021

When the pandemic hit, prison systems around the country started posting COVID-19 data for their facilities. This measure of transparency marked a striking departure from business as usual for American prisons, which typically operate ...

by Keith Sanders

On June 14, 2021, United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois granted Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification while granting in part and denying in part Defendant’s motion to Supplement.

The Plaintiffs, six prisoners housed in restrictive housing at different facilities in the Illinois Department ...

by David M. Reutter

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the postcard only policy of the Baxter County, Arkansas Jail and Detention Center (BCJ) constituted a de facto permanent ban on the First Amendment rights of publishers.

The Court’s June 8, 2021 opinion was issued in an appeal ...

by Matt Clarke

On May 14, 2021, the Office of the Attorney General (AG) of South Carolina issued an opinion that information relating to the death of state prisoners contained in their death certificates is public information subject to disclosure under the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), S.C. Code ...

A lawsuit filed in a California federal court on September 15, 2021, accuses private prison financier JPay, Inc. of violating both U.S. law and the constitutional rights of prisoners by returning money owed at their release in debit cards that eat up much of the balance in fees.

The lead ...

by David M. Reutter

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found a Georgia Sheriff’s Deputy employed excessive force by detaining a pretrial detainee “in a hot, unventilated, and unair-conditioned transport van for approximately two hours” and was deliberately indifferent to the detainee’s serious medical needs. The court concluded the deputy ...

by David M. Reutter

Colorado’s El Paso County Jail, the state’s largest jail, received almost $16 million in federal funds to cover costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It used most of those funds in jail renovations that were part of a longstanding wish list. Meanwhile, staff and detainees were ...

by Matt Clarke

On May 10, 2021, the Tennessee Department of Corrections (DOC) announced that it would rebid the $123 million contract it had awarded to Centurion to provide behavioral health services—including psychiatric and addiction services—to prisoners in DOC prisons. The move came after Corizon accused the DOC and Missouri-based ...

by Daniel A. Rosen

An investigation conducted by the Mountain West News Bureau and NPR recently found that at least 19 men and women have died in the past five years in tribal jails overseen by the Interior Department, among other serious problems in the detention centers.

The Bureau of ...

by Matt Clarke

A national audit of state parole systems conducted in 2019 gave Texas an “F” grade, noting it had some of the most burdensome requirements prisoners must meet before being approved for parole. Now a new study by the University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public ...

Prison Legal News (PLN) is encouraging our readers to file complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) if you feel you are being made to pay expensive rates to transfer money to your loved one in jail or prison or, if you are a prisoner, to receive ...

by Brian Dolinar and Panagioti Tsolkas

"I’ve been incarcerated since the age of 18, I grew up in the penal system,” shares Mishunda Davis. “I went from the Cook County jail, to Dwight prison, to Lincoln, and I have never seen as many condemned buildings as I’ve seen since arriving ...

by Matt Clarke

According to the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office employees used money from a fund paid for by profits from the prisoners’ commissary purchases and phone calls to pay for airline fares, hotel rooms, routine jail maintenance, employee salaries, and security-related equipment. The prisoner welfare fund is ...

by Doug Ankney

James Desper is a convicted sex offender incarcerated at the Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, Virginia. For six years, Desper received visits from his minor child without incident. None of Desper’s crimes or convictions involved his child. But in March 2014, the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) ...

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 ...

On July 6, 2021, Veronica Ortega, 45, a former medical assistant at the GEO-owned and -operated East Hidalgo Detention Center pleaded guilty to bribery after admitting she received cash to smuggle marijuana into the jail. She was the seventh GEO employee to plead guilty to the charges presented in federal ...

On August 9, 2019, an Indiana federal court memorialized the stipulations in a private settlement agreement between the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC) and a class of prisoners subject to restrictions on incoming mail. The DOC agreed to photocopy non-legal mail, including greeting cards, and deliver the photocopies to the ...

by Douglas Ankney

In December 2016, Prince McCoy Jr. was confined in a segregation cell at the Darrington Unit in Rosharon, Texas. The prisoner in the cell adjacent to McCoy’s threw water on Officer Tajudeen Alamu. Alamu left and the prisoner covered the front of his cell with bedding. Alamu ...

by David M. Reutter

Residents of Allegheny County voted to restrict the use of solitary confinement. The ballot measure was overwhelmingly approved during a May 18, 2021 election.

PLN has previously reported on the brutalizing by guards and the improper use of solitary confinement within the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ). ...

by David M. Reutter

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the grant of summary judgment for the defendants in a civil rights lawsuit alleging they were deliberately indifferent to a prisoner’s serious medical needs. This case highlights the need for expert medical testimony to win in such cases.

The ...

by Kevin Bliss

A suit against Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard was settled in June 2021. The New York State Commission of Correction (Commission) filed the suit  against the Eric County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) for their inability to comply with a directive regulating the reporting and investigating of incidents “of ...

by Chuck Sharman

On the heels of a May 2021 decision by federal regulators that sharply lowered rates prisoners and their loved ones pay for interstate calls, the California Public Utilities Commission (CAPUC) adopted a rule on August 19, 2021, which takes a hatchet to rates on intrastate calls—the lion’s ...

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that “in the context of civil complaints, the prison mailbox rule applies only to prisoners who are not represented by counsel and are proceeding pro se.”

The court’s February 17, 2021, opinion was issued in an appeal brought by Blake Cretacci, who alleged ...

In late August, 2021, the federal Bureau of Prisons announced what is likely a temporary closure of its Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), located in lower Manhattan. It has been cited for its repeated lack of oversight, most recently for the death of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein who died, ...

On May 26, 2021, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed S.B. 753, Public Act 21-13, which created a new statute requiring the state to count most imprisoned persons as residents of the district where they were living before they were imprisoned for purposes of redistricting. The previous practice was to count ...

by David M. Reutter

Private prison operator CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), paid $56 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it violated securities laws that resulted in a loss to stock holders.

The lawsuit was filed August 23, 2016, on behalf of the class ...

by Jayson Hawkins

In July 2020, Judge Consuelo Marshall of the U.S. District Court for Central California granted class certification to a group of prisoners at Lompoc federal prison, granting in part and denying in part their motion for preliminary injunction.

The group of prisoners at Lompoc filed a complaint ...

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in an unpublished decision, held a prisoner who had symptoms of fibrosis from Hepatitis C (HCV) and claimed prison officials refused to treat him was sufficient to satisfy that he was under imminent danger of serious physical harm. He, therefore, satisfied the exception to ...

by Kevin Bliss

Washington, D.C.’s jail safe cell use has been under scrutiny since 2013 when a rash of suicides prompted the jail to hire Lindsay Hayes, a nationally renowned jail and prison suicide prevention expert, to evaluate the jail’s operations and offer recommendations to make it more effective with ...

by Keith Sanders

On June 8, officials in Woodbury County, Iowa, voted unanimously to approve the use of money from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to help fund the construction of a new $65 million regional jail complex. The 110,000 square-foot facility will house 480 prisoners and provide space ...

by David M. Reutter

A $1 million settlement was reached in a civil rights lawsuit alleging officials at Georgia State Prison (GSP) failed to take action to prevent a prisoner’s suicide attempt, which resulted in his death three years later.

Prisoner Nicholas Baldwin was 17 years old when he was ...

by Daniel A. Rosen

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently ordered two civil immigration detention facilities closed and terminated the contracts for both. DHS said the Carreiro Detention Center in Bristol County, Massachusetts and the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia were “no longer operationally necessary,” according to ...

A Ventura County, California jail deputy finds himself on the other side of the law after Superior Court Judge Gilbert Romero recently found him guilty of sexual misconduct with a female prisoner. The county of Ventura has paid $500,000 to settle a sexual assault lawsuit filed by the same former ...

by Dan Christensen, Florida Bulldog, September 20, 2021

In a ruling that undermines an 81-year-old anti-corruption law prohibiting pay-to-play political contributions by federal contractors, an impotent Federal Election Commission in September 2021, disclosed that it allowed Boca Raton private prison contractor The GEO Group to get away with making hundreds ...

Alabama: On August 19, 2021, twoconvicted robbers were convicted of murder in the death of a fellow prisoner they and two others attacked in 2017 at Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent, Alabama. According to a report by Montgomery TV station WSFA, Dominique Covin and Roderick DeLaune were found guilty of ...