Incarceration
Extra Extra Monday: Nebraska releases prisoners early; Koch brothers hold secret summit; Missile defense system proves unreliable
$40-billion missile defense system proves unreliable | Los Angeles Times The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from “rogue states” such as North Korea and Iran. But a decade after it was declared operational, and after $40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied…
Read MoreAttorney General emails detail discussions before botched Oklahoma execution
In the weeks leading up to a botched execution, an Oklahoma assistant attorney general referred to defense attorneys’ warnings that the execution could go awry as “hysterical speculation,” records released to the Tulsa World show. Assistant Attorney General John Hadden also wrote in a March 21 email that he was “not eager to answer a…
Read MoreStudents without legal representation jailed in Knox County, Tenn.
In Knox County, Tennessee some students are ending up in jail even though they haven’t committed any crimes. Federal and state laws are supposed to keep juveniles who have committed status offenses – like truancy or running away – out of jail. An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity has found evidence that Knox…
Read MoreThe cost of not caring: Inside a mental health system drowning from neglect
States have been reducing hospital beds for decades, because of insurance pressures as well as a desire to provide more care outside institutions, USA TODAY reports. Tight budgets during the recession forced some of the most devastating cuts in recent memory, says Robert Glover, executive director of the National Association of State Mental Health Program…
Read MoreVirginia paroling violent, mentally ill patients
But what happened in Apartment 433 was more than just another murder. It was a window into today’s mental health care: a system as dysfunctional as the clients it serves. So gutted it has little power to put away even the most dangerous for any real length of time – and almost nowhere to keep…
Read MoreDetained immigrant teen assaulted by registered sex offender in Sherburne County jail
An 18-year-old high school student being held for federal immigration authorities in the Sherburne County jail was repeatedly sexually assaulted last month by his cellmate, a registered sex offender serving time in the jail as a “boarder” from the Minnesota Department of Corrections. The assault, detailed in a criminal complaint, occurred at the state’s largest…
Read MoreInmate suicides bring attention to South Carolina’s treatment of mentally ill prisoners
A class-action lawsuit could soon change the way an estimated 3,500 inmates with severe mental illnesses are treated in South Carolina’s prison system. The case exposed numerous stories of mentally ill inmates being gassed, locked in solitary confinement for years at a time, denied effective treatment and caged naked, alone and cold in makeshift crisis…
Read MoreMichelle Byrom could become first woman executed in Mississippi since 1944
Unless courts or the governor intervene, the state of Mississippi will execute a woman whose son repeatedly confessed to the killing she is slated to die for — evidence the jury never heard.
Read MoreMaryland prison system releasing violent criminals early after completing work and education programs
After Gregg Thomas pleaded guilty in 2004 to killing a teenager, a Baltimore judge ordered him to serve 15 years in prison. He was out in less than 10, and by last week he had been charged in the shooting ambush of off-duty Baltimore Police Sgt. Keith Mcneill. The shooting, which left Mcneill in critical…
Read MoreTennessee inmate execution details kept secret
The state of Tennessee doesn’t want you to know how it will kill the condemned. It doesn’t want you to know who will flip the switch, sending a lethal dose of pentobarbital through the veins of death row inmates. And it doesn’t want you to know how it obtained that pentobarbital — which isn’t available…
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