1. SPRINGFIELD, Ill –Three prison inmates are asking a federal judge to order prison officials to improve the living conditions at the minimum-security Vienna Correctional Center in southern Illinois. The suit says many of the nearly 1,900 Vienna prisoners live in moldy, cockroach- and mouse-infested quarters with insufficient bathroom facilities. It also says some broken windows were boarded up, rather than replaced, according to reports by The Illinoisan.
2. Pennsylvania — Gov. Tom Corbett signed legislation that would send nonviolent, addicted offenders to facilities that would treat their addiction problems at the local level, reports The Patriot News.
3. BOSTON — State legislators passed a bill that, if signed by the governor, would require offenders who commit a third serious felony to face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
4. PRUNTYTOWN, W.Va. — The starting salary for a full-time West Virginia correctional officer is $22,584 — $500 less than Mississippi — and about $800 below the federal poverty level for a family of four, reports the Associated Press.
5. SAN FRANCISCO — The city’s Adult Probation Department reports it processed 3,318 cases last year. Sixty percent of the offenders did not go to jail. In 2010, 54 percent of the offenders went to jail.
6. WASHINGTON — Employers could be guilty of discriminating if they use criminal histories to deny jobs, the Employment Opportunity Commission says. They cannot use arrest records in hiring decisions because “arrests are not proof of criminal conduct.” An employer can exclude applicants with criminal convictions provided it can demonstrate that the exclusion is job-related.
7. AUSTIN, Texas — With 21 of 111 Texas prisons fully air-conditioned, two lawsuits were filed because of heat-related deaths between 2008 and 2011. One suit claims the indoor temperature of a dorm reached a high of 134 degrees during the summer of 2008, according to The New York Times.
8. Alabama — State officials say there are about 26,500 inmates in its prison system, which is designed for only 13,000. The inmate-to-staff ratio is about 11-to-1, more than twice the national average of 5-to-1, according to The Montgomery Advertiser. State officials say they are concerned the overcrowding may lead to more violence.
9. FLORENCE, Arizona — Samuel Villegas Lopez, 49, was executed in June by lethal injection for the rape and murder of a 59-year-old woman in 1987. He was the fourth Arizona inmate executed this year and the 32nd since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1992. Twenty-three people were executed in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
10. LOS ANGELES — Chief U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii ruled George Souliotes, 72, convicted of setting a fire that killed his tenant and her two children, has shown “actual innocence” and may now challenge his conviction on other grounds. Ishii examined the evidence against Souliotes and concluded the evidence was insufficient to prove he is guilty of the charges.
11. HARTFORD, Conn. — New state legislation would allow the state’s sickest prisoners to be transferred to a nursing home beginning early next year. State officials said the transfers would save millions of dollars in health care costs, according an Associated Press report.
12. BOISE, Idaho — The state’s overcrowding problem has prison officials planning to send 250 male prisoners to a Corrections Corporation of America facility in Colorado, according to The Associated Press. If the prison population keeps growing, plans are to ship an additional 200 inmates out-of-state, the AP report says.
13. BATON ROUGE, La. — State officials are closing the Forcht-Wade Correctional Center in the Caddo Parish community of Keithville and the J. Levy Dabadie Correctional Center at Pineville in Rapides Parish, according to The Associated Press. State officials say the cost-cutting closures are allowed because many prisoners will soon be released.
14. BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — “Children and families are the unintended consequences of the criminal justice system,” says Steve Lanza, executive director of Family ReEntry, which includes the Champions Mentoring Program begun in 2003 to provide support for some of the approximately 3,000 children affected by incarceration in the state.
15. AKRON, Ohio — Dewey Jones was granted a new trial after authorities discovered that the DNA on a rope and knife used to murder a 71-year-old retiree matched another person. Jones was convicted of the murder/robbery in 1995, according to The Associated Press.
16. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Gov. Jay Nixon signed legislation that would send nonviolent offenders to treatment facilities instead of prison, according to The Associated Press.
17. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Prosecutors dropped the case against Andre Davis after DNA showed he was not the person who raped and killed a 3-year-old girl. Hours later, he was released from prison, according to The Associated Press.
18. COLUMBUS, Ohio — State lawmakers approved the first three inmates for a program intended to assist ex-offenders find jobs once released from prison. Inmates with good behavior who have completed vocational programs, earned high school diplomas and performed at least 120 hours of community service are eligible, according to The Associated Press.
19. ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Lonnie Erby served 17 years in prison for the sexual assault of two teenage girls in 1985. DNA cleared him in 2003, and this year another man was convicted for those crimes, according to The Associated Press.
20. LOS ANGELES — County officials are considering sending some prisoners to San Joaquin Valley to ease jail overcrowding, according to The Associated Press. More than 5,000 inmates have been shifted to Los Angeles County jails since the state implemented its state prison population reduction plan. Sheriff’s officials say space will likely run out by Christmas. There are now 18,600 inmates in the jail system, according to the AP report.
21. DALLAS – Texas officials have switched to a single drug for executions, reports The Associated Press. Officials said they would use pentobarbital instead of a three-drug combination.
22. SACRAMENTO—Hollywood producer Scott Budnick has been named California prisons “Volunteer of the Year.” Gov. Jerry Brown said Budnick was selected for his “marked devotion” to helping California inmates get a higher education. Corrections Secretary, Mathew Cate said, “Scott Budnick has gone above and beyond, giving hundreds of young offenders a chance to trade a seemingly hopeless path of crime that landed them in the criminal justice system for a path of opportunity.”
