Prisons
Alabama Prison-Building Plan Cuts the Line to Start Construction Early
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Construction of the two prisons begins a multi-phased endeavor by the state to refurbish their crumbling and controversy-plagues prison system.
Prisons
Federal Bureau of Prisons Abuses Inmate Privacy: Report
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Over the past two years, dozens of facilities across the Federal Bureau of Prisons have adopted policies of photocopying mail and withholding the originals from their recipients, raising novel privacy concerns, an investigation by The Intercept has found.
Prisons
Georgia Prison Reform Can’t Wait for DOJ Probe: State Lawmakers
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Witnesses, including corrections staff, detailed for a Georgia legislative committee a pattern of gross negligence, trauma-inducing behavior, and poor care at facilities across the state. A Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman denied the charges.
Prisons
DOJ to Review Federal Prison Policies on Transgender Inmates
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The transgender leader of an Illinois anti-government militia group has pushed the federal Bureau of Prisons’ policies for transgender inmates into the spotlight.
Reforming the System
Violence Behind Bars: The Hidden Abuse
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Physical and mental abuse should not be part of a prison sentence, even for prisoners whose crimes are heinous, writes an attorney and advocate for prison reform.
Prisons
DOJ to Investigate Abuse in Georgia Prisons, Limit Federal Policing Tactics
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Georgia state prisons could face a consent decree as the Department of Justice limits violent federal policing tactics that have gained notoriety in the past year.
women and justice
Shackling Pregnant Prisoners Should Be Against Federal Law: Paper
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Two scholars argue that restraining incarcerated pregnant women poses health and development risks to both mothers and babies.
Prisons
The World’s Top Jailers: 24 U.S. States
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In its 2021 survey of global incarceration, the Prison Policy Initiative found that the only countries approaching the incarceration rate and ‘violent crime’ rates of individual U.S. states are El Salvador, Panama, Peru, and Turkey.
Prisons
50 Years Since Attica, Has Anything Changed?
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In recent months, prison uprisings in California, Missouri and Indiana have drawn attention to the medical neglect, abusive guards and prolonged isolation that pervades prisons — 50 years after 1,300 men imprisoned in the Attica Correctional Facility came together to demand better conditions.
Justice and Health
COVID Mitigation Efforts in State Prisons Called ‘Shameful Failure’
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The Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) assigned grades to state prison systems that designated their effectiveness in mitigating COVID-19. The results indicate that no state received higher than a “C” — a disturbing conclusion that reflects the reality in prisons, where unsanitary conditions and tightly packed quarters allowed the virus to take hold.