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Civil rights lawyers call on Illinois to fire private prison health care company
By Shannon Heffernan On August 14, 2023 The state has paid Wexford Health Sources more than $1 billion, but about half the medical positions are unfilled. As their contract expires, lawmakers hear calls for change. Illinois lawmakers heard testimony on Monday from civil rights lawyers and family members about the dismal state of health care…
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Stifling prison heat used to be just a Southern problem. Not anymore.
By Amanda Hernandez On August 14, 2023 Climate change has amplified heat-related struggles in more state prisons. While sweltering heat in prisons without air conditioning has long been an issue in the South, extreme heat waves worsened by climate change are expanding the problem into Northern states. In recent years, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota, Washington…
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Thanks to New Law, Pregnant Women Can Now Avoid Incarceration in Colorado
By Bennito Kelty On August 11, 2023 More than five years have passed since the world watched, aghast, at the video of Diana Sanchez giving birth alone in a Denver County Jail cell in July 2018. The incident was covered by countless media outlets after Sanchez’s lawyer, Mari Newman, released footage of her client’s horrifying ordeal in…
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California prisons have a drug problem. A strip search policy takes aim at visitors
By Anabel Sosa On August 8, 2023 Renee Espinoza thought her first strip search at the hands of a California correctional officer would be her last. It happened during a visit to Centinela State Prison to see her incarcerated husband. A few months later it happened again. And then again. “It was the same process…
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Thousands of Mass. police disciplinary records released by POST Commission
By Sarah Betancourt On August 22, 2023 A state commission released several thousand disciplinary records for law enforcement across Massachusetts on Tuesday in a long-awaited effortto improve police accountability. The Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, known as POST, released the database containing 3,413 records of over 2,100 officers from 273 law enforcement agencies in Massachusetts.…
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Police are Getting DNA Data from People Who Think They Opted Out
By Jordan Smith On August 18, 2023 Forensic genetic genealogists skirted GEDmatch privacy rules by searching users who explicitly opted out of sharing DNA with law enforcement. CECE MOORE, AN actress and director-turned-genetic genealogist, stood behind a lectern at New Jersey’s Ramapo College in late July. Propelled onto the national stage by the popular PBS show…
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Lawsuit: Colorado Police Tased A Black Man For Doing What?
By Noah A. McGee On August 22, 2023 Despite their pledge to rebuild trust after the unfortunate death of Elijah McClain three years ago, the Aurora Police Department is still being accused of participating in violent and dangerous behavior. Over the weekend, Antonio Johnson, who is Black, filed a lawsuit against the department claiming that they used dragged him…
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Baltimore Police should spend less time in their vehicles and more time on the street, report says
By Ben Conarck On August 15, 2023 Critical staffing shortages are preventing police from spending enough time getting to know the neighborhoods they patrol — a roadblock to regaining community trust, report finds After decades of discriminatory policing eroded trust in scores of neighborhoods across the city, the Baltimore Police Department is continuing an uphill…
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Texas state troopers are routinely stopping motorists of color in Austin, data shows
By Noah Alcala Bach On August 10, 2023 More than 8 in 10 people charged by state troopers since they began helping Austin police have been people of color. In Southeast Austin, a neighborhood president calls it “outright racial profiling.” As the sun sets over Riverside Drive in Southeast Austin, a cluster of state troopers…
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