Oklahoma City—California inmates sent to the private prison North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, are suing Corrections Corporation of America, claiming its prison uses poorly trained guards, reports The Oklahoman. The lawsuit further claims that “’reckless understaffing’ are to blame for the ‘severe and permanent physical and mental injuries’ suffered by four inmates.”
New York City—About 40 percent of inmates in Rikers Island have some kind of mental illness, reports The Associated Press. An independent review of the mental health standards found in some cases mentally ill inmates were placed in solitary confinement for thousands of days at a time, which increased the rate of violence inside the jail.
Illinois—State lawmakers are considering whether to impose a minimum of three years in prison for unlawful possession of loaded weapons, reports The Los Angeles Times.
Tallahassee—A year after the state shut down prisons, they must be reopened because of the increasing inmate population. Prison officials are seeking nearly $60 million to open two prisons, five work camps and two reentry facilities.
Tulsa, Oklahoma—During the last 10 years, the percent of jail booking for warrants issued for failure to pay court fines and fees has more than tripled, according to Tulsa World. The highest percentage of inmates taken into custody for failure to pay was July 2013 at 29 percent, which factored into the problem of overcrowding in the jail, a sheriff’s spokesperson said.
Louisville, Kentucky—Whether a group of 25 supervisors at the Marion Adjustment Center in St. Mary’s should be paid overtime is scheduled to go to trial in 2014, reports The Republic. The group claims that the private prison “forced them to work extra hours, denied them meal and rest breaks and refused to pay overtime.”
St. Louis—Gov. Jay Nixon stopped the execution of Allen Nicklasson on Oct. 23 after a doctors’ protest “along with threats from the anti-death penalty European Union to limit the export” of the anesthetic propofol, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Nixon ordered prison officials to find another lethal injection protocol and instructed the state attorney general to set a new execution date for Nicklasson.
Phoenix, Arizona—If the state’s supreme court approves the next two scheduled execution, the seven executions this year would match the most since instituting the death penalty in 1910, reports the Huffington Post. Nationwide there were 43 executions in 13 states.
Pennsylvania—The state’s Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that juveniles serving mandatory life without the possibility of parole would not be able to apply a recent U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision banning such sentences, if their appeals ran out, reports The Morning Call.
Jackson County, Florida—The private prison company, Geo, is schedule to take over operations of the Graceville Correctional Facility in early 2014, reports the Jackson County Floridian. Another private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America, lost the bid to continue running the prison, which it has run the last three years.
Connecticut—The state’s 18 prisons have gardens that produce more than 35,000 pounds of produce for inmate consumption, reports ABC News. Food is also donated to charities. The program saves taxpayers $20,000 a year.
Virginia—Gov. Bob McDonnell has restored the voting rights of 6,874 Virginians, reports The Sentencing Project. The number includes 1,577 nonviolent felons whose rights were automatically restored. The report finds still around 350,000 disenfranchised Virginians.
Stanford University—Joan Petersilia, PhD, has won the 2014 Stockholm Prize in Criminology for research on prison and community corrections based on offender reentry, reports Stockholm University. Petersilia is credited for providing California policymakers with evidence helping to craft sentencing and corrections after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a population cap on its prisons. Daniel S. Nagin, PhD, Carnegie Mellon University, also received the award for research on the zero-to-negative effects of long prison sentences on recidivism rates. Nagin is credited for providing evidence that supports redirecting resources into programs instead of incarceration.
Los Angeles—The state’s inmate population plan that shifts low-level offenders from doing time in state prisons to county jails has created a shortage of inmate firefighters. In response to the shortage, the Sheriff’s Department is sending 528 offenders doing time in its jail system to fire suppression training, reports the Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
Stockton—More than a dozen organizations, companies, trade unions and education representatives provided awareness booths at a resource fair conducted by a day reporting center for state parolees, reports The Stockton Record. The center opened in 2008 and conducts re-entry services that include substance abuse treatment, job development services, educational services, parenting and housing services, according to the report.
Los Angeles—Five inmates were awarded $740,000 by a federal jury for excessive-force used by sheriff’s deputies in its Men’s Central jail. The lawsuit claimed the deputies “beat and brutalized the inmates, causing injuries ranging up to skull fractures,” reports The Associated Press.
Montgomery, Alabama—The state board of pardons and paroles unanimously agreed to pardon three of the Scottsboro Boys, reports The Montgomery Advertiser. In 1931, nine African-American boys were falsely accused of raping two white women. Full and unconditional pardons were granted to Haywood Patterson, Charlie Weems, and Andy Wright. “This decision will give them a final peace in their graves, wherever they are,” said Sheila Washington, director of the Scottsboro Museum and Cultural Center in Scottsboro, who helped initiate the petition, The Montgomery Advertiser reported.
Harris County, Texas—Transgender offenders will now be housed according to the gender they identify with instead of their biological sex, reports Opposing Views, an on-line news source. Only Chicago’s Cook County and Los Angeles has larger county jails than Harris County, the report states. Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia was interviewed on National Public Radio and said, “The reality is that the federal government is imposing what is called PREA, the Prison Rape Elimination Act. And to get compliant with that particular law, we started to research how we contend with this very vulnerable population…we want to make sure that our attempts to comply with the law are one that makes sense, resolves any issues and prevents us from getting ourselves in court and waste the taxpayers’ money when we could’ve developed a comprehensive policy to contend with this population.” Of the 125,000 detainees in the jail system, Garcia said he does not know how many identify as transgender. However, he said after the new policies are in place, he’ll have a good idea.
