Israel Has 10,000 Palestinian Prisoners and Faces Allegations of Rampant Abuse

Groups supporting Palestinian political prisoners are demanding that the International Committee of the Red Cross intervene on behalf of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank who are now incarcerated by Israeli occupation forces.

The call for action follows the deaths of two recently arrested Palestinian men, and it also comes in response to allegations from advocates for political prisoners of arbitrary detention, retaliatory beatings, medical neglect, solitary confinement, and other forms of abuse.

Leaked reports reveal severe abuse of Saudi political prisoner

Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country’s ruler, King Salman.

The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government’s denials that men and women in custody are being tortured.

Pennsylvania Replaced Prison Mail With Photocopies. Inmates and Their Families Are Heartbroken

Ever since his daughter first learned to use a pen, Joseph Onzik has looked forward to her letters. He reads them from a cell in a state prison in Pennsylvania, where he’s been locked up for about five years, since she was three. “I ask her to write me as much as possible,” he says. It “has advanced from scribble to cursive writing like magic as the time passes by.” Sometimes she calls to let him know what color pen she’ll use for the next one: “At eight years old, it is quite hard for her to keep a secret about the little things in life.”

This Disgusting Scheme to Enrich Cops by Starving Prisoners May Soon Be Scuttled

Alabama’s sheriffs have been getting rich off of prisoners for decades thanks to purportedly ambiguous pre-World War II statutory language that lets them keep “excess” food funds. With that distorted incentive to keep expenditures low, sheriffs have been subjecting prisoners to sustenance that ranges from unappetizing to inadequate to unsafe.

Now, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey is trying to put a stop to that practice with a memo to the state comptroller. “Public funds should be used for public purposes—it’s that simple,” Ivey said.

$5.41 per inmate per day: Bad food, small portions fueling prison tensions, federal watchdog finds

Canada's prison watchdog says small portions and inferior quality food are driving heightened tensions and a black market economy behind bars.

In his annual report to Parliament, Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger said spending cuts in 2014 resulted in a fixed daily food budget of $5.41 per inmate.

It’s 2017, and Most States Still Allow Shackling of Prisoners During Labor and Delivery

A few weeks ago, a group of Democratic senators introduced the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, which would compel federal prison officials to be more attentive to the unique needs of female inmates when it comes to things like parenting, visitation, and access to health care. Among the bill’s provisions is a federal ban on restraints for pregnant prisoners—who in many states can still be forced to go through labor and delivery while shackled to a bed. As a medical resident, Dr. Carolyn Sufrin—who is now a medical anthropologist and an OB-GYN at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine—delivered the baby of one such prisoner and was appalled by the inhumanity of it. Her recent book, Jailcare: Finding The Safety Net for Women Behind Bars, explores the experiences of pregnant women who gave birth while incarcerated. I reached out to Sufrin to learn more about prison births, the problems of impoverished pregnant women, and how to reform a male-dominated justice system that often fails to attend to women’s concerns.

Double Punishment: After Prison, Moms Face Legal Battles to Reunite With Kids

This story is the first in a new Truthout series, Severed Ties: The Human Toll of Prisons. This series will dive deeply into the impact of incarceration on families, loved ones and communities, demonstrating how the United States' incarceration of more than 2 million people also harms many millions more -- including 2.7 million children.

Since becoming a mother, Vanetta Richardson had never spent a day apart from any of her six children. But, on December 1, 2013, the 34-year-old was arrested at her home in Renton, just outside Seattle, and spent the first night away from her children, who ranged in age from six to 16. A friend took her children in that night, but shortly after, her mother-in-law went to family court and became the children's caregiver, bringing the state's child welfare system into the picture.

Jails in LA County Knowingly Expose Prisoners to Deadly Fungal Infection

For nearly three years, the LA No More Jails Coalition has been organizing against the construction of a new women's jail in the city of Lancaster, California, which sits at the northern edge of LA County -- home to the largest jail system in the country. The fight has been a long one, and organizers continue to work to ensure that public funds are diverted away from another jail, and instead invested toward alternatives -- diversion programs that would get people released and much needed resources like stable housing, health care and education.

Anatomy of a Snitch Scandal

Prosecutorial misconduct and the misuse of jailhouse informants are persistent problems in the criminal justice system. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, since 1989 there have been 923 exonerations tied to official misconduct by prosecutors, police, or other government officials,­ 89 of them in cases involving the use of jailhouse snitches. Over the last two years, a scandal involving both has engulfed Orange County, California, exposing systemic violation of defendants’ constitutional rights and calling into question the legality of the prosecution of a number of violent felony cases.

Notorious Louisiana Prison Accuses Inmate Of ‘Defiance’ For Speaking With Reporters

Officials at one of the United States’ most notorious prisons have reportedly punished an outspoken inmate for daring to correspond with reporters about conditions inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

William Kissinger was abruptly relocated from Angola to the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center some 70 miles south in early February, after emailing with a reporter from the New Orleans Advocate for some weeks. Prison officials say he was moved as a disciplinary action because he was guilty of “defiance” and “general prohibited behavior,” the Advocate reports — two broad and vague rules of prisoner conduct that allow officials to punish inmates for anything they decide insults staff or impedes the prison’s function.

Prisoners in Multiple States Call for Strikes to Protest Forced Labor

PRISON INMATES around the country have called for a series of strikes against forced labor, demanding reforms of parole systems and prison policies, as well as more humane living conditions, a reduced use of solitary confinement, and better health care.

Inmates at up to five Texas prisons pledged to refuse to leave their cells today. The strike’s organizers remain anonymous but have circulated fliers listing a series of grievances and demands, and a letter articulating the reasons for the strike. The Texas strikers’ demands range from the specific, such as a “good-time” credit toward sentence reduction and an end to $100 medical co-pays, to the systemic, namely a drastic downsizing of the state’s incarcerated population.

San Francisco Deputies Charged For Allegedly Forcing Inmates To Fight

SAN FRANCISCO -- Two sheriff department deputies and one former deputy were charged for allegedly turning the county jail here into a "fight club" where two mismatched inmates were forced to battle each other while guards watched, according to the San Francisco district attorney and the FBI.

If the inmates, who were significantly different in size, refused to fight, the former deputy threatened to handcuff them, beat them and douse them with Mace or shock them with a Taser, according to District Attorney George Gascon.

Calls To Close Down Rikers Island Are Getting Louder

NEW YORK -- Tear down Rikers Island.

That idea -- to close one of the country's largest jail complexes -- has in recent months inspired op-eds, protest signs and a hashtag. On Wednesday, the idea got the endorsement of a New York City lawmaker.

“Ultimately, what we should really be talking about is abolishing Rikers Island completely," City Council member Daniel Dromm (D-Queens) told reporters outside City Hall in lower Manhattan.

30 Percent of California's Forest Firefighters Are Prisoners

Here's a kind of crazy stat: Between 30 and 40 percent of California's forest firefighters are state prison inmates. The state has become a tinderbox of sorts from a four-year drought, and roughly 4,000 low-level felons are on the front lines of the state's active fires. Here's what's going on:

Why are prisoners fighting fires? For years, California's prison system has operated a number of "conservation camps," in which low-level felons in the state prison system volunteer to do manual labor outside, like clearing brush to prevent forest fires or fighting the fires themselves. A handful of other states have similar programs, but California's program is by far the largest, with roughly 4,000 participants. At its best, the program is a win-win situation: Inmates learn useful skills and spend time outside the normal confines of prison, and the collaboration with Cal Fire saves the state roughly $80 million a year.

After 2 Killers Fled, New York Prisoners Say, Beatings Were Next

Night had fallen at the Clinton Correctional Facility in far northern New York when the prison guards came for Patrick Alexander. They handcuffed him and took him into a broom closet for questioning. Then, Mr. Alexander said in an interview last week, the beatings began.

As the three guards, who wore no name badges, punched him and slammed his head against the wall, he said they shouted questions: “Where are they going? What did you hear? How much are they paying you to keep your mouth shut?” One of the guards put a plastic bag over his head, Mr. Alexander said, and threatened to waterboard him.

Chicago police detained thousands of black Americans at interrogation facility

At least 3,500 Americans have been detained inside a Chicago police warehouse described by some of its arrestees as a secretive interrogation facility, newly uncovered records reveal.

Of the thousands held in the facility known as Homan Square over a decade, 82% were black. Only three received documented visits from an attorney, according to a cache of documents obtained when the Guardian sued the police.

Prison Services Company Securus Makes Record Profits in the Face of FCC Regulation

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to release a ruling within the coming months that will affect some 85 percent of all calls from prisons and jails.

If the FCC takes bold action to limit how much the prison phone industry can charge incarcerated people and their families for talking on the phone, the decision could help out thousands of families, many of whom are already living paycheck to paycheck. But it remains to be seen whether the FCC will bow to the pressure of the telecom industry with its large coffers of cash.

The FCC took a historic first step in 2014 to rein in the huge profits the prison phone industry makes from incarcerated people and their families. Its February 2014 decision to cap the cost of interstate calls came after a decade-long campaign involving dozens of organizations across the United States that mobilized thousands to testify about the exorbitant fees they pay to talk to their incarcerated loved ones.

Ottawa tightens prison visitor rules, citing drug crackdown

OTTAWA—Authorities are moving to further tighten the rules on anyone visiting federal prisons to crack down on contraband despite fears the new system can be applied “subjectively.”

A notice quietly posted to a federal government website the afternoon before Canada Day said that despite concerns from inmates’ advocates and visitors, Correctional Services Canada will move forward with the new regime.

Detention centre staff speak out in defiance of new asylum secrecy laws

Social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers and humanitarian staff who have worked inside Australia’s detention centres have united in an unprecedented show of defiance against new laws that could see workers in detention centres jailed for speaking out about abuses.

More than 40 staff who have worked at detention centres on Manus Island, Nauru and across the Australian mainland have spoken out on the same day that a new offence comes into force that criminalises the disclosure of information.

The True Story of a Texas Prison Riot

The Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville, Texas, is now empty. As of late May, a single security guard sat in a small car in the entrance to the parking lot. It has been like this since prisoners so ransacked the facilities in a February riot, cutting and burning holes in the Kevlar domes that held them, that the Federal Bureau of Prisons declared it “uninhabitable.” The agency moved the inmates to other prisons and declined to renew its contract with the private corrections company that ran the facility. Nearly all of the 400 employees were terminated.