United States
Death penalty
United States
To hear President Donald Trump and his advisors talk about the US southern border, a person would get the impression that the Obama administration had rolled out the red carpet to welcome anyone and everyone who wanted to enter the country. Echoing a statement Trump made often on the campaign trail,…
Source — Truth Out
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Violence
United States
This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.
Source — Huffington Post
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North America
Long-term prisoners
United States
The number of U.S. prisoners serving life sentences has more than quadrupled over the past three decades, and those eligible for parole are waiting longer to be released, according to a report released Tuesday.
Source — The Baltimore Sun
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United States
One of the challenges of the Trump era in America is that we can’t forget about the important issues that aren’t swept up in the daily maelstrom of Trumpworld. On the national stage – and to a certain extent, on the local level as well – a number of important topics seem to have been pushed to the back…
Source — Philly.com
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United States
It gives an incomplete picture of the economy, but it’s tradition.
rlier this week, in response to the presidential press secretary’s fumbling of what seemed like a straightforward question, we investigated how various unemployment rates are defined and calculated. Economists wring their hands over whether…
Source — The outline
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North America
United States
The cost of imprisonment — including who benefits and who pays — is a major part of the national discussion around criminal justice policy. But prisons and jails are just one piece of the criminal justice system and the amount of media and policy attention that the various players get is not necessarily…
Source — Prison Policy Initiative
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North America
Women
United States
Mass incarceration of women was one of the important issues highlighted by the Women’s March on Washington.
Source — The Washington Post
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LGBTI
United States
This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.
Source — Huffington Post
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United States
Just a few months ago, things were looking very bleak for the private prison industry. In mid-August, the Justice Department’s inspector general issued a report finding that privately operated federal prisons are more dangerous than those managed by the federal Bureau of Prisons and need more oversight.
Source — Vox
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Discipline
United States
An always-brutal experience can be even worse for people with disabilities.
When Dean Westwood was sentenced to prison in 2014, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Convicted of theft and tax evasion related to Medicaid fraud in Oregon, Westwood tells VICE he had no prior contact with the criminal justice…
Source — Vice
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Asia
United States
Last week, President Obama surprised criminal justice reformers with an article in the Harvard Law Review on The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform. While the President spends more of the article summarizing his efforts to reform the criminal justice system than sharing an analysis…
Source — Prison Policy Initiative
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United States
Last summer, the Justice Department decided to start winding down its use of private prisons.
Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates noted in a memo that while private prisons were useful when public prisons were overflowing, they made little sense now that the prison population was falling. They didn’t…
Source — The New York Times
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United States
In the hardscrabble desert hamlet of Milan, New Mexico, incarceration is the biggest game in town.
Source — Bloomberg
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United States
Sorry, this article is not available in English. You can consult the French version.
Source — L'Humanité
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United States
US president-elect Donald Trump’s tweet yesterday that everyone held at Guantanamo Bay is “extremely dangerous” is ill-informed. What’s worse, his proposed course of action – stopping all releases – shows a lack of understanding about the danger keeping Guantanamo open poses to US National Security.
Source — Human Rights Watch
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United States
President-elect Donald Trump called Tuesday for the end of all detainee releases from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying in a tweet that those who remain are “extremely dangerous people” who “should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.”
Source — The Washington Post
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Mental health
United States
One inmate, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, became so distraught after months in the prison’s isolation unit that he began talking to himself and counting compulsively.
Another, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder, declined so much in isolation that he smeared himself with feces.
Source — The Boston Globe
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United States
Efforts to cut number of nonviolent offenders contributed to roughly 2% drop in 2015.
The U.S. prison population in 2015 fell to the lowest level since 2005, fueled in part by the federal push to reduce the number of nonviolent drug offenders behind bars and state policies aimed at shorter sentences,…
Source — Wall Street Journal
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United States
Prisons across the U.S. routinely flout the Americans With Disabilities Act, subjecting thousands of inmates with physical and mental health problems to painful and sometimes humiliating conditions, according to watchdog groups, inmates, corrections officials, and a former Justice Department official…
Source — VICE
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United States
Six inmates escaped from a Tennessee jail through a broken toilet early Christmas morning, the Cocke County Sheriff’s Office told KOMO News.
The police are still searching for one of the inmates. The other five were captured shortly after they escaped.
Source — Business Insider UK
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