March 25, 2013

College for Inmates Saves Money, Creates Citizens

We are talking common sense here:  a private grant is helping inmates in Ithica, N.Y. take college courses.  The 1996 loss of federal Pell grants has […]
March 23, 2013

Guards Protest Furlough Days

Sequester will furlough W. Va. prison guards, create more danger for them and the inmates.
March 22, 2013

Kicking the Can (er…Inmates) Down the Road

When Gov. Brown decided to empty state prison beds, he shifted the inmates to county jails. Not surprisingly, those jails are now overcrowded and the counties can't pay for the upkeep: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/03/19/alameda-fresno-riverside-counties-hit-with-lawsuits-for-prison-conditions/
March 21, 2013

Maine prisoner bound, gagged, then pepper sprayed

A Maine inmate in solitary confinement spit at a guard after trying to injure himself. Several guards were called in, and the sargeant not only sprayed him but taped the spray into the inmate's face. That officer, first fired, has been reinstated. http://www.pressherald.com/news/prison-captain-fired-but-later-reinstated-after-pepper-spraying-inmate__2013-03-17.html
February 27, 2013

Coerced Confessions Cost Us All

Chicago is focusing on the release of Nicole Harris, who 'confessed' to killing her son after being held 27 hours by police. Today she is free, "after serving seven years of a thirty year sentence. Her conviction in the death of her son, Jaquari, was overturned by a federal appeals court last October and earlier this month the 7th Court of Appeals ordered Harris’s release."
February 26, 2013

TX: Eat Your Eyeballs? But Still Sane Enough for Execution

Andre Thomas is making the news in Texas Tribune. He's on death row, except he's blind after gouging out both eyes and hears God telling him things--like to murder his wife and children, and pluck out his eyes. Texas Ct of Criminal Appeals said "Thomas is “clearly ‘crazy’ but he is also ‘sane’ under Texas law,” because a jury had concluded he knew right from wrong at the time of his crime. Yup.
February 25, 2013

HARVARD Magazine Spotlights Prisons

Bruce Western, Harvard Kennedy School Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, is highlighted both on the cover and the inside story on "The Prison Problem."  "We may have skimped on welfare, but we paid anyway, splurging on police and prisons.  Dollars diverted from education and employment found their way to prison construction."   Perhaps this unusual coverage will help Harvard graduates better understand causes, conditions, and solutions to mass incarceration. March/April 2013, The Harvard Magazine, p. 38-43
February 24, 2013

Calif. Cell Walls A-Tumbling?

California voters accepted Prop. 36, which begins unwinding the massive over-incarceration under the draconian 3-Strikes Law.  "Throughout the entire state, around 2,800 people are eligible for sentence reductions, nearly half of which originate in Los Angeles County. Judge Ryan began receiving request even before voters passed the proposition.
February 23, 2013

Illinois Inmates and Hunger Strike

When you read that inmates have gone on a hunger strike, you have to know conditions are really, really intolerable. They know they’ll be punished with […]
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