by Matt Clarke

When detainee Reynaldo Ramos, 55, was found unresponsive in his Robert Pressley Detention Center cell in California’s Riverside County on April 16, 2024, efforts to resuscitate him failed, and he was pronounced dead. He had been arrested on drug trafficking charges 10 days earlier. The County Sheriff’s ...

by Paul Wright

This month’s cover story on death and abuse at the Riverside County jails in California is an all-too-common account from American jails. With around 3,700 jails around the country, in every community, it is fair to say that this is the story of every jail. Large ...

As of February 29, 2024, a GoFundMe campaign had raised $102,172 for a soon-to-be-paroled California prisoner to transition from incarceration. Filmmaker Justin Mashouf, who started the page, then shut down contributions at the request of his incarcerated friend, known as “Hamza.”

Mashouf set up the fund after a request for ...

by Matt Clarke

On February 29, 2024, the federal court for the Central District of California approved a settlement under which Riverside County paid $7.5 million to the survivors of a county jail detainee who died in custody. The agreement resolved a lawsuit they filed blaming the death of Christopher ...

On May 3, 2024, Arizona’s Department of Corrections (DOC) settled a federal censorship lawsuit brought by PLN’s publisher,the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC). Under the agreement, DOC paid $2,650,000 to cover HRDC’s attorneys’ fees and expenses in connection with the successful litigation, the largest such award in a prison censorship ...

As prisons and jails make services available to prisoners via electronic tablets, they report generally positive results, especially the easy access to information that the systems provide. But in an essay published by Prison Journalism Project on March 19, 2024, Texas prisoner Khaaliq Shakur notes it can sometimes be a ...

A pilot program to divert mentally ill suspects from Texas’ Travis County Jail (TCJ) in Austin opened in March 2024. Inspired by the success of similar efforts in Miami and Nashville, county Judge Andy Brown corralled a coalition of community officials to hash out program details in February 2024.

County ...

On July 1, 2024, Virginia’s Department of Corrections (DOC) closed four prisons and was set to terminate its contract with private prison giant GEO Group, Inc. just over a month later, taking back operational control of its only privately operated prison, Lawrenceville Correctional Center (LCC), on August 4, 2024.

The ...

by Matthew T. Clarke

"Does somebody have any common sense?”

That was the question U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken had for Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) officials when they appeared before her on December 12, 2023, to respond to a show-­cause motion by transgender state prisoner Zera Lola Zombie, who ...

On February 7, 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Wisconsin filed criminal charges against Texas-­based Brazos Urethane, Inc. for conspiracy to defraud the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at a lockup it operates in the state.

BOP hired the company in 2014 to replace roofs at ...

The nonprofit Marshall Project reported on January 10, 2024, that dire prison staffing shortages nationwide have left the number of people working in state prisons at the lowest level in over two decades. The resulting thinning of supervision directly increases a prisoner’s risk of assault by fellow prisoners. It also ...

by Matt Clarke

Former Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) parole officer Ronald R. Tyler, 57, was sentenced to three years in federal prison on March 21, 2024, for sexually assaulting three probationers. Victims Stephanie Logsdon Smith, Cammie Musinski and Bridgett Dennis—later known as Bridgett Parson—filed suit against Tyler. DOC fired ...

by Douglas Ankney

On December 29, 2023, New York state prisoners Eugene Taylor, 32, and Charles Wright, 44, filed separate lawsuits alleging that guards with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) beat and waterboarded them two months before.

According to Taylor’s complaint, he was incarcerated at Green ...

When Tennessee lawmakers adopted a new $52.8 billion state budget on April 18, 2024, it hiked outlays for the state Department of Corrections (DOC) to $233 million, a $9.8 million increase that mostly went to private prison giant CoreCivic, which operates four of the state’s 15 prisons. Yet just months ...

by Douglas Ankney

A November 2023 report by the New York Office of the Inspector General (OIG) detailed grave defects uncovered by an investigation into the Contraband Drug Testing Program of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). That led to another round of expungements of disciplinary actions ...

A report released by New York City’s Board of Correction (BOC) on February 9, 2024, chided city jail officials for allowing mentally ill detainees to miss dozens of mental health appointments before they died. Nine deaths were recorded at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex in 2023, a big drop ...

Illinois parolee Crosetti Brand, 37, is back in prison after stabbing his former girlfriend and her son on March 13, 2024. Laterria Smith, 33, survived, but 11-­year-­old Jayden Perkins died. State Prisoner Review Board (PRB) member LeeAnn Miller, 63, who drafted Brand’s release order, promptly resigned, and Gov. J. B. ...

When inspectors from Los Angeles County’s independent Sybil Brand Commission toured the Men’s Central Jail on May 10, 2024, they were alarmed to find a noose hanging in one detainee’s cell. But when one went to guards, they brushed off his report—because the eight on-­duty guards were gathered to watch ...

by Douglas Ankney

On November 2, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc, does not require a group of Arkansas prisoners to show perfect adherence to allegedly burdened beliefs in order to demonstrate ...

On February 2, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida scheduled trial to begin two years later on the claim of former Volusia County Corrections Director Mark Flowers, 60, that he was fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle on guard brutality.

The underlying incident unfolded ...

Warden Charles Craig Hughes, 53, was fired from Southeast State Correctional Complex in Kentucky on February 22, 2024, the same day Deputy Warden Danny Dean McGraw, 52, also resigned from the lockup, which is leased by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) from private prison giant CoreCivic.

DOC provided no ...

On January 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding that defendant guards and a nurse at Georgia’s Muscogee County Jail may have violated the civil rights of a white detainee who was killed after they placed him in a cell with ...

On February 21, 2024, a riot broke out between rival groups of detainees held for the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) at a GEO Group lockup in El Centro, California. Injuries were reported to detainees and staff of the private prison giant, but the number and extent were unclear. The prison ...

As a former prisoner told the Vera Institute of Justice, food offers “a sense of relief; when you can go to the kitchen and get a good meal [it’s uplifting].” But as the nonprofit reported on February 27, 2024, there is almost no good meal to be had for $1.00—and ...

As of March 11, 2024, almost half those held at Massachusetts’ Tewksbury Hospital were forensic patients, admitted to the state-­run mental health lockup from the criminal justice system. At the same time, the state Department of Mental Health (DMH) said the aging facility was overcrowded, with 176 people but only ...

The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), a massive federal jail in Brooklyn, New York, is known for its harsh conditions. So harsh that on January 4, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Jesse M. Furman refused to send a convicted defendant there to await sentencing, instead allowing him to remain free on ...

As the bankruptcy of private jail medical provider Armor Correctional Health Services, Inc. wound down on October 23, 2023, the firm sold off its one remaining asset, a contract to provide medical services to prisoners at Texas’ Nueces County Correctional Facility, for a minimum bid of $625,000, which will be ...

by David Reutter

A report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on February 6, 2024, found that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was holding about 8% of its population—nearly 12,000 prisoners—in Special Housing Units (SHUs), the agency’s polite term for solitary confinement. In SHU, prisoners are isolated ...

By March 2, 2024, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) had collected laptops from some 1,200 state prisoners who had been issued them for course work in college programming—throwing a huge monkey wrench into their plans to work toward degrees.

“This is a critical moment because students in our BA ...

A guard at Georgia’s Chatham County Detention Center (CCDC) in Savannah was arrested on March 5, 2024, after she admitted taking bribes to smuggle drugs to detainees. Sheriff John Wilcher said he then fired Megan Barbee for her “significant breach of conduct and trust.”

Wilcher must be getting used to such ...

On January 24, 2024, the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) announced it was closing the Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI) in Concord, and a report released the same month by a pair of local nonprofits celebrated the decision for reflecting the success of 2018’s Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA).

The closure ...

On June 12, 2024, the Sheriff of Tennessee’s Gibson County was arrested and booked on a $25,000 bond into Nashville’s Davidson County Detention Center on a pair of indictments with a total of 22 counts related to his alleged scheme to employ prisoners on work-­release and then rip off the ...

"In yet another example of how the criminal legal system extracts wealth from the poorest families, at least one-third of prison systems nationwide charge fees as a punishment for a rule violation.” So begins a report released by the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) on February 7, 2024, examining the ...

by Douglas Ankney

In an important decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on December 8, 2023, that pretrial detainees no longer need show that a detention official “knew of and disregarded a substantial risk to the inmate’s health or safety” to state a claim of ...

Louis Maurice Mason, a 67-­year-­old struggling with diabetes and a four-­decade cocaine addiction, died on March 8, 2024, in Baltimore’s jail system. Despite his deteriorating health, a judge had set his bail unaffordably high, effectively signing his death warrant.

Mason’s struggles began with a Valentine’s Day arrest on petty theft ...

A Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) guard was fired and arrested on May 25, 2024, for allegedly letting three August State Medical Prison (ASMP) prisoners into the cell of a fourth to carry out an assault, during which the intended victim killed one of his attackers.

Prisoners Brendon Moore, 37, and ...

by Douglas Ankney

After a federal court found its provision of healthcare and mental health care to all state prisoners was “plainly, grossly inadequate,” Arizona settled a suit over one prisoner’s suicide on November 11, 2023. In the agreement, the state promised to pay $40,000 to Julie Georgatos to settle ...

The death of Illinois prisoner Michael Broadway, 51, during a heatwave on June 19, 2024, has focused attention on squalid conditions at Stateville Correctional Center. Windows remained unopened and no working fan was provided at the un-­air-­conditioned lockup, according to family attorney Terah Tollner.

But problems at the century-­old prison ...

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held on November 15, 2023, that a lower court erred in assuming that a group of Virginia prisoners proceeded in forma pauperis (IFP) when they sued federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Daniel I. Werfel for COVID-­19 stimulus ...

New Mexico’s Santa Fe County was hit with another suit in October 2023 over a detainee’s drug-­related death at the county jail, just over a year after agreeing to pay $787,500 to the father of a young woman who died at the jail under similar circumstances. The more recent suit ...

by Douglas Ankney

Of the many hurdles prisoners and jail detainees face, the statute of limitations for a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is among the first. Now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has made it even harder to clear, with a decision on ...

The leading cause of death among people held in local jails is suicide. The family of Christopher Lapp, 62, learned that the hard way when he killed himself at Virginia’s Alexandria Adult Detention Center in 2021, while being held on federal bank robbery and armed carjacking charges. Almost three years ...

by David M. Reutter

On August 30, 2023, a Florida court entered final judgment awarding $6 million to the estate of a detainee who died at Santa Rosa County Jail (SRCJ) from pneumonia left untreated by employees of the jail’s medical contractor, Armor Correctional Health Services. The jury that made ...

by Douglas Ankney

As a teen in the South, I often heard it said: “Being poor ain’t no sin.” But apparently it has become illegal. According to a report from the Vera Institute of Justice, Kentucky’s courts charge myriad fees and fines to plug budgets riddled with holes by the ...

by David M. Reutter

After a Nevada Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoner was blinded by guards using birdshot rounds, the state Board of Examiners (BOE) approved a $2.25 million settlement on September 12, 2023. A separate agreement reached just weeks earlier on August 28, 2023, cost the state another $1.6 ...

On January 24, 2024, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling and remanded the medical malpractice complaint of state prisoner Edward Zaragoza against Wexford of Indiana LLC, the privately contracted medical provider for the state Department of Corrections (DOC).

Zaragoza was a confidential informant with the Tippecanoe County ...

Missouri’s Department of Corrections (DOC) is fighting hard to keep details secret about the departure of five employees—including a prison warden—after the brutal death of prisoner Othel Moore at Jefferson City Correctional Center on December 8, 2023.

A cellphone search reportedly led the unnamed guards on a Corrections Emergency Response ...

On January 25, 2024, the Texas Bar Association issued a probated suspension to Starr County District Attorney Gocha A. Ramirez, after finding he “sought to pursue criminal homicide charges against an individual for acts clearly not criminal” when he jailed Lizelle Herrera, 26, on a $500,000 bond in April 2022 ...

On January 3, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s grant of qualified immunity (QI) to guards who left North Carolina prisoner Jordan Andrew Jones to eat with feces-­soiled hands. However, the Court said that his transfer after he filed complaints about the ...

by Douglas Ankney

On December 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of Alaska reversed dismissal of a state prisoner’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) against officials with the state Department of Corrections (DOC) who admitted improperly holding him in segregation for 504 days, 335 of which—over 11 months—were ...

by Douglas Ankney

On January 23, 2024, the Washington Court of Appeals sent the case of a state prisoner back to the trial court that convicted him of second-­degree domestic violence rape and assault, finding the counts must be dismissed or retried because officials at the jail where he was ...

by David M. Reutter

On October 17, 2023, Michigan State Police (MSP) paid $11 million to settle claims by former state prisoner Ray McCann, Jr., 57, after a jury awarded him $14.5 million for his wrongful conviction on a perjury charge related to the investigation into the sexual assault and ...

At New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex on May 3, 2024, a guard’s body-­worn camera (BWC) malfunctioned and ignited, leaving the unnamed captain suffering burns and smoke inhalation. The city’s Department of Correction (DOC) then suspended use of nearly 3,500 BWCs in use by guards.

The devices provide crucial ...

On February 8, 2024, the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California declined to dismiss all the claims brought by the family of a San Diego Jail detainee who died in custody of drug withdrawal while under the care of the lockup’s contracted medical provider, Correctional Healthcare Partners ...

On June 27, 2024, California’s General Assembly voted to put a measure on the November 2024 ballot that would amend the state constitution to prohibit any kind of slavery. Current California law mirrors the Thirteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution in making an exception to its slavery ban for those ...

The Nevada Board of Medical Examiners confirmed on February 23, 2024, that the medical director for the state Department of Corrections (DOC) lacked a license to practice medicine within the state. Dr. Kenneth L. Williams, former medical director of Tennessee’s DOC, was hired by Nevada DOC Director James Dzurenda in ...

by Emily Widra

Despite the common refrain that jails and prisons are “de facto treatment facilities,” most prioritize punitive mail scanning policies and strict visitation rules that fail to prevent drugs from entering facilities while providing little to no access to treatment and healthcare.

Jails and prisons are often described ...

Warden Terrance Watt was placed on administrative leave by the Mississippi Department of Corrections after his Chief of Security at Winston-­Choctaw Regional Correctional Facility was picked up on smuggling charges on July 11, 2024.

Nikita Carter, 35, was arrested and charged with 12 counts of furnishing contraband to a prisoner, ...

Georgia executed Willie Pye, 59, on March 20, 2024, despite last-­minute appeals questioning his mental competency and the adequacy of his legal representation. The execution sharpened debate over capital punishment in the treatment of intellectually disabled prisoners.

Pye was convicted of the 1993 murder of former girlfriend Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. ...

Maryland prisoners with misdemeanor marijuana convictions had them erased as of June 18, 2024, when Gov. Wes Moore (D) issued pardons for every state misdemeanor conviction for possession of pot or related paraphernalia.

The pardons will not release any prisoners; the misdemeanor convictions carried short sentences that have all now ...

Having granted release to a whopping 3% of eligible state prisoners so far in 2024—that’s 25 parole grants out of 792 hearings—the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) likely surprised no one when it denied release to Frederick Bishop on March 9, 2024. But the callousness with which BPP ...

by David M. Reutter

Citing Alabama’s “bad track record of botched executions,” death row prisoner David P. Wilson, 41, filed a civil rights action on February 15, 2024, alleging that the state’s intended use of nitrogen hypoxia to execute him constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Struggling to obtain necessary drugs ...

On January 9, 2024, the Supreme Court of South Carolina held that a prisoner detained while awaiting proceedings to revoke community supervision must receive credit for time served prior to the revocation becoming final.

Stacardo Grissett was released from prison, where he had been held for an unspecified offense, and ...

by Douglas Ankney

Colorado lawmakers wasted little time in this year’s session before killing Senate Bill 12 (SB 12) on February 7, 2024. Though the state has one of the country’s highest recidivism rates—about 50%—the one-­year pilot program that would provide up to $3,000 in conditional cash assistance upon release ...

by David M. Reutter

A dustup between Republican politicians landed in Florida’s Charlotte County Circuit Court on February 15, 2024, when presiding Judge Lisa Porter reserved ruling on disclosure of grand jury proceedings that resulted in no indictments against state prison guards in the 2014 beating death of prisoner Matthew ...

Alabama: On June 24, 2024, Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith told the Birmingham News that county jail guard Tony Dewayne Jackson, 29, had been arrested for smuggling “non-­drug” contraband into the lockup. Jackson was no longer working at the jail, but Smith didn’t say how or when his employment ended. ...

Hours after Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny died in prison on February 16, 2024, anti-­government hackers took revenge, breaching information systems of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) and posting personal data of some 800,000 prisoners online. Prices at prison system commissaries were also altered, lowering items that had retailed ...