Prison operator responsible for inmate’s death, coroner finds

A Victorian coroner has found that private prison operator GSL contributed to the death of an inmate who died of an asthma attack after pressing a prison intercom button that did not work.

Ian Westcott, 50, a remand prisoner at Port Phillip Prison, was found dead in his cell on November 26, 2005.

On a desk in his cell, police found a note in his handwriting.

“Asthma attack. Buzzed for help. No response,” he had written.

Coroner Audrey Jamieson today said there was a direct correlation between the intercom failure and Mr Westcott’s death, which she said was preventable.

Prison guards discover possible escape tunnel

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – South Carolina prison officials have discovered a hole dug by inmates at a maximum security prison that might have been part of an escape plan.

Spokesman Josh Gelinas said Wednesday authorities were tipped off by an inmate about the hole that had been dug through the concrete floor of a building at Lieber Correctional Institution at Ridgeville in an inmate work area.

Authorities are still investigating, but Gelinas says they don’t think the hole extends outside the wall of the building or beyond any security fences.

Gelinas says an inmate authorities think was digging the hole has been placed in solitary confinement.

Inmates on South Carolina’s death row are housed at Lieber but not in the same area where the hole was discovered.

source: http://www.wistv.com/global/story.asp?s=10663816

2 guards allege gender bias in prison promotions

A male city correctional officer who averaged 35 sick days a year got promoted.

So did one who had been arrested for assault, drunk driving, drug offenses and burglary.

So when Renee Johnson and Jill Toomer, city correctional officers with a combined 39 years of prison experience, got passed over for promotion in 2002, they got angry.

Both filed complaints against the Philadelphia Prisons System with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, alleging racial and gender discrimination. They pleaded their cases yesterday before a hearing examiner at the commission’s Center City office.

A decision could take months.

Prisoners attack female officers

Three female prison officers have been attacked by inmates in Maghaberry prison in County Antrim.

It happened during visiting time on Friday after staff spotted a visitor trying to smuggle a watch to a prisoner.

One of the prison officers suffered broken ribs, another a broken wrist and a third was left with a bruised face.

Finlay Spratt, chairman of the Prison Officers Association, said the attack was despicable.

“Those people should face the full vigour of the law,” he said.

“Their job is to stop contraband coming into the prisons and when they do it these visitors and prisoners don’t like being caught and that is what has happened here.”

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8112179.stm

DOC: Perryville Officer Committed Suicide

PHOENIX — A Department of Corrections officer committed suicide at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Perryville on Thursday night, according to a DOC spokesman.

 

Public information officer Bill Lameroux said the officer was on duty patrolling the facility’s perimeter when he apparently shot himself.

 

The DOC is not releasing the officer’s name because his next of kin have not been notified, Lameroux said

On May 20, a female inmate at Perryville died of exposure after she’d been left outside in a holding cell for several hours.

source: http://www.kpho.com/news/19800615/detail.html

Guards are the worst prison-rapists

The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission final report is grim reading, especially the finding that prisoners report more rape committed by guards than by other prisoners.
More than 7.3 million Americans are confined in U.S. correctional facilities or supervised in the community, at a cost of more than $68 billion annually. Given our country’s enormous investment in corrections, we should ensure that these environments are as safe and productive as they can be. Sexual abuse undermines those goals. It makes correctional environments more dangerous for staff as well as prisoners, consumes scarce resources, and undermines rehabilitation. It also carries the potential to devastate the lives of victims. The many interrelated consequences of sexual abuse for individuals and society are difficult to pinpoint and nearly impossible to quantify, but they are powerfully captured in individual accounts of abuse and its impact.

Prison officials halt releasing videotapes showing use of force by guards

 TALLAHASSEE — The killing of Death Row inmate Frank Valdez by prison guards a decade ago caused state corrections officials to use video cameras to record when officers get forceful with inmates.
For years, Department of Corrections officials handed over the tapes, sometimes grudgingly, to the public, media and lawyers

Not anymore.

Corrections officials now contend the videos, including those used to determine if guards’ actions against prisoners was appropriate, are exempt from the state’s broad public records laws.

State sued over shackling inmate who was in labor

Casandra Brawley’s contractions were coming every five minutes, and she’d been leaking amniotic fluid for days. Labor was imminent. Time to go to the hospital.

But as a prison inmate, Brawley still had to wear a “waist chain” with her wrists shackled to her sides on the ride to the hospital. She said she was shackled to her hospital bed, even after getting an epidural.

And as soon as she had an emergency cesarean section, she said, she was shackled again for a three-day bed rest.

On Thursday, a public-interest law firm in

Prison officer ‘disciplined’ for protesting faulty van

A serving prison officer in Queensland says he was disciplined and investigated for refusing to transport prisoners during soaring summer temperatures, in a van that did not have an operating air conditioner.

Hans Anderson says he refused to continue to drive the vehicle after the men in the back suffered heat stroke and one prisoner fell unconscious.

Mr Anderson has been driving prison vans for the Queensland Department of Corrective Services for almost a decade.

He says the shocking situation of a man dying from heat stroke while being transported in a prison van is not just a problem in Western Australia.

There have been close calls in Queensland as well.

Mo. inmate who used cardboard toilet paper holder to escape recaptured

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Columbia police have captured an inmate who allegedly escaped from the Howard County jail using a cardboard toilet paper holder. Curtis Jones of New Franklin was captured Wednesday afternoon.

 

Columbia police officers, who were responding to a tip, went to where Jones was believed to be located, but he had fled on foot. Jones was spotted a short time later and taken into custody.

 

Jones had escaped early Monday. Authorities allege he used the folded cardboard to jam a door lock to his cell and fled when a jailer went to another area in the building.

 

Jones was detained on a theft charge on suspicion of stealing anhydrous ammonia, a chemical used to manufacture methamphetamine.

 

He previously escaped in 1996 from the county’s old jail in Fayette by climbing through a hole in the ceiling.

 SOURCE: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ODD_TP_CARDBOARD_ESCAPE?SITE=CAFRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Union criticizes prison bureau for understaffing, lack of safety equipment

The American Federation of Government Employees blasted the leadership of the Bureau of Prisons on Thursday, saying the agency was understaffed and jeopardized corrections officers’ safety by failing to provide them with stab-resistant vests. An agency spokeswoman said the bureau was working on both issues.

“We have lost all faith in the Bureau of Prisons management,” said John Gage, president of AFGE. “We think their whole understanding of the mission of the bureau is outdated, it’s wrong. We are taking our case to the attorney general; we believe it is his responsibility to correct this situation immediately.”

Federal judge tosses former state prison corrections officer’s harassment suit

A federal magistrate on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by a former Fayette County state prison corrections officer who claims he and other black guards were singled out for pat-downs and searches of their vehicles for drugs.

In a 27-page opinion, U.S Magistrate Judge Robert C. Mitchell ruled that efforts by the state Department of Corrections and a lieutenant in 2005 to investigate the possible smuggling of contraband into the State Correctional Institution in Luzerne did not violate Joseph E. Wheeler’s rights.

Federal prison guards shoot inmate in Indiana

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Federal prison guards shot at least one inmate while breaking up a fight yesterday at the U.S. Penitentiary. A second inmate was hospitalized with unspecified injuries.

“Two inmates were transported to the local hospital for treatment of their injuries with one inmate sustaining a gunshot wound,” prison spokeswoman Hattie Sims said, adding that the fight began shortly after 8 a.m.   Sims said she had no information on the condition of the injured inmates.   “We are secure here,” she said. “The public is not at risk.”   The prison, about 70 miles west of Indianapolis, was placed on lockdown, Sims said.  The fight broke out in the recreation yard. When the combatants failed to stop, “shots were fired by institution staff to prevent the possible loss of life,” Sims said. No guards were injured, she said. The Terre Haute prison is the only place in the nation housing federal death row inmates and the only place where they are executed. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was put to death at the prison in 2001 for the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people. Current inmates include American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence for aiding the Islamic militants in Afghanistan. source: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090612/NEWS02/906120408/1025/rss02

Inmate Sues Over 55-Hour Erection

An ex-prisoner in New York is suing his former prison nurse for failing to treat his painful erection, which lasted for 55 hours before he was admitted to a hospital.

Ex-con Dawud Yaduallah says he became worried after his anti-psychotic medication left him erect for 14 hours. He checked into the prison infirmary, where, according to the lawsuit, nurse Judith Lovelace simply told him to put ice on his penis and sent him back to his cell.

Yaduallah says he suffered for two more days — long enough to cause permanent damage, but not long enough for his wife to plan a conjugal visit — before being taken to a hospital. His lawsuit claims that Lovelace’s negligence caused “severe damage to his penis, including erectile dysfunction, inability to ejaculate and pain during sexual intercourse.”

Even worse than the physical distress is the fact that other inmates won’t stop asking him, “Is that a shiv in your jumpsuit or are you just happy to see me?”
source: http://www.asylum.com/2009/06/09/inmate-sues-over-55-hour-erection/

Prisoners resurrect 500-year-old slang

The British Ministry of Justice is warning the country’s prisons that prisoners have taken to using a 16th-century slang to hide talk about drug deals.

The 500-year-old dialect, which is known as thieves’ cant or rogues’ cant, was believed to have been developed by medieval gypsies and adopted by a handful of scoundrels across England. Officials at Buckley Hall Prison in Rochdale said the dialect has resurfaced as a code for drug trafficking, the Daily Mail reported Monday

Officials said they determined that chat and onick are being used as code for heroin, while cawbe denotes crack cocaine and inick is code for a cell phone or a SIM card.

This is the most ingenious use of a secret code we have ever come across, an official at the 381-prisoner facility said. Elizabethan cant was only used by a tiny number of people and it is quite amazing that is has been resurrected in order to buy drugs. Some inmates will try anything to get contraband into jail.

The Ministry of Justice sent a security alert to officials at prisons in England and Wales warning them to be aware of the code.

source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/1701995/prisoners_resurrect_500yearold_slang/index.html?source=r_oddities

US prison warden’s talk cancelled after threats

A TALK by a leading figure from the US prison network to Scottish business leaders has been cancelled after heated protests were made to event organisers.

Burl Cain, warden of Louisiana State Penitentiary – nicknamed “Angola” – was due to address the Winning Entrepreneurs business network in Edinburgh tomorrow night at Prestonfield House Hotel.

However, the event has been cancelled after a series

of “aggressive” calls were made to Winning Entrepreneurs, while a flurry of protest e-mails were also sent to the organisers.

Corrections officers rally at Capital

 ALBANY – The state’s prison guards are warning about the size of staff cutbacks. They rallied Tuesday at the Capitol.

Where the people who staff the state’s prisons are concerned, conditions have deteriorated and are still getting worse. While the administration says inmate population is shrinking, meaning facilities can close and fewer corrections officers are needed, the rank and file see it differently.

As hundreds of corrections officers rallied at the Capitol, the leaders of the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association voiced their complaints publicly — defying what they say is a strongly encouraged administration policy.

Michigan to close 8 prison facilities

LANSING – Michigan will close three prisons – including one maximum security prison – and five minimum security camps, as part of Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s plan to trim $120 million from the state budget.

 The prisons to be closed between Aug. 1 and November are:
• Standish Maximum Correctional Facility in Standish
• Muskegon Correctional Facility in Muskegon
• Hiawatha Correctional Facility in Kincheloe

The five prison camps to be closed are the last remaining minimum security camps in the corrections system. The approximately 1,600 camp inmates will be transferred to other prisons around the state, said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

The five camps to be closed are:
• Camp Cusino in Shingleton
• Camp Kitwen in Painesdale
• Camp Ottawa in Iron River
• Camp Lehman in Grayling
• Camp White Lake in White Lake Township (Oakland County)

Camp White Lake is the only female camp.

Marlan said the 568 inmates from the maximum security prison in Standish will be transferred either to the remaining maximum security prisons or to Level Four prisons.

 • PDF: Download a map of the prison facilities to be closed.

source: http://www.freep.com/article/20090605/NEWS06/90605034/-1/RSS07

Prison guards fight against layoffs

ALBANY – Hundreds of correction officers traveled to the Capitol yesterday to urge lawmakers to reject a plan by Gov. David Paterson to cut about 2,000 of their jobs.

Instead, officials of their union said, the department should cut administrators to save money.

 Its extremely disturbing to NYSCOPBA that those charged with developing plans to institute saving measures refuse to look in the mirror when making those decisions,” union President Donn Rowe told a group of Republican Assembly members, many of whom represent areas where prisons are located.

2 convicted murderers captured in western New York after Arkansas prison escape

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A pair of convicted murderers were captured in New York state Tuesday after a 20-mile chase in the same car they used to flee from an Arkansas prison last week while wearing guard uniforms.

Calvin Adams, 39, and Jeffrey Grinder, 32, jumped from their car when it slowed in Hornell, N.Y., and were captured after a brief foot chase, authorities said. No one was hurt.

The car bearing Missouri tags coasted a short distance and hit a street sign, said Hornell police Chief Ted Murray.

Authorities said the chase began in the Allegany County town of Angelica in rural western New York, not far from the Pennsylvania border, after a state trooper tried to make a routine traffic stop. The trooper had earlier observed the car failing to signal a lane change, authorities said.