For Nearly 50 Years, the Delancey Street Foundation Has Offered an Alternative to Prison.
But Does the Celebrated Program Really Work?
by Julia Lurie, Mother Jones
The headquarters of the Delancey Street Foundation occupies a piece of prime real estate near the base of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, tucked between ...
by Paul Wright
This month’s cover story reports on Delancey Street, the Bay Area Foundation that has gained fame for its programs that rehabilitate prisoners. Its success has allowed it to grow into a large operation with facilities in six cities. Readers can make up their own minds about the ...
by Matt Clarke
In February 2020, WDRB News revealed a previously undisclosed $400,000 settlement paid by the Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) to the family of a state prisoner who starved to death while in segregation at the Kentucky State Penitentiary (KSP).
James Kenneth Embry,57, died of starvation and dehydration ...
by Kevin Bliss
n March 2020, the Oneida County Correctional Facility in New York was accused of discrimination against the women who are housed there. Two months prior to that, all the women were moved from pods that offered the same privileges as men to two wings of a unit ...
by Derek Gilna
Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz has issued a report itemizing the multitude of mistakes and mismanagement that aggravated the troubled agency’s response to the COVID-19 hotspot at the Lompoc, California, federal prison complex.
The 36-page, July 23, 2020 report found that continuing ...
by Ed Lyon
Young Ross Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) was an Eagle Scout, held scholarships throughout college, earned a master’s degree, worked in science, and became a self-described peaceful entrepreneur. A supporter of liberty, personal privacy, and free markets, Ulbricht founded the website Silk Road when he was 26. ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Communication between attorneys and their clients has long been protected by federal law. Technology, however, has changed the way people in the legal field communicate in the span of a generation — a pace that has left legal protections behind.
“It’s common attorney sense, a bedrock of ...
by Daniel Rosen
I’m here at the Greensville Correctional Center in southern Virginia. This place holds up to 3,000 inmates. On August 7, we went on lockdown for the second time in four months. There were just too many virus cases and too few staff for this place to function. ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
A recent report by The Interceptoutlined New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to move elderly prisoners to an “isolated” upstate prison to allegedly protect them during the pandemic, and how this plan may have backfired.
In June 2020, 96 elderly male prisoners were transferred to ...
by Keith Sanders
Big business is king in America, and the business of operating correctional and detention facilities is no exception. Within the private prison industry, two firms stand out for their sheer size: Florida-based GEO Group, with 2019 revenues of $2.477 billion, and Tennessee-based CoreCivic, with $1.981 billion in ...
by David M. Reutter
When one thinks of financial support for America’s privatized prisons, one assumes it primarily comes from entities in the United States. But that is not always the case.
A February 18, 2020 story by Danwatch, a Danish investigative website, uncovered three Danish pension funds that had ...
by Kevin Bliss
At a June 23, 2020, forum with the three candidates for sheriff in Garfield County, Oklahoma, questions arose about a $12.5 million 2019 settlement of a wrongful death suit filed by the family of former detainee Anthony Huff, who died at the county jail in Enid in ...
by Bill Barton
Independently obtained and analyzed data from April 2017 to April 2018 showed that 73 percent of all prisoners — more than 16,000 in total — were released after Philadelphia jail facilities’ cashier offices were closed, which left them without a phone, other possessions, identification, and cash for ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 24, 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the evidence to support a petitioner’s involuntary commitment was insufficient to support a conclusion the petitioner was “dangerous” under state law. In reversing the circuit court’s order, it was held that going forward lower courts must ...
by David M. Reutter
On January 29, 2020, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) agreed to pay $80 million to resolve a class action lawsuit filed by juveniles who were housed in adult facilities where they were allegedly subjected to sexual assault and other harms.
The action consolidated in state ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) concluded a two-year investigation April 12, 2020 of allegations of continued sexual abuse against prisoners at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women (EMCFW). A 29-page report was published that found the institution promoted a culture ...
by Bill Barton
Missouri Governor Mike Parson on Wednesday, January 15, 2020, announced a plan to close a number of housing units at prisons throughout the state.
Budget director Dan Haug said, ‘‘What they are doing is they are consolidating space within various prisons around the state, closing certain housing ...
by Christopher Zoukis and Charles Sloan-Hillier
“If we catch a drug dealer – death penalty.” – President Donald J. Trump, 2018
“Lock the S.O.B.s up.” – Former Senator Joe Biden, 1994
As protests and calls for police reforms continue in response to police shootings of unarmed suspects, both the Republican ...
by Dale Chappell
On March 20, 2020, Alaska’s Supreme Court shut down a state prisoner’s argument that his diagnosis as a schizophrenic was incorrect because he claims he can actually see ghosts due to a genetic mutation.
Adam Israel had been in custody of the state Department of Corrections (DOC) ...
by Dale Chappell
Suicides in California prisons reached a record high last year, with 38 recorded. According to prison and union officials, a lack of psychiatrists and other problems in the state’s prison system contributed to the high number.
Despite an offer of a $300,000 annual salary plus government benefits, the California ...
by Derek Gilna
In an order entered June 18, 2020, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the federal district court of the District of Columbia entered a preliminary injunction against the district’s Department of Corrections (“DOC”), its Central Detention Facility (“CDF”), and the Correctional Treatment Facility (“CTF”), finding deficiencies in its social-distancing, ...
by Ed Lyon
Among the few organizations intrepid enough to reach out to prisoners is a group called the Worker Writers School (WWS). From its beginning as a poetry workshop for traumatized prisoners in the aftermath of the slaughter of prisoners at New York’s Attica prison in 1971, WWS is ...
by Derek Gilna
Damage from tornados with winds in excess of 150 miles per hour in April of 2020 forced the immediate transfer of 956 low-security federal prisoners from Estill, South Carolina to the maximum-security U.S. Prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The controversial move by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) ...
by Kevin Bliss
Richard “Sam” Schneiter, a 65-year-old Wisconsin deputy prison warden in charge of 14 minimum-security prisons, was fired in November 2019 after posting offensive memes on his Facebook account.
Schneiter posted two memes on Facebook last July, which were reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One compared ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 2, 2020, the mother of a man murdered at the California State Penitentiary, Corcoran filed a lawsuit against California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) officials, whom she alleged were responsible for the murder of her son. Her son was decapitated on March 9, 2019 ...
by Dale Chappell
Almost 60 percent of COVID-19 cases in Chicago were linked to police throwing people in the Cook County Jail and then releasing them to their home communities, according to a Harvard University study published in June 2020. Researchers found that “jail cycling” accounted for over one-third of ...
by Matt Clarke
On April 10, 2020, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin held unconstitutional a statute permitting an involuntarily committed prisoner to be forcibly medicated without a court finding that the prisoner was dangerous.
C.S. suffers from schizophrenia. He was convicted of mayhem as a repeat offender and sentenced to ...
by Dale Chappell
It used to be that specially trained prisoners who worked on the front lines fighting wildfires couldn’t continue to work as firefighters after their release. Thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on September 11, 2020, some prisoner-firefighters may find it’s possible to stay ...
by Dale Chappell
The Indiana National Guard has switched roles in helping the Indiana Department of Correction (“IDOC”) during the coronavirus pandemic, from that of health-care workers to prison guards, as prison staff become infected by COVID-19.
Back in May 2020, as COVID-19 infected the nation’s prisons, the National Guard ...
by David M. Reutter
In a 6-4 en banc ruling, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that Florida can bar ex-felons from voting until they pay all court fines, fees, and restitution — even if they are unable to pay.
The court’s September 11, 2020, opinion was written by ...
by Dale Chappell
Every state spends more money on prisons than on schools, according to PolitiFact. But you can’t blame the states — the federal government made them do it.
Some 25 years ago, President Bill Clinton signed into law the biggest incendiary device that lit the fire of mass ...
by Chad Marks
Ford Foundation President Darren Walker published a blog titled, “In Defense of Nuance” in the fall of 2019. A larger portion of the missive supported the building of four smaller detention centers to replace the infamous Rikers Island Jail. Many subsequently pushed back, including hundreds of Ford ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Gregory Fields was in a court-ordered rehab program at the Salvation Army Harbor Light Center in San Francisco. He had completed a 30-day detox and blackout period when he started the program, during which he could not contact family or friends.
He was ‘‘acclimated in groups, ...
by David M. Reutter
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued notice on February 5, 2020 that it has found the “totality of the conditions, practices, and incidents” it discovered at Broad River Road Complex (BRRC), South Carolina’s long-term juvenile commitment facility, violated the juveniles’ Fourteenth Amendment rights.
After stating ...
by Derek Gilna
Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, has long touted her law enforcement background in winning election to the offices of district attorney, California attorney general, and U.S. senator. But, serious questions have been raised about an investigation her office launched in 2015 regarding corruption in ...
by Dale Chappell
The family of one of the prisoners who died of COVID-19 at San Quentin prison in California has filed the first wrongful death claim — a precursor to a lawsuit — against the prison. Papers filed by the family’s lawyers on September 10, 2020, detailed how prison ...
by Matt Clarke
Wilkinson County, Georgia, agreed on January 2, 2020 to pay $420,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the son and estate of a woman who died five years earlier of apparent prescription opioid withdrawal that went untreated in the county’s jail, after her pleas and those of ...
by Mark Wilson
A longtime California prison warden abruptly retired during an investigation into alleged theft, lying and bribery.
Joe Lizarraga began working for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in 1986. He was appointed warden of the Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) in 2013, where he was ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 29, 2020, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a grant of summary judgment to Inmate Services Corp. (ISC), allowing to continue a civil rights action alleging a pretrial detainee’s constitutional rights were violated in 2016 when the private firm transported him “shackled and ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 6, 2020, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the grant of summary judgment to guards who allegedly failed to protect a Wisconsin prisoner. The court agreed that the prisoner failed to mention during the prison grievance process that the guards were aware of ...
by Derek Gilna
Deep-pocketed friends and foundations associated with business mogul Michael Bloomberg are planning to spend around $20 million to pay the outstanding fines and court debts of former state felons in Florida, obligations that would otherwise disqualify them from voting in November.
Computer scientist Robert Montoye noted in ...
by Kevin Bliss
An article in the Harvard Political Review by Jenna Bao published March 9, 2020, reported that the movement to deinstitutionalize mental health facilities and save costs, which began in the 1950s, has resulted in a large over-representation of the mentally ill in U.S. prisons and loss of ...
by Jayson Hawkins
The Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx was emblematic of the Big Apple’s rotten core in the 1990s, an area saturated with drugs, homelessness and prostitution. Facing an influx of inmates from rising crime rates, the city had resorted to a fleet of jail barges but lacked ...
by David M. Reutter
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that lawyers for the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) who made a legal error in interpreting new state law were entitled to qualified immunity.
The Court’s August 20, 2020, opinion was issued in an appeal brought by former ...
by Dale Chappell
A study by a group of criminologists and sociologists published in August 2020 found that an entire generation during the “tough on crime” era of the 1980s and early 1990s spent more time in prison serving longer sentences than any other generation before or after. Many are ...
by Jayson Hawkins
For three weeks in October of 2002, the residents of the Washington, D.C. area lived in fear of unknown assassins taking aim at random victims. Thirteen people were shot during that period; 10 died. Perhaps the only thing more shocking than the arbitrary nature of the crime ...
by Ed Lyon
The year 2020 has been rife with unpleasant surprises. The planet has contended with the coronavirus pandemic — the worst since the Spanish flu — and protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. Even the weather chose to join in the fray. August saw two ...
by Matt Clarke
The family of a Texas detainee who died of a suicidal overdose under jailers’ noses can continue its lawsuit against Young County, Texas. That decision was handed down on April 22, 2020, by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed in part a summary judgment ...
Loaded on
Oct. 1, 2020
published in Prison Legal News
October, 2020, page 62
Alabama: In February 2020, a grand jury in Limestone County, Alabama, returned an indictment for “possession/receipt of a controlled substance” against Travis Wales, a former guard at the Limestone County Correctional Facility in Harvest. According to Columbus, Georgia, TV station WBRL, Wales was arrested in September 2019 after a canine ...
by Matt Clarke
On April 15, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the summary dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the estate of a man who committed suicide at the Harris County jail in Houston, Texas.
Danarian Hawkins was 27 in February 2014 when he ...
