prisons
Civil rights group objects to using federal COVID aid for jails
The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the Treasury Department to take a harder line on states and local governments using federal American Rescue Plan Act money to build and expand correctional facilities. One of the projects it cited is in Scott County, where local officials had previously considered using the federal money for a […]
Sarah Huckabee Sanders taps Arizona prison official to lead Arkansas Department of Corrections
Gov.-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders will appoint an Arizona prisons official to lead the Arkansas Department of Corrections after she takes office next week. Joe Profiri, whom Sanders plans to tap as her corrections secretary, is the deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, which he also led in an interim capacity in 2019. Profiri […]
Costs of incarceration rise as inflation squeezes inmates, families
Across the nation, prison commissaries are raising prices on items that many consider basic necessities — from deodorant to fresh fruit — not provided by the state department of corrections. The markups come as decades-high inflation is also squeezing inmates’ families, making it harder for them to help. It’s a burden that families shouldn’t have […]
Federal prisons ‘riddled with mismanagement’ probed by U.S. Senate panel
WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in a Thursday hearing grilled the top leader of federal prisons on how the agency would address staffing shortages and reports of abuse of incarcerated people. “The Bureau (of Prisons) has been riddled with mismanagement and, sadly, with scandal,” said the chair of the committee, Illinois […]
U.S. government failed to properly count deaths of people in prisons and jails, Senate report says
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice did not properly count nearly 1,000 deaths of incarcerated people in jails and prisons, according to a bipartisan report released Tuesday by a U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee. The 10-month investigation by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, found […]