Information, topic by topic, on prisons across the world

July 31, 2019

USA: cause of death revealed for transgender woman who died at Rikers Island

News

North America LGBTQI United States

Officials said an autopsy found that a transgender woman died of complications from epilepsy in New York’s Rikers Island jail, exacerbating her family’s suspicion that jail conditions contributed to her death.

July 28, 2019

USA: these women spent years in prison.

News

Women United States

“I don’t think people understand that when they say criminal records are forever, they really are forever”

July 25, 2019

USA: the world is turning against the death penalty. Trump will resume it.

News

North America Death penalty United States

Attorney General William Barr announced Thursday that the federal government is resuming the death penalty after nearly two decades.

July 17, 2019

USA: what should we do about our aging prison population?

News

North America United States

Can compassionate release laws solve the problem of the nearly 200,000 people aged 55 and older who are incarcerated in America?

July 12, 2019

USA: NJ limits solitary confinement in prisons, hailed as "historic" criminal justice step

News

Discipline United States

New Jersey will limit the use of solitary confinement in correctional facilities and effectively ban it outright for certain people, including the young and elderly, pregnant women and members of the LGBTQ community.

July 9, 2019

United States: dans les prisons américaines, les nouilles lyophilisées remplacent les dollars

News

North America United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French

July 8, 2019

USA: a rare inside look at a private prison

News

North America United States

Reporters found weapons, drugs, and rampant violence.

July 8, 2019

United States: what do people in solitary confinement want to see?

News

North America Discipline United States

Willie Sterling III imagined this: a line of people, bonded by a belief in his humanity, travelling up a hill in southern Illinois to a cross that sits at its peak. The cross was Bald Knob Cross of Peace, a colossus more than a hundred feet tall. It was made of concrete and varnished with porcelain…

July 8, 2019

USA: how electronic monitoring drives defendants into debt

News

North America Alternatives United States

Ankle bracelets are promoted as a humane alternative to jail. But private companies charge defendants hundreds of dollars a month to wear the surveillance devices. If people can’t pay, they may end up behind bars.

July 6, 2019

USA: migrant child drawings depict jail-like scenes of detention

News

United States

In one drawing, stick figures sleep on the ground under blankets watched by other figures with hats. Another picture has frowning stick figures behind what appears to be a chain-link fence. One shows two toilets in a small room. All of the drawings include imposing jail-like bars covering most of t…

June 27, 2019

USA: New York City’s plan to build new jails draws backlash

News

North America Facilities United States

Despite corrections staff shuttling through the massive complex that houses roughly 7,800 inmates, from the outside, the jails on Rikers Island look abandoned. An eerie serenity is marred by the sounds of jet planes from neighboring LaGuardia Airport. The roars rattle around the rundown jails, them…

June 26, 2019

USA: Bank of America will stop lending to private-prison firms

News

North America United States

Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest U.S. bank, will stop lending to companies that run private prisons and detention centers.

June 26, 2019

USA: the U.S. prison system can harm young brains, scientist warns

News

North America United States

A teen’s brain does not magically mature into its adult form the night before someone’s 18th birthday. In fact, brain development will continue into a person’s 20s. This neural fine-tuning has serious implications for young people caught in the U.S. justice system, argues neuroscientist B.J. Casey.

June 26, 2019

USA : gangs ran this private prison

News

North America United States

It was a prison brimming with violence, awash in weapons—and severely short on guards to patrol its cell blocks. But security-camera footage caught the action when Brad Fitch arrived in unit F at Mississippi’s Wilkinson County Correctional Facility on Jan. 31, 2018.

June 24, 2019

USA: 100 prisoners In Shakopee wear blue to demand LGBTQ changes this pride

News

North America United States

Inside Shakopee Prison last Saturday. Prisoners wore blue - the only color they can wear without getting in trouble - to protest in favor of changes demanded by LGBTQ prisoners

June 20, 2019

USA: après la prison

News

North America United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French

June 18, 2019

USA: Texas prison guards to get a small raise, but some doubt it will help with chronic understaffing

News

United States

The state’s two-year budget provided $84 million to increase salaries for correctional officers and other prison employees as the Texas Department of Criminal Justice faces nearly 4,000 empty guard positions.

June 18, 2019

United States: prisons ban dozens of technology and programming books over security concerns

News

North America United States

Oregon’s Department of Corrections has banned dozens of introductory technology and coding books from state prisons over security concerns.

June 18, 2019

USA: a prison death, a mysterious autopsy and official silence

News

United States

A former paratrooper died after being restrained by guards in Pennsylvania. His body showed signs of violence, and his organs have not been returned after an autopsy.

June 13, 2019

United States: 300 inmates in Texas' Harris County jail are quarantined over a mumps outbreak

News

North America United States

A mumps outbreak at the Harris County jail in Houston has forced staff to isolate 14 symptomatic people and quarantine a few hundred other inmates, officials said Thursday.

June 12, 2019

United States: San Francisco announces plan to stop charging jail inmates for phone calls

News

North America Social ties United States

San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Sheriff Vicki Hennessy on Wednesday announced plans to stop charging inmates to make phone calls from jail and to eliminate the county’s markups on items sold at the jail commissary.

June 11, 2019

United States: after a transgender woman’s death at Rikers, calls for justice and answers

News

North America LGBTQI United States

In April, Layleen Polanco, a transgender woman, was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges and sent to the Rikers Island jail complex because she could not afford to pay a $500 bail. Nearly two months later, she was found dead in her cell.

June 6, 2019

United States: what it’s like to spend half a life in solitary confinement?

News

North America Discipline United States

Tony Medina has spent two decades in a concrete box in Texas, alone.

June 6, 2019

United States: district of Columbia could restore voting rights to felons in prison

News

North America United States

The nation’s capital is set to consider legislation that would let people with felony convictions vote while in prison.