Boston — The Massachusetts high court has struck down mandatory life sentencing for two juvenile offenders, Joseph Donovan, 38, and Frederick Christian, 37. They are scheduled to have parole hearings, reports The Associated Press. Donovan and Christian are among 63 inmates serving juvenile life without parole sentences in the state. They were convicted of felony murder at age 17. Neither was convicted of the actual killing.
Cincinnati — Of the 103 homicides in the greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky regions in 2013, 86 were committed in Cincinnati (75) and Hamilton County outside the city (11), reports Gannett. The city’s 75 murders in 2013 “represent a significant increase over the 53 homicides recorded in the city in 2012.”
Denver — Colorado Corrections Department Executive Director Rick Raemisch said he suffered mental anguish after spending 20 hours in solitary confinement to see what it was like, reports The Wichita Eagle. He said the experience left him “feeling twitchy and paranoid.”
Sacramento — Elwood Lui has been named a compliance officer tasked to make decisions on which inmates to release if California fails to meet a court-ordered inmate population cap for the state prison system, reports The Los Angeles Times.
Denver—Police Chief Robert White said that since recreational marijuana sales became legal last November, the police have cited about one person per day for public pot smoking, reports The Denver Post.
Helena — A nationwide survey shows Montana has one of the highest rates of rapes and sexual assaults in its prison system, reports the Billings Gazette. However, state corrections officials are disputing the report’s methodology.
Harrisburg, Pa. — Mental health services in the state’s 26 prisons is a serious issue, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Twenty-one percent of state prison inmates —more than 10,000 people —receive mental health services, according to department statistics. State prison officials have issued a $91 million contract to a Virginia-based firm for services that have “incentives to reduce the number of misconducts for mentally ill offenders, reduce the number of inmates recommitted to mental health units and lower the number of recommitments to prison residential treatment units,” according to a department statement.
New York — Pay for Success is a new program designed to reduce recidivism or repeat offending by increasing training and employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals, reports The Citizen. The project began last December and “is providing services to 2,000 formerly incarcerated individuals who are considered high risks for reoffending.”
New York — The New York Civil Liberties Union says the state has become the largest prison system in the U.S. to ban the use of disciplinary confinement for minors, reports The New York Times.
Washington, D.C. — The nation’s high court has ruled “states can no longer rely on a fixed IQ score cutoff to decide intellectual competency” in death penalty cases, reports The New York Times. Nationwide, about 30 Death Row inmates are affected by the ruling.
Jackson, Miss. — East Mississippi Correctional Facility, a privately run state prison, has been plagued by problems, reports The New York Times. Erica Goode reports, “When a previous private operator, the GEO Group, left in 2012 after complaints to the state about squalor and lack of medical treatment, hopes rose that conditions would improve. But two years later, advocates for inmates assert that little has changed under the current operator, Management and Training Corporation, a Utah-based company.”
