Category Archives: US prisons

Biden urged to use clemency powers to tackle ‘crisis’ of US mass incarceration

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Members of Congress call on president to pardon or commute sentences before he leaves White House

More than 60 members of Congress have written to Joe Biden calling on him to use his presidential clemency powers to reunite families, address unfair sentencing policies, and begin to tackle the scourge of mass incarceration, which they said was eroding “the soul of America”.

Biden has 61 days left before he leaves the White House in which he could pardon or commute the sentences of incarcerated Americans. The letter, signed by a number of prominent Democratic politicians and spearheaded by the progressive politician Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, urges Biden to act while he still can.

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Atlanta’s Fulton county jail is a ‘death sentence’, say federal investigators

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Report shows conditions of state’s largest local jail, noting prisoners tunnel through walls and violence is unchecked

Conditions in the Fulton county jail in Atlanta “violate the constitutional and statutory rights of people incarcerated”, a long-running federal investigation concluded today.

“Killings, stabbings, and assaults are common in the Jail,” according to a Department of Justice report released today. Contraband is pervasive, lethal violence goes uninvestigated – and is sometimes directly abetted by jail staff – and drug use is common, according to investigators in a 91-page report released today.

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Inmate Steve Bannon reportedly hangs with the white guys and teaches civics

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Former Trump White House aide set to be released after serving four months for contempt of Congress

Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist under the Trump administration, is set to be released from prison on Tuesday and details have emerged of his life behind bars, in which he gravitated to hanging out with other white prisoners.

The news website Notus posted an investigation in which it corresponded with several of Bannon’s fellow inmates at a prison in Connecticut.

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Wife of California prisoner wins $5.6m after ‘egregious’ prison strip-search

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Lawyers for Christina Cardenas say she was sexually violated during search when she tried to visit husband

The wife of a California prisoner will receive $5.6m after being sexually violated during a strip-search when she tried to visit her husband in prison, her attorneys said Monday.

After traveling four hours to see her husband at a correctional facility in Tehachapi, California, on 6 September 2019, Christina Cardenas was subject to a strip-search by prison officials, drug and pregnancy tests, X-ray and CT scans at a hospital, and another strip-search by a male doctor who sexually violated her, a lawsuit said.

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Former hitman sentenced to 25 years in prison killing of gangster Whitey Bulger

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Ex-mafia associate Fotios ‘Freddy’ Geas convicted of fatally bludgeoning notorious Boston gangster in 2018

A former mafia hitman already serving life in prison was sentenced to 25 years on Friday in the 2018 fatal prison bludgeoning of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Prosecutors said Fotios “Freddy” Geas used a lock attached to a belt to repeatedly hit the 89-year-old Bulger in the head hours after he arrived at Hazelton, a troubled US penitentiary, from another lockup in Florida in October 2018. Defense attorneys disputed that characterization on Friday, saying Geas hit Bulger with his fist.

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South Carolina prepares for first execution in more than 13 years

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After July ruling that state’s death penalty is legal, a man on death row has a week to decide how he will be executed

A man on death row in South Carolina has until 6 September to decide how he would prefer to be executed by the state.

South Carolina’s prisons director has declared the state’s supply of a lethal injection drug acceptable and said its electric chair was tested two months ago and its firing squad has the ammunition and training to carry out its first execution next month in more than 13 years, if needed.

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Escaped prisoner serving murder sentence caught at North Carolina hotel

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Ramone Alston will be charged with felony escape from prison after fleeing from van on way to hospital

A prisoner serving a life sentence for murder was captured at a North Carolina hotel early on Friday, three days after his escape on the way to a medical appointment, and authorities say he had help from at least one person.

Ramone Alston, 30, escaped from a van on Tuesday as it arrived at the UNC Gastroenterology hospital in Hillsborough, where he was being taken for a medical appointment. He freed himself from his leg restraints and fled into the woods with handcuffs on, according to the North Carolina department of adult correction.

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Alabama jailer pleads guilty in death of prisoner who froze to death in cell

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Joshua Jones reportedly admits that ‘collectively we did it. We killed him’ after Tony Mitchell died of hypothermia

A former corrections officer at an Alabama jail has pleaded guilty in the case of a mentally ill man who died of hypothermia after being held naked in a concrete cell for two weeks.

The officer, Joshua Conner Jones, entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors over the treatment of two prisoners at the Walker county jail.

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US federal women’s prison plagued by rampant staff sexual abuse to close

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Since 2021, eight employees of Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, charged with assaulting female prisoners

The US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) is closing a federal women’s prison in California that has been plagued by rampant staff sexual abuse of incarcerated residents.

Colette Peters, the BoP director, said in a statement to the Associated Press on Monday that Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin was “not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility”.

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‘Correct a black mark in US history’: former prisoners of Abu Ghraib get day in court

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Jury trial against military contractor CACI over ‘sadistic, blatant and wanton abuses’ comes 20 years after scandal broke

The first trial to contend with the post-9/11 abuse of detainees in US custody begins on Monday, in a case brought by three men who were held in the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The jury trial, in a federal court in Virginia, comes nearly 20 years to the day that the photographs depicting torture and abuse in the prison were first revealed to the public, prompting an international scandal that came to symbolize the treatment of detainees in the US “war on terror”.

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More than 150 people call on Missouri governor to forgive Brian Dorsey’s death penalty

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Prison guards, judges, jurors and prison workers have beseeched Mike Parson to commute capital punishment to life without parole

With less than a week until Brian Dorsey is scheduled to be executed at Potosi correctional center in Missouri for the 2006 killings of his cousin and her husband, an extraordinary effort is underway to have the 52-year-old’s capital sentence commuted to life without parole.

More than 150 people have called on the Missouri governor Mike Parson to commute Dorsey’s punishment – including more than 70 current and former prison workers, many of whom got to know Doresy behind bars, Republican state representatives, jurors and even the appeals judge who upheld Dorsey’s conviction and death sentence in 2009.

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Idaho: white supremacist prisoner on the run after brazen hospital ambush

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Three corrections officers injured after unknown accomplice of gang member Skylar Meade stages attack after hospital trip

A white supremacist prison gang member in Idaho and an accomplice remained on the loose Wednesday after the accomplice staged a brazen overnight attack to free the inmate as he was being transported from a Boise hospital, police said.

Police identified the man suspected of shooting two corrections officers during the ambush as Nicholas Umphenour. A warrant with a $2 m bond has been issued for his arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, police said.

Police said the search continues for Umphenour and escaped inmate Skylar Meade, who fled the hospital early Wednesday in a gray 2020 Honda Civic with Idaho plates. It’s not known where they are or where they are headed, police said.

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Judge orders special master for California prison known for rampant sexual abuse

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Several employees at the federal correctional institution in Dublin have pleaded guilty to abusing female inmates

A judge called a California federal women’s prison known for rampant sexual abuse against inmates “a dysfunctional mess” on Friday as she ordered a special master to oversee the facility, marking the first time the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been subject to such an action.

“The situation can no longer be tolerated. The facility is in dire need of immediate change,” wrote US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, adding that the Bureau of Prisons has “proceeded sluggishly with intentional disregard of the inmates’ constitutional rights despite being fully apprised of the situation for years. The repeated installation of BOP leadership who fail to grasp and address the situation strains credulity.”

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California prisoner donates earnings from 13-cent hourly wage to Gaza

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Donors raise more than $100,000 for man who gave his $17.74 paycheck for 136.50 hours of work to relief efforts in Gaza

Donors have raised more than $100,000 for an incarcerated man in the US who, earning 13 cents an hour in a California prison doing janitorial and porter work, donated his paycheck of $17.74 to Gaza relief efforts.

Last month, Los Angeles-based filmmaker Justin Mashouf who has been in correspondence with the 56-year old man – known only by the name Hamza – shared photos on social media of Hamza’s October time log and a check of $17.74 with the words, “California department of corrections and rehabilitation.”

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Minnesota family sues jail over son’s death in custody

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Lucas Bellamy, 40, died from a perforated bowel after repeatedly being denied medical treatment by jail staff

A Minnesota family is suing a county jail alleging their son died in prison after staff refused to provide him with medical attention.

Lucas Bellamy, 40, died in July 2022 three days after he had been arrested by the Hennepin county sheriff’s department. Bellamy’s family says that jail staff ignored their son’s desperate pleas for medical attention and signs that he was in agonizing pain.

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Man who died in Alabama prison was reportedly returned to family without organs

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Second recent case involving allegations of missing body parts from Alabama prisoners involves man whose brain was removed

A man who died in the custody of Alabama’s corrections department was reportedly returned to his family without his organs, including his brain.

The news, which broke earlier this week, is the second recent case involving allegations of missing body parts from people in Alabama prisons. The US prison system has been widely criticized for its poor treatment of inmates.

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US man formerly on death row freed after murder charges dismissed

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Noel Montalvo was in Pennsylvania prison for 20 years for murders that he blamed on his brother who died in prison

A man formerly on death row has been released from prison following dismissal of murder charges in a double slaying a quarter-century ago that he blamed on his brother, who died in prison while appealing his own death sentence in the case.

Noel Montalvo, who turned 59 on Tuesday, was freed on Monday night after York county, Pennsylvania, prosecutors dismissed charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and burglary shortly before a retrial was to begin. He pleaded guilty to an evidence tampering charge for which the judge sentenced him to a year of probation.

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US prison deaths soared by 77% during height of Covid-19 crisis, study finds

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Analysis of in-custody deaths show mortality rates were more than three times the increase in general population in 2020

A study of US prison deaths at the height of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 has found that mortality rates soared by 77% relative to 2019, or more than three times the increase in the general population.

The study, published by Science Advances last week, is the most comprehensive analysis of in-custody deaths since 2020. The report found that “Covid-19 was the primary driver for increases in mortality due to natural causes; some states also experienced substantial increases due to unnatural causes.”

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US prisoner charged with attempted murder over stabbing of Derek Chauvin

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John Turscak, 52, accused of stabbing Chauvin, convicted of George Floyd’s murder, 22 times in prison in Tucson, Arizona

A detainee at a federal prison was charged on Friday with attempted murder in the prison stabbing of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd.

John Turscak stabbed Chauvin 22 times in the law library at the Tucson federal correctional institution in Arizona with an improvised knife, prosecutors said. Turscak, 52, told correctional officers he would have killed Chauvin had they not responded so quickly, according to prosecutors.

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Oklahoma executes man who claimed he killed two in self-defense

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Phillip Dean Hancock killed by lethal injection after Republican governor declines to commute sentence despite recommendation

Oklahoma executed a man on Thursday who claimed he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed two men in Oklahoma City in 2001.

Phillip Dean Hancock, 59, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma state penitentiary and was declared dead at 11.29am. His execution went forward once the Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, declined to commute his sentence, despite a clemency recommendation from the state’s pardon and parole board.

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