September 4, 2013

North Carolina Lawsuit: Add Cameras to Prevent Abuse

Solitary confinement is tough enough, but when guards drag handcuffed inmates around the corners and beat them, N.C. Legal Services says, enough is enough! They have filed suit to force the corrections department to add cameras throughout the halls after eight solitary confinement inmates reported broken bones, smashed ribs, on-going head injuries. Let's agree: enough is enough!
September 3, 2013

How Hot are Texas Prisons? Guards Join Lawsuit

Interior of cars in Texas record 114-120 degrees. What is the interior of prison cells without a.c., without air flow, some without windows? Hot enough to cook inmates, apparently--many have died in the last few years, and now Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice has been sued, and is being sued over prisoner deaths. But wait! It is also being sued by its own prison guard union. After all, those folk are stuck in the same conditions until they get in their air conditioned cars and drive home to (I hope) air conditioned rooms.
September 2, 2013

Prison Rape: Fox to Review the Henhouse

After all the years of pressure, Congress finally passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and now it's supposed to be monitored. Guess who was chosen to investigate how the prisons are cooperating with the law? Yep. American Correction Association--the very folk who run many of the prisons. They are also the group that gets to train personnel in the Act. Oh my! What folly!
August 29, 2013

How Many Female Inmates Does it Take…

In the Tutwiler, AL, prison, women are doubled up and roughed up: there are 793 women in 208 positions. And there are lawsuits everywhere alleging sexual abuse, etc. What there doesn't seem enough of is money--money for security cameras, for instance. Oddly, the legislature took $16 million from the state's Children's Trust Fund to buy the new equipment, but, hey. Improvements take time. What there isn't enough of, also, is time. Abuse continues while the prison officials insist that changing security electronics in the old prison will take until the end of the next year.
August 28, 2013

Terri LeClercq Interviewed Wed. Aug. 28 on KABF

Please join me today, Wed. Aug. 28 at 2 p.m. central, on KABF radio from Little Rock. John Sarna will discuss prison grievances on "It Could Have Been You," and I hope to educate listeners about the technical rules and policies that surround grievance writing.
August 17, 2013

Moving On, Moving Up

An ex-offender and current prison official offers a list of positive ideas for remaining straight and out of prison. She had her mom as back-up; the women she works with frequently have no back-ups at all.
August 12, 2013

Eliminating Shake-Down Teams: Endangering or Acceptable?

California's federal prison, USP Atwood, has eliminated its specialty shake-down teams established after 2008 riots--budget cuts. Union members have appealed to state legislators and the public. Prison officials say the recent uprising that left 3 inmates injured was "an isolated incident" and all officers are trained to perform shake-downs.
August 11, 2013

Idaho Judge to CCA: Open Those Books

So in 2010 CCA was ordered to allow mediation for any new problem within the taxpayer-sponsored prison system. Now CCA says they won't open their books in an inmate driven lawsuit against inadequate staffing and Gladiator School gangs run amuck. CCA contends the lawsuit is frivolous, and filed for personal spite. The ACLU argues differently, as do 17 news organizations. Shine the light in! Thank you, U.S. Judge David Carter.
August 9, 2013

FCC Slams Interstate Prison Rates

The Federal Communication Commission has issued a set of orders governing the rates phone companies and prisons can charge for inmate calls. They set a maximum and a fail-safe amount. They will not allow the cost to reflect kick-backs to prison systems that allow the companies access.
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