A California prison program that employs inmates illegally spent $1.3 million on goods and salaries, including $82,000 in artificial turf that has gone unused, as part of a pattern of “gross misconduct,“ state auditors said Tuesday.
For some time, concerns about Parchman have rankled inmates, family members, and others, including hip-hop superstar Jay-Z who is suing the state demanding better conditions at the prison. Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, and others, have lobbied for officials to shut down the controversial prison. The conditions at Parchman, which once was a plantation that contained hundreds of slaves, were highlighted in January when cell phone video made its way to the internet displaying a cache of problems.
Courtesy The Marshall Project/PBS Although the number of people in prisons and jails in America has slightly declined, numbers released on Thursday, April 25, by the Bureau of Justice Statistics still show that nearly 1.5 million individuals were in prison by the end of 2017. The statistics also note that the U.S. continues to lock up more people than any other nation. And, despite a narrowing disparity between incarcerated black and white women, females have emerged as the new face of mass incarceration. “I don’t think this should be much of a surprise as two of the main for-profit prison
On Thursday October 1, a bipartisan group of Senators unveiled The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. The bill would lower costs in the federal prison system and reform sentencing for non-violent offenders. Among the package of reforms, the bill reduces certain mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders and gives judges increased discretion by expanding “safety valve” laws. Such efforts could potentially divert low-level offenders away from harsher punishments intended for the leaders and organizers of criminal conspiracies. One immediate change that could benefit over 6,000 federal inmates is that the bill makes the 2010 FAIR Act retroactive, which means that