The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/corrections/prisons/)
Pennsylvania cut its prison population by more than a thousand inmates last year, a figure equivalent to the population of one entire state prison. It was the largest year-over-year decrease of inmate population on record, said Gov. Tom Wolf.
A report commissioned by the state found half of South Carolina’s prisons had fewer than 50 percent of the recommended staff. A month after the report was issued, a riot at the Lee Correctional Facility in Bishopville, S.C., left seven dead and 22 injured.
Federal prisoners who were expecting release for good behavior under the First Step Act must keep waiting because of an error in the statute. The law confused ‘good behavior” credits with “earned time” credits, which do not reduce a sentence.
Inmates have been confined in cells “smaller than the average parking space,” and inmates could have only 5 hours each week outside of the cells. One expert said the solitary confinement area was “as chaotic and out-of-control” as any unit he had seen.
Guards are working without pay, and inmates are going without mental-health services. Some inmate visits with families were cancelled and terminally ill prisoners must wait longer for release.
Serious misconduct by senior federal prison officials is “largely tolerated or ignored altogether” as the agency culture shielded some from discipline or even commended them for their service, finds a report for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Following the deaths of four inmates, a federal judge ruled that Virginia’s Fluvanna prison is failing to provide adequate medical care and must make immediate changes to end what amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
The change generally shifts political power away from conservative rural areas to more liberal cities during legislative redistricting. New York and Maryland made the change after the 2010 census, and California and Delaware will start with the next redistricting cycle after the 2020 count.
Georgia pays two private prison companies almost $140 million a year to house 15 percent of its inmate population–double what the state spent on private prisons 12 years ago, according to the audit, which also predicted a rise of more than 1,200 inmates in the next half-decade.
It’s not clear how soon the Bureau of Prisons will implement the new law, which should lead to the quick release of 4,000 prisoners.