Prisoners Rights

Tightening Belts Means Loosening Restraints: Illinois to Close Supermax Prison

Tanya Greene | Posted 04.24.2012

Tanya Greene

One of the more positive things to result from deteriorating state budgets across the nation is that some state lawmakers are looking to smart criminal justice reform as a way to trim budgets. One such change began yesterday in Illinois.

Virginia is for Lovers... of Solitary Confinement?

Tanya Greene | Posted 03.12.2012

Tanya Greene

The horrors of 23-hour-a-day lockdown, sensory deprivation and isolation were lauded by DOC officials as a necessary measure for handling the "worst of the worst." Unfortunately, this supposed "worst of the worst" includes the mentally ill.

Torture Is American

Anne-Marie Cusac | Posted 05.25.2011

Anne-Marie Cusac

Torture is American. How do I know? I am a reporter who for years covered allegations of prison abuse and ill treatment in domestic U.S. prisons. Nearly every technique used at Abu Ghraib had a close, recent parallel in a U.S. facility.

Elena Kagan Memos Show Supreme Court Nominee Was Wary Of Conservatives As Clerk For Thurgood Marshall

AP | MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO | Posted 05.25.2011

WASHINGTON — As a young lawyer working for Justice Thurgood Marshall, Elena Kagan repeatedly expressed her concern that a conservative Supreme C...

Obama Assassination Plotter Asks For Swastika Tattoo To Be Removed On Taxpayers Dime

Posted 05.25.2011

Daniel Cowart, who plead guilty to 8 federal charges, including a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama and over 100 black people, has requested ...

Reading In Prison: Why I Need To Know

Kenneth Hartman | Posted 05.25.2011

Kenneth Hartman

In these places, it's too easy to allow the concrete walls to suffocate our minds, our curiosity. When that happens, human beings die in a profound way.

Transgender Prison Inmates Have Right To Hormone Therapy, Rules Federal Judge

AP | RYAN J. FOLEY | Posted 05.25.2011

MADISON, Wis. — A federal judge has struck down a unique Wisconsin law that prohibits transgender inmates from receiving taxpayer-funded hormone...

Prisons Raise And Serve Grass-Fed Beef

Hartke Is Online! | Posted 05.25.2011

Inmates at White Post are enlisted in animal husbandry at Sky Meadow to raise cattle for beef production. The program is a collaboration of several en...

Reading In Prison: Ten Books; No Hard Covers

Kenneth Hartman | Posted 05.25.2011

Kenneth Hartman

In an atmosphere as poisoned as the criminal justice world, the restrictions that made any sense at all ran out fast. Somewhere along the way, hardcover books were deemed potentially dangerous.

The Quotable Palin

Chris Kelly | Posted 05.25.2011

Chris Kelly

Sarah Palin is what you might call "intellectually incurious." I think when Joe the Plumber is talking to Palin he has to slow it down. So where'd she come up with her fancy-pants go-to quote?