Tag: Prison

C.U.R.E. National Action Alert: Bring down unjust, expensive prison phone rates

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Source: Charlie Sullivan of  curenational.org I am asking that you help bring down prison phone rates to help families of the incarcerated by doing these two things: (1) Ask your two members of the Senate to co-sponsor Senate Bill 1541. It is called the “Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2021” This capitol phone number will get you to your senators: 202-224-3121 If you prefer to email, click here to find your senators. Type the name of your state in the search field above the list of senators (not…

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FL: DoC is Planning to Charge people in prison to Receive Mail

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Orlando Sentinel, May 29 FDC will hold a public hearing June 11 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time Officials with the Florida Department of Corrections plan to almost completely digitize mail sent to state prisons by photocopying every card, letter or picture and providing it instead electronically to incarcerated people — a change that families and prison reform advocates argue could create more hurdles for maintaining connections with people in prison, as well as add additional burdens and costs to them and their loved ones. The plan, which was announced this…

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CA: Aryan Brotherhood defendant says guards at Sacramento prison conspired to kill inmates

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[sacbee.com – 4/20/21] Lawyers for an Aryan Brotherhood inmate held at California State Prison, Sacramento, have stepped up their efforts to have their client moved to a new facility, filing new allegations that guards there have been involved in killing inmates and planted evidence against others. … Other evidence shows that officers provided the inmates committing the homicide false information that Aguilar was a child sex offender, knowing that the information would cause him to be targeted for murder. After the killing, officers are believed to have falsely reported that…

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California ordered to halve San Quentin population after showing ‘deliberate indifference,’ court says

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[yahoo.com – 10/23/20] OAKLAND, Calif. — A state appellate court has ordered San Quentin State Prison to halve its inmate population, which would require transferring or releasing some 1,700 inmates. The ruling from the state’s First Court of Appeals sends a clear message that officials overseeing San Quentin have not done enough to protect inmates from the coronavirus after a summer outbreak. “We agree that respondents — the Warden and CDCR — have acted with deliberate indifference and relief is warranted,” the court said in its opinion. The court ordered…

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Sacramento Caravan: #SayTheirNames & Bring Our Loved Ones Home on Thursday, August 13

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[#SayTheirNames] On Thursday, August 13 there will be a #SayTheirNames action at the CA Capitol Building followed by a car caravan to CDCR and a candlelight vigil at night to honor lives lost. For details, read this Facebook page, and click on the graphic at the top of the page. For a schedule, scroll down the Facebook page. Demand a #MoratoriumOnCovidBehindBars: * HONOR the lives of those who have died from COVID-19 behind bars. * EXPOSE how the state continues to threaten the lives of incarcerated people in overcrowded prisons.…

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CA: COVID-19 is a death sentence for many California prisoners. Gov. Gavin Newsom must act

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In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a death penalty moratorium in California. Will it matter? The COVID-19 outbreak unfolding at San Quentin State Prison – and in other jail and prison facilities around the state – may impose death sentences on people who never received them from the courts. As of Wednesday, over 1,100 of San Quentin’s 3,000 inmates had tested positive for the virus and one had died. Dozens were hospitalized, but hospitals had started to reject further transfers from the prison, according to the Marin Independent-Journal. The problem…

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Prison phone companies are profiting from a pandemic, here’s how the FCC can help

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[thehill.com – 4/21/20] These days, most of us are staying in touch with our loved ones by phone calls or video chats. A single phone call costs us nearly nothing, a video chat requires only a Wi-Fi connection. But for millions of people, it isn’t so easy. As jails and prisons suspend in-person visits, most incarcerated people and their families are paying outrageously high costs to simply stay connected. The Federal Bureau of Prisons just made voice and video visitation free in its 122 prisons, and while noteworthy, this isn’t enough to ensure…

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Epstein might not have been killed, but sex offenders’ prison deaths often are ‘choreographed’ | Opinion

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[miamiherald.com – 8/12/19] Many people aren’t buying the official “suicide” story from the Manhattan Correctional Complex that housed financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on suicide watch until late July. Theories that Epstein was murdered to protect any number of political cabals are widespread on social media. President Trump has suggested that Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved and the Resistance is convinced that someone offed Epstein to protect the president. That dead men tell no tales is a seductive explanation for Epstein’s expiration, but it ignores correctional reality.…

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AR: Convicted Sex Offenders: Serving Full Sentences Rather Than Getting Out Early on Parole

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[nwahomepage.com – 7/17/18] BENTONVILLE, Ark. (KFTA) — Benton County detectives say more convicted sex offenders are choosing to serve their entire sentences than get out early on parole. “We have more people going flat now in prison than coming out so they’re not on paper,” said Detective Paul Newell. Two detectives at the Benton County Sheriff’s office dedicate their time solely to tracking and checking up with sex offenders. Detective Newell says many sex offenders are eligible for parole after serving 1/6 of their time in jail, but now many…

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Sex Registries as Modern-Day Witch Pyres

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[injusticetoday.com]   Perhaps the most irrefutable statement that can be made about modern day America is this: we have a penchant for putting people in cages. More than any other nation on the planet, we rely on incarceration as the fix for our social ills. America’s unprecedented prison boom spawned advocates who work tirelessly to put the police state toothpaste back into the tube. As a result, despite a steady media diet of cops and robbers police procedurals, the rhetoric on crime policy has begun to shift. The country appears…

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Report: Alarming abuses seen at remote California prison

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Guards at an isolated state prison have created a “culture of racism,” engage in alarming use of force against inmates and have a code of silence encouraged by the union that represents most corrections officers, the California inspector general said Wednesday. The scathing report calls for management and other changes at High Desert State Prison in the northeast corner of the state. More broadly, the report finds rising violence statewide in special housing units designed to protect vulnerable inmates, including sex offenders, gang dropouts and prisoners with…

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The FCC Just Voted to Reduce the Exorbitant Cost of Prison Phone Calls

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A long campaign to reduce the exorbitant sums that inmates are charged to speak to friends and family on the phone just notched a major victory, with the Federal Communications Commission voting 3–2 to aggressively regulate an industry that until recently was, in the words of the Prison Policy Initiative’s Peter Wagner, “a dark little backwater of telecommunication that the FCC was not paying attention to.” Full Article

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Campaign: Keep CCA out of Dallas

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Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is trying to move into Dallas. Let’s say no! Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, makes a huge profit off of locking up people and even entire immigrant families. Now, this deplorable company with a history of inhumane treatment and a plethora of human rights violations has set its sights on winning an 80 YEAR contract with Dallas County. Several years ago, CCA was kicked out of Dallas after repeated violence and ignorance of human suffering occurred at Dawson State Jail (nicknamed Texas’ Worst Jail).…

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Many sex offenders killed in California prison

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Shortly after 2 a.m. on April 6, 2010, a guard at Salinas Valley State Prison noticed ____ ____’s cellmate trying to stuff something under a mattress. It was ____, blood trickling from his mouth and a cloth noose tied around his neck. The convicted child molester died 10 days later without regaining consciousness, his death earning his cellmate a second life sentence. California state prisoners are killed at a rate that is double the national average — and sex offenders like ____ account for a disproportionate…

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UT: Sex offenders driving up prison population

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Prison populations around the country have been in steady decline for the past 10 years. In Utah, it’s a different story. The number of men and women in the state’s prison system has continued to rise, with the highest drivers being nonviolent criminals and sex offenders, who are staying in longer and taking up more beds than ever before, according to data collected by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Sex offenders now take up 42 percent more beds than they did 10 years ago, making them the largest group inside the…

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