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Coronavirus: Prison Fever / 2021
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The virus has not stopped at prison gates. What measures are taken to guarantee the safety of all prisoners and prison staff? What are the consequences of the pandemic on the living conditions in prisons? Here is an overview. — Update 29/03/2021
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Brazil
Despite many differences at the legal, social and economic levels, Brazil and the United States have commonalities in their use of female incarceration. The Instituto Terra, Trabalho e Cidadania (Land, Labour and Citizenship Institute, ITTC) undertook a comparative investigation to identify recurrent…
Source — The Instituto Terra, Trabalho e Cidadania (ITTC)
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And yet most of us know very little about prisons. In fact, gaining entry or even insight into prisons as an outsider is quite rare. In Canada, only parliamentarians and judges cannot be denied access to federal prisons.
If the measure of civil society is based on how it treats its most vulnerable members,…
Source — The Conversation
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Canada : bannir les courtes peines de prison pour éviter des suicides
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Canada
This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French
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Protest
The Covid-19 has not stopped at prison gates. What measures are taken to guarantee the safety of all prisoners and prison staff? What are the consequences of the pandemic on the living conditions in prisons? — Update 29/03/2021
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Coronavirus
North America
Access to legal rights
Health
United States
Despite a record number of new COVID-19 cases in prisons this month, some state departments of correction are already starting to roll back necessary suspensions of medical co-pays. Prior to the pandemic, most prison systems charged incarcerated people between $2 and $5 for each medical appointment —…
Source — Prison Policy Initiative
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North America
Women
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United States
The “freedom-loving” U.S. has been practicing the forced sterilization of its least desirable citizens since the early twentieth century.
It is conservatively estimated that over 60,000 American citizens suffered this procedure until it was supposedly abolished little by little, state by state, in the…
Source — Prison Legal News
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LGBTI
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Justice
United States
Nicole Rose Campbell was diagnosed with gender dysphoria prior to going to Racine Correctional Institute, a medium-security men’s state prison in Wisconsin. She was “permitted to receive hormone treatments, counseling, and even allowed to wear some women’s clothing” since starting her sentence, but was…
Source — LGBTQ Nation
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Space — 12/12
Inside Outside
North America
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Women
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Long-term prisoners
Each month, the photographer Bertrand Gaudillère creates an image or chooses one from his archives. Prison Insider sends it to a dozen participants, prisoners around the world.They are in Argentina, in the United States of America, in France, in Switzerland, in Guatemala, in Ukraine, in Colombia, in…
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Coronavirus
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Overcrowding
United States
They live in crowded conditions, sharing bathrooms and eating facilities where social distancing is impossible. They have high rates of asthma, diabetes and heart disease. Many struggle with mental illness. A disproportionate number are Black and Hispanic, members of minority communities that have been…
Source — The New York Times
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Women
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United States
The United States imprisons the most women in the world. Across the United States, approximately 200,000 women are incarcerated—nearly an 800 percent increase since 1980. Women of color are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system. In 2017, twice as many Black women and 1.3 times as…
Source — New Security Beat
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United States: think private prison companies are going away under Biden? They have other plans
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Rehabilitation
United States
For the second time in four years, fears that a Democrat would be elected president sent private prison stocks plummeting earlier this month. To the casual observer, the prospect of President-elect Joe Biden—who promised to “stop corporations from profiteering from incarceration”—presented an existential…
Source — The Marshall project
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United States
Early this year — before COVID-19 began to tear through U.S. prisons — five people were killed in Mississippi state prisons over the course of one week. A civil rights lawyer reported in February that he was receiving 30 to 60 letters each week describing pervasive “beatings, stabbings, denial of medical…
Source — Prison policy
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Coronavirus
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United States
Rather than improve under a class action lawsuit dating back to 1990 (now Plata v. Newsom) and seeking constitutionally acceptable mental health care for prisoners, conditions continue to slide, exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
Mental health problems are especially egregious at CDCR’s California…
Source — Prison legal news
Read more Etats-Unis: peine de mort, l’administration Trump poursuit les exécutions malgré sa défaite
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United States
This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French
United States: can correctional facilities negotiate phone contracts that prohibit deposit fees ?
News
North America
Material conditions
Social ties
United States
The high cost of calling home from prisons and jails rightly gets a lot of attention in the press, but the industry’s practice of tacking on hidden fees is getting an increasing amount of attention from regulators and the savviest correctional facilities. These fees can be called by a variety of different…
Source — Prison policy initiative
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Canada
There are five federal prisons for women in Canada, none of which are in Newfoundland. For women from the province facing a federal sentence, this usually means they will serve their time in the Nova Institution for Women (Nova) in Truro, Nova Scotia. Being a province away from their communities means…
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Coronavirus
North America
Justice
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United States
In a sweeping acknowledgment of the risks of the coronavirus in cramped prisons, New Jersey will release more than 2,000 inmates on Wednesday as part of one of the largest-ever single-day reductions of any state’s prison population.
More than 1,000 additional prisoners will be released in the coming…
Source — The New York Times
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United States
British prisons and jails must provide for vegan inmates by law; as of January this year, veganism is an explicitly protected belief under the Equality Act 2010, the same as religious beliefs.
This protection is not absolute, nor does veganism have legal protection everywhere in the world. In the U.S.,…
Source — Sentient Media
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United States: California law is step forward but fails to guarantee safety for trans prisoners
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Women
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United States
Syiaah Skylit has been imprisoned in California since 2015. Despite multiple requests to be placed in a women’s prison, Skylit, a Black trans woman, has always been incarcerated in the state’s men’s prisons. There, she has faced attacks by incarcerated men as well as sexual abuse and retaliation by prison…
Source — Truthout
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North America
Access to legal rights
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United States
When Drew Harrison was in prison, just sitting in his cell overloaded his senses. To dim the fluorescent lights, he covered the bulbs with toothpaste or paper. To mask overwhelming odors, he wrapped his uniform around his head.
Once, when he asked to stay longer in the prison yard, Harrison, who has…
Source — The Marshall Project
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Coronavirus
North America
Health
United States
As COVID-19 threatened jails and prisons in March, the Connecticut Department of Corrections decided to waive the $3 fee it charged prisoners for a medical visit.
“We didn’t want the lack of funds to be a reason offenders were denied medical treatment, especially during the pandemic,” said Andrius Banevicius,…
Source — The Marshall Project
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