Mass Incarceration
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Michigan to Pay $860,000 in Lawsuit Over Prison Guards Who Bet on a Woman Inmate’s Suicide
How much is an incarcerated person’s life worth? At one Michigan jail, about the cost of a Subway sandwich. That’s what corrections officers wagered in response to a suicidal inmate, 25-year-old Janika Edmond, who threatened to kill herself—and requested help from guards—before eventually hanging herself in a prison shower. The Michigan Department of Corrections settled…
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An Arizona Prisoner Was Sent a Book Critical of the Criminal Justice System. Now, the State Has Banned It
In one of the most memorable passages of his seminal autobiography, civil rights leader Malcolm X made explicit the impact his in-prison education had on him. Arrested on charges of larceny and sentenced to 10 years in prison, Malcolm read voraciously. “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of…
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Top Civil Rights Groups Will Help Crystal Mason Appeal Her 5-Year Sentence for Trying to Vote
It was a case so unfair, it quickly became a go-to talking point to illuminate the criminal justice system’s deep racial inequities: Crystal Mason, a 44-year-old Texas woman was sentenced to five years in jail for unknowingly casting an illegal ballot. Last Friday, two major civil rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and the…
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New York City Jail Guards Indicted for Conducting Illegal Strip Searches on Women Visitors
Six female corrections officers were arrested and arraigned in New York State Supreme Court following allegations they performed illegal strip searches on women attempting to visit their loved ones in a Manhattan jail. The New York Times, quoting the 27-count indictment, reports corrections officers “blocked exits, surrounded visitors on all sides, forcibly removed visitors’ clothing,…
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'Feeling Cute' Corrections Officers Feeling Jobless After Controversial Social Media Posts
The whole point of the “feeling cute” challenge was to have a little fun while on the job—or at least, while in your work clothes. But corrections officers who partook in the challenge earlier this month are now resigning or being fired from said jobs after their posts went viral for all the wrong reasons.…
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‘Feeling Cute, Might Shoot Your Baby Daddy Today’: Corrections Officers Show Their Collective Asses in Social Media Challenge
There’s something about the power of euphemism: you call someone a “prisoner” or an “inmate” and, suddenly, all sorts of dehumanizing, terrible, violent things that would be unfathomable to subject a “regular” person to become possible. Become necessary. You call someone a police officer, guard, or a “corrections officer,” and suddenly the power to humiliate…
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This Black History Month, Let’s Recognize the African-American Prisoners Who Helped Build America
Like much of the rest of the discourse around jails, prisons and mass incarceration, Black History Month is not usually a time when we talk about the thousands of black prisoners that were forced to build America after the Civil War. It’s time to recognize them because the postwar South was literally rebuilt on their…
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American Justice: Abuse Domineque Ray as a Boy, Discriminate Against Him as a Man, and on Death Row, Kill Him
Domineque Ray was born in a country that is proud of its stated principles, which supposedly include justice for all. For Ray, justice in America meant enduring sexual and other forms of physical abuse throughout his childhood, so much so that he was ashamed to even admit it to save his own life. Propublica summed…
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Power Back on at Brooklyn Jail Following Massive Outcry, Officials to Investigate Conditions
A Brooklyn detention center that went several days without heat or light during last week’s polar vortex had its power restored Sunday, but the troubling conditions reported at the federal jail have prompted several judges to investigate complaints. At least one plans on touring the facility Tuesday to examine the facilities firsthand. The Bureau of…
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Meek Mill, Justice League NYC Demand Action as Hundreds of Inmates Go Without Heat, Hot Water at Brooklyn Detention Center
With its spate of polar vortexes and record-breaking temperatures, this winter has been especially torturous. But for inmates housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., these brutal conditions have officially crossed into inhumane. According to the New York Times, despite temperatures as low as 3 degrees Fahrenheit, over 1,600 inmates have spent the…