by Sam Rutherford

As PLN reported, the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) has for many years outsourced its constitutional obligation to provide healthcare to those it confines, contracting the service from private, for-profit corporations. The terrible cost of this arrangement to prisoners’ health—not to mention $8 million in lawsuit settlement ...

by Paul Wright

The December 2024 issue of PLN reported on litigation payouts by New Mexico medical contractor Centurion and detailed the 13 prisoners who died at their hands as well as the dozens more who were seriously injured from denials of medical care. It took PLN almost 3 years ...

The troubled federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) lost Director Collette Peters on January 20, 2025, when she resigned just as incoming Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) was sworn into to office. Peters held the job for just 30 months, and her replacement will be the agency’s sixth director since Trump ...

On November 20, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned a lower appellate ruling that found holding a jury trial in a jail courtroom violated a defendant’s right to a presumption of innocence. The Court reasoned that a jail trial was prejudicial “only if jurors must necessarily interpret it ...

Texas prisoner Michael Garrett has been fighting the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) for a good night’s sleep since 2013. His case has twice gone before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, after the district court denied his claims. The Court’s most recent ruling resuscitating ...

In a letter of inquiry submitted on January 3, 2025, San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey (D) called for “mass arrests” of addicts and their incarceration in “drug jails,” where they would be forced to take medication assisted treatment (MAT). Dorsey had no recommendation for how to fund his ...

On November 26, 2024, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) dismissed David Duncan, the head of the state Independent Death Penalty Review committee that she appointed in January 2023 to review execution procedures after a series of state killings that Hobbs called “botched.”

But when executions resume, there will be no ...

In a report published on August 27, 2024, the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, Senior Editor Brian Nam-Sonenstein and University of Minnesota Researcher Eric Seligman tackled one of the primary arguments used by politicians over the past 30 years to locate new state prisons in rural areas. The promise was that ...

On October 25, 2024, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) announced that it tapped $1.3 million from its Incarcerated Individual Betterment Fund (IIBF)—money that had not been spent, the agency added. Funded 90% by kickbacks from prisoner phone calls provided by Securus Technologies, IIBF has grown to $12 million, even ...

On October 3, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit told a federal prisoner in Georgia that he could not hold the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) liable for damages caused by actions and inactions of its employees. The prisoner, LaQuan Johnson, had asked for an ...

In July 2024, Kittitas County Jail (KCJ) became the first in Washington to implement OverWatch, a wearable device produced by 4Sight Labs that monitors detainee vital signs and alerts jailers to medical emergencies. Jail officials claim it will prevent deaths, but critics say that invasive surveillance is no substitute for ...

by Douglas Ankney

As PLN reported 25 years ago, the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) was accused in a suit filed by attorneys with the Legal Aid Society of denying educational opportunities to young people incarcerated at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex. [See: PLN, May 2000, ...

by David M. Reutter

The City of Philadelphia agreed on November 3, 2023, to pay $9.1 million to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by Walter Ogrod, 59, a former state prisoner exonerated of murder and released after more than 28 years of wrongful incarceration—including 23 years on death row. ...

by Matt Clarke

On June 5, 2024, the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) filed a notice of settlement in court indicating that it paid $135,000 to settle a prisoner’s lawsuit accusing a guard of intentionally allowing other prisoners into his cell so they could assault him.

In October 2020, Kevin ...

The United States Navy exonerated 256 former prisoners on July 17, 2024, all of them Black sailors convicted of refusing to return to work after a deadly 1944 explosion at the Port Chicago naval weapons station in San Francisco.

On the night of July 17, 1944, some 3.5 million armaments ...

The Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) incarcerates more people—nearly 87,000—than all but two other states. Yet only 100 of them have been identified as transgender and provided hormone therapy. So it was unclear what motivated the announcement of a major policy change on September 30, 2024.

That’s when transgender state ...

Two South Carolina prisoners were sentenced on December 10, 2024, for their roles in a riot that killed seven fellow prisoners and injured 20 more. They were the most recent of 20 prisoners sentenced so far for convictions on charges stemming from the uprising, the worst in any U.S. prison ...

A group of Florida prisoners held at Dade Correctional Institution near Miami sued the state Department of Corrections (DOC) on October 31, 2024, alleging that sweltering conditions were leading to serious health risks and deaths.

Filed by attorneys with the Florida Justice Institute, the complaint highlighted extreme heat inside the ...

As of November 26, 2024, more than 250 Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prisoners were on the wait list for a re-entry class offered at nine state prisons near Huntsville by Lee Community College in Baytown.

The six-week course is popular not only among prisoners enrolled in the college’s ...

by Anthony W. Accurso

With signing of a settlement agreement on September 11, 2024, Ohio’s Richland County was on the hook for $220,000 to the estate of detainee Maggie Copeland, who died while experiencing withdrawal symptoms at the County lockup on Mother’s Day in May 2022. Under a separate agreement ...

On June 26, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit partially vacated a summary judgment dismissal of a Wisconsin prisoner’s civil rights suit alleging that prison officials left him in a cell contaminated with feces and other incapacitating agents. The prisoner also alleged that medical staff ...

by Matthew Thomas Clarke

On June 17, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided a civil rights complaint brought by former St. Louis jail detainee Michael Jones, who was held eight months longer after his charges were dismissed. Despite the outrageous government conduct in his case, ...

Facing persistent and critical short staffing, commissioners in Minnesota’s Hennepin County voted on December 3, 2024, to spend $5.4 million to ship 266 of over 800 detainees from the county jail to lockups in other Minnesota counties. The state Department of Corrections (DOC) had given Sheriff Dewanna Witt until December ...

by Douglas Ankney

On June 18, 2024, the United States Court for the Northern District of California approved a series of settlements totaling $1 million that resolved a civil rights suit brought by the survivors of Carlos Chavez, whose suicide at the Monterey County Jail (MCJ) they blamed on guard ...

Michigan prisoners considered medically frail now have a better chance of early release under a newly amended law. On July 23, 2024, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed Senate Bill 599 and expanded the definition of “medically frail” in a 2019 statute that allows the Michigan Parole Board to release prisoners ...

On November 1, 2024, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized a rule change that updates the definition of who is “in custody” and therefore ineligible for Medicare health coverage. As of that date, those under community supervision—including those released on bail, probation and parole, as well ...

by Douglas Ankney

On June 17, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to Defendant Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) officials who forced a prisoner to wear paper undershorts and then shrugged when the prison supply that was his size ...

On December 17, 2024, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) issued a proposed rule change to its Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (IFRP), outlining how much of a federal prisoner’s trust account may be garnished to satisfy restitution and other court-ordered payments. The new rule came after BOP received over 1,300 ...

by Matt Clarke

In June 2024, the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) ranked world incarceration rates as if each state in the United States was a separate country. The shocking but sadly unsurprising result: All states placed near the top of the list, with incarceration rates that far exceeded those ...

As previously reported in PLN, hearing-impaired prisoner Ernest Trivette filed suit against the Tennessee Department of Corrections (DOC) in March 2020, accusing the prison system of failing to accommodate his disability. [See: PLN, Jan. 2024, p.17.] That suit has since become a class-action, in which on July 9, 2024, the ...

by Sam Rutherford

On July 18, 2024, a physician assistant employed by the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) complied with an order to surrender his medical license by the state’s medical commission, which accused him of multiple instances of incompetent and negligent care of prisoners who were his patients.

Richard ...

On December 5, 2024, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), PLN’s non-profit publisher, in conjunction with attorneys from Loevy & Loevy in Chicago, filed a federal civil rights suit on behalf of Tony Hopps, who was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned in Florida for 31 years. One of the suit’s most ...

On July 25, 2024, Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D) signed into law the Federal Prison Oversight Act, now codified at 5 U.S.C. § 413. The law takes effect 90 days after appropriations are made available by Congress to implement and carry out the Act.

The Act requires the Office of ...

In an interview on September 27, 2024, former New Zealand prisoner Ricky Wakelin, 42, described the “lightbulb moment” when he learned about Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD)—intense anger, shame and anxiety triggered by real or perceived criticism—that often accompanies Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

“I didn’t get a high,” he ...

On January 31, 2024, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) agreed to pay a former prisoner and her family $9.9 million for failing to diagnose and treat her uterine cancer, leaving the disease to spread and become terminal. Unfortunately, while the settlement amount is unique, the agency’s failure to properly ...

On December 18, 2024, Indiana ended a 15-year execution hiatus with a fatal injection of pentobarbital given to state prisoner Joseph Corcoran, 49. Though state law does not provide for journalists to witness executions, Corcoran’s family invited an Indiana Capital Chronicle reporter to join them as a guest in one ...

by Ilica Mahajan and Rachel Dissell

Court officials informally changed their bail-setting practices for felony cases. Now, fewer people have to pay to get out of jail, a Marshall Project analysis shows.

n recent years, the Cuyahoga County court system has drastically cut its use of cash bail. That ...

On July 12, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held the City of Philadelphia in contempt of a 2022 settlement in which its Department of Prisons (PDP) agreed to improve conditions for city detainees and prisoners. The Court also ordered the city to deposit ...

On December 18, 2024, Louisiana State Police (LSP) arrested Elayn Hunt Correctional Center prisoner Broderick Scott, 48, on charges that he operated a large-scale sports gambling operation from his cell. LSP said that a year-long investigation had identified over 30,000 transactions on Cash App related to the scheme, which dated ...

In an important decision on February 6, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that an Ohio prisoner’s federal civil rights claims against state prison employees for interfering with his legal mail were not barred when he filed a suit in state court based on ...

by Douglas Ankney

On July 8, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to Defendant officials at Virginia’s Hampton Roads Regional Jail (HRRJ) in a detainee’s suit alleging that they manhandled him while he was restrained in handcuffs.

Johnnie R. ...

On December 3, 2024, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco issued a directive updating suicide prevention protocols and improving mental health assessments for federal prisoners and detainees. The reforms apply to the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and they are part of a larger ...

The Supreme Court of Minnesota held on June 20, 2024, that a state Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoner plausibly stated a claim under the Minnesota Tort Claims Act (TCA) when he alleged that a guard sexually harassed and assaulted him.

Nicholas Sterry filed a civil TCA claim in March 2021, ...

by Douglas Ankney

On July 2, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the grant of summary judgment to one of several North Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC) officials accused by a prisoner of failing to protect him from violence from other prisoners.

In 2004, ...

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders (R) announced on December 27, 2024, that the state Department of Corrections (DOC) had added 1,500 beds to ease overcrowding in state prisons. Sanders crowed that she had “stopped kicking the can down the road.” But at least 266 of the new beds were found in ...

In March 2024, the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) agreed to settle a retaliation lawsuit filed by PLN contributing writer Mark Wilson, paying him $50,000 and vacating a prior prison disciplinary finding. Less than a year later, on January 9, 2025, Wilson, 55, was released from prison serving nearly 36 ...

by Matt Clarke

On July 11, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) approved an agreement with Michigan’s Wayne County that promised to improve conditions at its jail in Detroit for prisoners with physical and mental disabilities. The County also agreed to hire an expert consultant to assist in implementation ...

On June 7, 2024, officials in Florida’s Marion County agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a suit filed by the survivors of Scott L. Whitley III, 46, a diagnosed schizophrenic who died naked and Tasered under a pile-on by guards at the County Jail on November 25, 2022. The County ...

At a status conference in federal court for the District of Alaska on December 9, 2024, prosecutors obtained a six-month continuance for “voluminous discovery and scheduling” in the case of Heraclio Sanchez Rodriguez, a California state prisoner who allegedly managed to run a drug-trafficking network from his cell at Salinas ...

On November 29, 2024, Malik Muhammad, 25, ended a nine-day hunger strike protesting nearly 250 days that he was held in solitary confinement at the Oregon State Penitentiary. His time in solitary exceeded the state Department of Corrections’ (DOC) policy limiting such isolation to no more than 90 days.

Muhammad ...

by Matt Clarke

On June 18, 2024, the New York Supreme Court for Albany County found that the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) routinely violated Correctional Law § 137(6)(k)(ii), the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act, by subjecting prisoners to solitary confinement that exceeded statutory limits ...

In a Notice of Claim filed against New York City and its Department of Correction (DOC) on November 26, 2024, lawyers for disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein said that their client has suffered at least $5 million in damages from shoddy healthcare and lousy conditions since being confined in the ...

Because incoming Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) vowed during his campaign to launch “the largest deportation operation in American history,” the stocks of private prison companies, including The GEO Group and CoreCivic, spiked after his election victory on November 5, 2024. Within 24 hours, GEO Group’s stock ticked up 42% ...

On December 25, 2024, Ohio prisoner Rashawn Cannon, 27, was accused of killing Ross Correctional Institution guard Andrew Lansing, 62. Annette Chambers-Smith, Director of the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC), said that Cannon veered off from a group headed to the dining hall and found Lansing alone in ...

A mid an investigation into complaints about prisoner medical care, the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) put two top healthcare officials on leave on December 5, 2024. Assistant Director of Health Services Joe Bugher and Chief of Medicine Dr. Warren Roberts were sent home, and DOC Assistant Director Heidi Washington ...

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (DOC) confirmed that prisoner Drew Johnson, 33, was back in custody on December 25, 2024, a day after escaping from South Mississippi Correctional Institution. It was the second DOC prisoner escape of the month; Gregory Trigg, 45, escaped from the Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP) on ...

Misdemeanor assault charges were tentatively dismissed in November 2024 against three Connecticut Department of Corrections (DOC) guards accused of assaulting Garner Correctional Institution prisoner Elijah Hamlin, 26, in a 2023 incident captured on leaked cellphone video.

Danbury Superior Court Judge Charles M. Stango allowed the guards to enter a pretrial ...

One of 17 pardons granted by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on November 27, 2024, went to former San Quentin prisoner Earlonne Woods, 53, a host of the popular Ear Hustle podcast that he helped start from his cell in 2017.

Woods was 17 in 1989 when he was sentenced ...

by Matt Clarke

On June 20, 2024, the Wayne County Commission in Detroit approved a $5 million payment on top of $2 million paid by the County’s insurer to settle a lawsuit brought by the estate of a County jail detainee beaten to death by a cellmate, who had a ...

On December 22, 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) ordered 13 state prison guards fired, along with a nurse, all of whom were involved in the fatal beating of state prisoner Robert Brooks, 43. Five days later, on December 27, 2024, state Attorney General Letitia James (D) released video ...

A former South Carolina jailer who cut a plea deal and testified against his former boss is now the only one of the two to be convicted. But David Andrew Cook, 30, will not spend any time behind bars for viciously and repeatedly attacking a detainee with a Taser at ...

As the Santa Ana winds fanned an unprecedented number of wildfires that destroyed or damaged nearly 10,000 Los Angeles homes by January 10, 2025, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said that firefighting crews included 783 state prisoners. They were drawn from more than 1,800 prisoners held in ...

Hours after former Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad fled rebels who then took control of Damascus on December 8, 2024, prisoners were freed from Sednaya Prison, a lockup known as a “human slaughterhouse” where an estimated 30,000 enemies of the al-Assad regime were killed since the onset of civil war in ...

No executions have been carried out by the Tennessee Department of Corrections (DOC) since May 2019, while the state reviewed its three-drug lethal injection protocol. That review was completed on December 27, 2024, when DOC announced a new protocol with just a single drug.

Gov. Bill Lee (R) paused all ...

Alabama: Clarke County Jail guard Larissa Thompson was arrested on December 5, 2024, for plotting to smuggle drugs into the lockup, the Thomasville Times reported. An investigation by state law enforcement, the office of County Sheriff DeWayne Smith, and Jackson Police uncovered evidence that Thompson planned to bring controlled substances ...