Beat up an inmate, or smuggle drugs into Rikers Island, and a correction officer might not be fired, but instead asked to sit in an empty room for eight hours a day, still receiving full pay and benefits.
In a lawsuit filed this week, an inmate at Clinton Correctional Facility claims he was beaten by guards, improperly held in his cell for 23 hours a day, and deprived of water and electricity after the escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat.
Solitary confinement is torture. Confinement in a solitary cell with a cellmate? That my be even worse.
Andre Hatchett was 24 years old when he was convicted of murdering a woman in a Brooklyn park. This week, he was exonerated and set free at the age of 49.
Prison has not been kind to former Subway spokesman-turned-convicted-sex-offender Jared Fogle.
After more than four decades spent alone in a cell measuring six feet by nine feet, Albert Woodfox walked free on Friday, his 69th birthday.
Candie Hailey did a three-year pretrial stint at Rikers Island before facing a jury on charges of attempted murder last year. She spent more than two thirds of that time in solitary confinement, and attempted suicide eight times. When Hailey finally got her day in court, the jury found her not guilty. “I would say…
Last year, the Federal Communications Commission put in place a new set of rules that make it much more difficult for the providers of prison telephone services to charge the bejeezus out of inmates and their families. How might the providers continue with their scam? One shady, anonymous document may provide an…
The good news is that Saudi Arabia has changed its mind about executing a poet for “the contents of his poetry book.” Then there is the bad news.
What happens to a writer who becomes a political prisoner? “I have nothing to say.”
The latest in the New York Times’s string of coverage of the horrors of life inside New York prisons tells the story of an assault on one inmate by another which was architected by guards who sought to punish the victim. During the attack, the victim screamed for help as a guard watched through a cell door and did…
After an order issued by the U.S. general in charge of Guantanamo Bay this month, most psychologists will no longer be employed at the infamous prison. Why? Because the American Psychological Association no longer believes that working where prisoners are held without trial and tortured is ethical, and the general…
The United States incarcerates a sickening and outrageous number of people. Any idea that could mitigate this crisis is worth listening to. Here’s one.
The state of California issued a report this week on conditions at High Desert State Prison. It is a nightmare.
In the New York State prison system, it’s possible to be thrown into solitary confinement for a nonviolent offense, then kept there for two years straight, 23 hours a day with no days off. That’s exactly what happened to Leroy Peoples, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit settled this week that will drastically reduce the…
After the shooting death of NYPD Officer Randolph Holder, New York City’s programs focused on providing offenders with alternatives to prison time have come under new scrutiny, the New York Times reports today. Opponents of these programs are welcome to debate against their merits (they’d be wrong about that too), but…
A foolproof way to feel good about yourself this holiday season is to send a message to a survivor of prison sexual abuse.
If you’re a detainee making a phone call from jail, there’s a good chance your conversation will be recorded in full, logged with your name, and digitally stored in perpetuity—even if you’re talking to your attorney.
Tomorrow is Veterans Day. Spare a thought for the hundreds of veterans currently sitting on death row somewhere in America.
Around 6,000 federal prisoners were scheduled for release this month after a loosening of the harsh mandatory minimum sentences that came with three decades of successful and definitely not futile War on Drugs. It’s the largest single prison release in U.S. history. But, as John Oliver explained on his show Sunday…
