Tuesday, November 24, 2009

PA Youth as Chattel; Incarcerating the innocent and powerless paid very well

The full story is here:

A few of the details:

  • Two former Luzerne County judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, pleaded guilty in February to fraud charges. Prosecutors said they took $2.6 million in bribes to put juveniles in private detention centers
  • "I have never, not only in this state, never in the United States, seen a bribery case of this magnitude, and the effect that it's had on the children's lives is astounding," said state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille, who called it "probably the worst tragedy I've seen in the history of the United States."
  • Castille said a Supreme Court-appointed special master is reviewing the matter, and it's possible that 5,000 to 6,000 juvenile cases handled by the judges could be expunged. The master yesterday issued an order preserving the records of all juveniles whose cases went before Ciavarella between January 2003 and May 2008.

Strange bedfellows on criminal justice

Great Adam Liptak NYT article on how even some on the right wing are taking a look at criminal justice reform.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Rachel Maddow geeks out on corrections issues

MSNBC and AirAmerica's Rachel Maddow discusses her work with the ACLU National Prison Project (starting around 3:20) and goes on to discuss civil liberties more broadly here and here.

Is long-term segregation torture?

The New Yorker's Atul Gawande asks, is long term segregation torture?

Post-Incarceration Mortality

A New England Journal of medicine study of Washington DOC offenders reports that individuals are almost 13 times more likely die upon release from incarceration than their counterparts in the general population.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Welcome to Carceral State

Carceral State is a blog about prison and jail conditions in the United States, and the trends and developments that have made the U.S. the most incarcerated nation on the planet.