by TChris

Where did LA County Sheriff Lee Baca get the idea that he can punish jail inmates by making them stand around naked?

More than 100 inmates at a Los Angeles County jail were ordered to strip naked, had their mattresses taken away and were left with only blankets to cover themselves for a day as Los Angeles Sheriff's Department officials tried to quell racially charged violence that has plagued the jail system for nearly two weeks.

The Sheriff opined that he was acting at "outer edge of our core values," but he's fallen off the edge.

"It comes to a different level of basic human rights if you take away clothing and dignity," said Michael Gennaco, chief of Sheriff Lee Baca's office of independent review.

Racially motivated riots this weekend at jails around Los Angeles have resulted in the inmates being placed in lockdown and in emergency segregation.

Black and Hispanic inmates at the North County Correctional Facility were segregated Saturday after the fighting broke out among 1,800 to 2,000 inmates and a black inmate was killed. Craton said the inmates were still separated early Monday.

Normally, authorities can't segregate prisoners based on race or ethnicity, but legal advisers said it can be done in emergency situations, said Sam Jones, chief custody officer of the county jail system.

The sheriff says the riots are the result of a shortage of guards, which in turn are the product of budget cuts.

One of the first things I learned in law school is the difference between a residence and a domocile: A residence is where you hang your hat, a domocile is where your heart is. In other words, your domicile is your home, not where you happen to be sleeping and eating.

In 1790, it was determined that inmates should be counted according to where they are housed while doing time, not where they come from -- or where they will return once their sentences are up.

The issue is gaining more attention as a result of a congressional directive to the U.S. Census bureau to study the issue of where inmates should be counted as living, for the purpose of determining the population of legislative districts. Population is what determines both funding and districting.

by TChris

In the nation’s worst prisons, daily life is governed by inmates, not by correctional authorities. The strong survive and control; the weak submit or perish. And some prison guards are happy with a system that allows them to use inmates as “enforcers” who maintain order in a chaotic environment.

While California law prohibits inmates from having “control over” one another, California's corrections chief, Roderick Hickman, endorses the practice of enlisting favored inmates as “peacekeepers.” Hickman says “peacekeepers” play a useful role in a prison: they can pass messages throughout the prison, and they’re helpful informants. Of course, criminal informants can rarely be trusted to tell the truth, and it's strange to trust inmate “peacekeepers” to keep the peace in a lawful way.

Critics worry that the freedom accorded peacekeepers lets them run drugs, order inmate assaults and commit other crimes. Now the practice has come under scrutiny following two California slayings in which high-ranking gang members serving as peacemakers are alleged to have played a role. ...

The Netherlands has introduced a new kind of high-tech prison that experts predict will spread further, and prisoner advocates are not complaining:

At a high-tech prison opening this week inmates wear electronic wristbands that track their every movement and guards monitor cells using emotion-recognition software. Authorities are convinced the jail in Lelystad -- quickly dubbed "the Big Brother Prison" by the local press -- represents the future of correctional facilities: cheap and efficient, without coddling criminals or violating their fundamental rights.

According to a local prisoners' rights group:

by TChris

As memorialized in the book Blind Faith, Robert Marshall was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his wife. Robert Cumber introduced Marshall to a private detective who allegedly brokered a deal between Marshall and the hit man. Cumber was charged with being an accessory to the murder.

The charges were initially dismissed for lack of evidence. After they were reinstated, Cumber turned down a plea agreement that would have led to his release for "time served," giving him credit for the 18 months he'd spent in jail awaiting trial. In retrospect, Cumber must regret that decision, because he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

As one of his last official acts, New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey will commute Cumber's life sentence, freeing him after more than 20 years in prison.

"That's just unconscionable that here's the guy who did nothing more than let someone use his phone, and he gets life essentially," Codey told the Star-Ledger of Newark. "That's a terrible injustice — a terrible injustice — that I felt needed to be righted."

The jail at Rikers Island in New York is closing its facility that houses gays and trans-genders.

For at least three decades, gay and trans-gender inmates had their own housing unit inside Rikers Island's sprawling jail complex. To be admitted, all a new inmate had to do was declare homosexuality, or appear to be trans gender, and ask to be kept out of Rikers's main jails.

The idea, city correction officials said, was to protect vulnerable inmates who might otherwise become victims of discrimination or sexual abuse in the rough world of the general inmate population. The only other metropolitan jail to separate gay and trans gender inmates is Los Angeles County Jail. Gay inmates there, however, are forced to live separately from other inmates.

Gays, trans-genders and our youngest inmates need protection. Putting them in isolation, where they spend 23 hours a day in lock-down is cruel. As a society, we have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us. Maybe those that endorsed the closure policy should be forced to spend a few days among the general population at Riker's. Maybe, it's the only way they will learn.

Former PFC Lynndie England can't catch a break.

England works in the prison's kitchen, where she suffered second- and possibly third-degree burns from being splattered with grease over her chest as she removed chickens from a tall oven, her mother, Terrie England, said in an interview. "She was in severe pain," she said of the December 14 incident. "Everybody in the prison heard the scream."

Terrie England, who is caring for England's infant during her incarceration, faulted prison officials for not giving better treatment during a visit to the emergency room. "They gave her nothing," she said. "When this happened I was furious. ... To think they give you nothing for pain."

As former U.S. Pardon Attorney Margy Love says over at White Collar Crime Blog.

He has pardoned only 69 people in five years, about 7% of pardon applications acted on during this period, an absolute number and rate that is lower than any president in the past 100 years. It is curious to me (though not surprising) that elsewhere he presses the outer limits of constitutional powers that most regard as shared with the other branches, while appearing quite timid and uninspired where it comes to exercising the one power that is truly totally his own.

Love also notes that federal pardons are the only way to get rid of a federal criminal record. There is no expungement, and no administrative procedure for restoration of rights.

Because there is no other way under federal law that a person can avoid or mitigate the collateral consequences of conviction, federal offenders remain forever barred from many jobs and benefits and even civil rights, because of their conviction. I am not a particular fan of guns, but many would-be hunters remain permanently saddled with a disability that has absolutely nothing to do with their offense of conviction. Why should someone who cheated on their taxes not be able to shoot skeet?

Love characterizes Bush's use of his pardon power as "doing just enough to avoid being labeled stingy." I call it grinch-like.

Under the terms of a new settlement agreement, California will begin de-segregating its prisons:

Under the terms of the agreement, the state will phase out racial segregation in three steps: In March, after distributing the new policy to prisons and retraining prison staff, current race segregation policies will end in state prison reception centers.

Next year, the ban will extend to so-called sensitive needs yards and minimum support facilities — dorms that house minimum-custody inmates. In 2008, plans will be rolled out to bring the new integration policy to the prisons, Deixler said.

If you were arrested in Broward County (Fort Lauderdale area)for a misdemeanor and strip-searched, you should find out more about this class-action lawsuit. [Note: Link removed at request of Miami Herald on 7/09/08.] Miami had a policy of strip-searching almost everyone arrested which is not allowed.

State statute allows strip searches in cases that are violent in nature or involve a weapon or illegal drugs, not for most misdemeanor arrests.... a policy of searching everyone who walks in the door of the jail is illegal, Fort Lauderdale attorney Kevin Kulik said.

BSO detention Deputy Susette Bryant stated in a deposition that she strip-searched detainees when asked between 1999 and 2002. And, she said, ``every person that walked in that door was strip-searched.''

In 2000, Bush reportedly won the Florida election by 600 votes. Due to a law enacted in the 19th Century, felony offenders are permanently denied the right to vote, even those who have served their sentences.

There are 600,000 felons in Florida who have completed their sentences and supervision terms. One in 10 African American adults in Florida,not counting those currently incarcerated, is prohibited from voting.

The Supreme Court was presented with a chance to review the issue and today decided to let the ban remain in effect without any review. The case is Johnson v. Bush, 05-212.

"The court not only missed an opportunity to right a great historic injustice, it has shut the courthouse door in the face of hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised citizens," Catherine Weiss, the Brennan Center for Justice lawyer for the Florida ex-felons, said Monday.

Courts in other states have ruled for the ex-offenders: