Information, topic by topic, on prisons across the world

February 13, 2019

USA: from life in prison to published author

News

United States

Drug deals and gun violence were everyday realities for Chris Wilson growing up. Straddling homes in D.C.’s Lincoln Heights neighborhood and Prince George’s County’s Temple Hills community, Wilson watched his mother fall victim to both domestic abuse and drug abuse. Many of his friends were locked…

February 12, 2019

USA: Alabama will build 3 prisons for men, Ivey announces

News

Facilities United States

Gov. Kay Ivey announced today that her administration will seek bids for building three regional prisons for men to replace aging, cramped facilities that the Alabama Department of Corrections has said are too costly to maintain and repair. The governor said new prisons are a necessary part of a la…

February 12, 2019

USA: emergency declared at Kansas prison because of staffing shortage - 95 jobs unfilled

News

United States

Kansas prisons have been under-staffed for years. Inmate populations are overcapacity. Uprisings in recent years have caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Now, the state’s corrections agency is declaring an emergency at one of its largest prisons – El Dorado Correctional – because of…

February 12, 2019

USA: women in prison in Florida get some needed attention

News

Women United States

Florida legislators, no matter their party — and no matter their gender — have shown a heartening amount of empathy for incarcerated women on an issue that affects them, uniquely. On Monday, the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee unanimously approve the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act. The…

February 11, 2019

USA: want to shrink the prison population? Look at parole.

News

United States

This article is not available in English.

February 9, 2019

USA: why the justice department can’t be trusted to investigate abysmal conditions in federal prisons

News

United States

The humanitarian crisis at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center will have come as a shock to many. It is horrifying. If there is one institution, however, which has no grounds for shock, nor the performance of it, it is the Justice Department. As a late-January polar vortex hit New York with fr…

February 6, 2019

USA: Mississippi’s prison bribery scandal is in the past, but the state still hasn’t learned its lesson

News

United States

Since 2014, a massive bribery scandal involving some of the most powerful prison industry corporations in America has hung like a cloud over Mississippi’s already-troubled corrections system, which locks people up at a higher rate than almost any other state.

February 6, 2019

USA: Coyote Ridge prison inmates go on strike

News

United States

Prisoners at the Central Washington corrections center are objecting to being served “breakfast boats,” a boxed meal with food such as a muffin and cold cereal, instead of a hot breakfast.

February 6, 2019

USA: Justice Department orders investigation after inmates at Brooklyn prison went days without heat

News

United States

The Justice Department has requested an investigation after inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, spent several days without heat or lighting.

February 5, 2019

United States: inmates at freezing federal jail in brooklyn pounded out a message

News

United States

The Metropolitan Detention Center had been largely without power and heat for more than a week. Inmates have been banging on the windows of their cells to call attention to the conditions, and protesters have been rallying outside the jail calling for improvements.

February 5, 2019

USA: aumenta el uso de gas pimienta contra reclusos en cárceles juveniles de Los Ángeles

News

United States

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the Spanish version.

February 1, 2019

United States: celebran decisión Wells Fargo de reducir apoyo a construcción cárceles

News

United States

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the Spanish version.

January 28, 2019

United States : à quoi ressemble une prison américaine ? [audio]

News

United States

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

January 25, 2019

United States: ‘You’re going to let me die from this’, prisoners fight to access a hepatitis-C cure

News

Health United States

Inmates are being denied treatment, and it’s creating an epidemic.

January 25, 2019

United States: transgender inmate moved to women’s prison

News

Women LGBTQI United States

For the first time in the state, a transgender inmate has been moved from an all-male prison to the state women’s prison, MCI-Framingham (above) to be housed according to her gender identity.

January 10, 2019

États-Unis : la paralysie gagne les prisons

News

United States

Le shutdown a des conséquences importantes sur des milliers de prisonniers américains : manque de nourriture, manque de soin, personnel en sous-effectif.

January 2, 2019

United States of America: counting prison inmates differently could shift political power to cities

News

United States

A prison in Vacaville, California. After the 2020 census, California and Delaware will join New York and Maryland in counting prisoners in their home communities rather than in the place where they are incarcerated.

December 28, 2018

United States of America: the moral horror of America’s prisons [+audio]

News

United States

Congress isn’t doing enough to fix the current U.S. penal system, which is a failure of historic proportions.

December 26, 2018

USA: Inmates dined in SC prison cells after toilets spewed raw sewage, SCDC says

News

United States

Twelve South Carolina inmates were left in cells for hours after a backup spewed raw sewage from prison toilets, an SCDC spokesman confirmed to The State.

December 24, 2018

USA: thousands held in NY's prisons will spend the holidays in solitary confinement

News

Discipline United States

Roger Clark still remembers Christmas in solitary confinement. Clark spent five years at Southport Correctional Facility, New York’s first supermax prison dedicated to 23-hour lockdown, after defending himself from another prisoner’s assault.

December 22, 2018

USA: ‘Me rociaron con gas pimienta más de 10 veces mientras estaba en el sistema de justicia juvenil’

News

United States

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the Spanish version.

December 19, 2018

USA: here’s what the prison reform bill actually does — and doesn’t do

News

United States

Prison reform advocates are hailing the Senate passage of the bipartisan First Step Act as a watershed moment for American criminal justice, which could positively impact the lives of thousands of federal prisoners.

December 18, 2018

USA: a poacher who killed hundreds of deer was sentenced to repeatedly watch ‘Bambi’

News

United States

Authorities have no idea how many deer the Berry family and their associates illegally killed in the fields and forests of southern Missouri over the past decade, but the details of their poaching operation would make any animal lover’s stomach turn.

December 16, 2018

United States: kids to receive recordings of moms in prison reading to them for Christmas, SC officials say

News

United States

A select group of inmates at a South Carolina prison is getting a special Christmas gift — an opportunity to give something to their children.