Wyatt director defends fee for jail expansion

CENTRAL FALLS — The current executive director of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility was paid nearly $1 million to oversee the $48-million expansion of the jail while he was also collecting an annual fee for other consulting work at the detention center for federal immigrant detainees and prisoners awaiting trial or sentencing.

Anthony Ventetuolo Jr. confirmed this week that he and his firm, Avcorr Management LLC, of Warwick, was paid $961,671 for the second job over a three-year period that ended in October 2007. The payment represented 2 percent of the project’s cost, a fee structure that Ventetuolo said is customary for large capital construction projects.

Prisoners prying into DOC officers’ lives

MONROE, Wash. – Prisoners are prying into the lives of corrections officers and using taxpayer money to do it.

It’s terrifying for families and a huge burden on the Department of Corrections. Now there’s a push in the Legislature to make it stop.

Janet, the wife of a corrections officer, is scared. She doesn’t want KING 5 News to use her last name. Last weekend, a notice from the DOC arrived in the mail.

Treating offenders with mental health issues ‘would save £700m’

A Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health report claims the government can save £700m a year by investing properly in prisoner diversion services

The government could shave £700m annually from costs if it overhauled the process for diverting offenders with problems from jail to the mental health system, according to new research.

ATHENS, GREECE: Hijacked hovering helicopter whisks away two prisoners

For the second time in their lives, two robbers escaped from a high-security prison Sunday by scaling a rope ladder to a hovering helicopter amid a gun battle with guards.

The men remained missing late Sunday night. They had been scheduled to appear before a magistrate today about their first escape – from the same prison – three years ago.

The shaken government quickly dismissed three Justice Ministry officials, and the prime minister scheduled an emergency meeting of part of his Cabinet today to discuss the country’s prisons.

Vassilis Paleokostas, 42, and Alket Rizaj, 34, were picked up by a hijacked helicopter that flew over the courtyard of Athens’ Korydallos prison Sunday afternoon. They climbed a rope ladder thrown to them by a woman in the copter, the Justice Ministry said.

Guards on the ground opened fire and the woman fired back with an automatic rifle, authorities said. No injuries were reported.

source: http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nationworld/story/635431.html

Two nabbed for delivering drugs to a prison

OTTAWA (AFP) – Two women have been arrested for delivering marijuana and hash-oil worth an estimated 40,000 Canadian dollars (32,000 US) to a prison in western Canada, authorities said Wednesday

. Joel AMacKown (C) and dog Badge of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police perform a serach in June 2006. Two women have been arrested for delivering marijuana and hash-oil worth an estimated 40,000 Canadian dollars (32,000 US) to a prison in western Canada, authorities said Wednesday

.The pair’s vehicle was searched by sniffer dogs when they arrived last week at the federal penitentiary about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Calgary, Alberta. The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) said in a statement it was “acting on intelligence information.”)

 

CSC spokeswoman Rita Wehrle told AFP drug traffickers sell to prisoners because they can obtain up to 10 times more for their wares than if they sold on the street.

 

The Bowden prison houses 664 minimum and medium security inmates

source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090218/canada/canada_police_prison_trafficking

Explosive goes off in California prison

Inmate raped by cellmates can sue prison guards

(02-11) 19:10 PST San Francisco — The state Supreme Court allowed a transgender former prison inmate on Wednesday to proceed with a lawsuit accusing prison guards of failing to protect her from being raped and beaten by her cellmates.
In her suit, Alexis Giraldo said she was being held at Folsom State Prison for shoplifting and a parole violation in January 2006 when a cellmate began assaulting and raping her on a daily basis. She said prison staff ignored her complaints until March 2006, when she was transferred to segregated housing after a second cellmate attacked her with a box-cutter. She was paroled in July 2007.

Prison officials denied failing to protect Giraldo, who was housed at the all-male prison because she had not undergone surgery. A San Francisco jury rejected her emotional-distress claim against six prison employees in August 2007 after the trial judge dismissed her claim of negligence, ruling that guards have no legal duty to protect inmates from harm.

The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned the judge’s ruling last November, saying a jailer who takes a prisoner into custody must take reasonable steps to protect that prisoner from foreseeable injuries. California’s high court denied review of the state’s appeal Wednesday, allowing Giraldo to pursue her claim that negligence by prison employees was a cause of the assaults.

source http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/12/BA7C15SKL5.DTL

West Texas riots renew debate over private prisons

PECOS, Texas – As officials in a remote West Texas county have sought to keep the local prison full and financially workable, it has become the scene of mounting inmate unrest, including two riots in the last six weeks.

Reeves County faced a major boondoggle – a prison without prisoners – when it turned to a private company, The GEO Group Inc., about five years ago to manage its sprawling detention center and fill it with federal inmates.

Torture at Angola Prison

President Obama promises to close Guantanamo, but a court proceeding in Louisiana exposes brutality closer to home
By Jordan Flaherty

The torture of prisoners in US custody is not only found in military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. If President Obama is serious about ending US support for torture, he can start here in Louisiana.

Ohio prison staffs feeling strained

As budgets tighten, state is looking for ways to reduce the inmate population

LEBANON — Lebanon Correctional Institution was built to hold 1,440 inmates. It currently holds 2,600 — and 40 of 354 corrections officer jobs are vacant.

“Something needs to give,” said Marc Spencer, a corrections officer and president of his union. “The state needs to find a way to accommodate the inmates and the staffing.”

Essex County jail fight sends five guards to the hospital

LEWIS, N.Y. (AP) – Five Essex County jail guards were injured last week during a brawl that authorities say appears to have been organized by a small group of federal inmates.

County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Major David Reynolds says the guards’ injuries were minor, and no inmate injuries were reported from the fight.

The Essex County Sheriff’s Department recently made an arrangement with the U.S. Marshals Service to house federal prisoners awaiting trial or sentencing.

County manager Daniel Palmer says surveillance tapes show that four federal inmates appear to have started the fight.

source http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=9808152

Mass. prisons inmate found dead in cell

SHIRLEY, Mass. (AP) — A convicted murderer with a history of mental illness has been found dead in his prison cell.
The death Monday of 42-year-old Donovan Walker was the second inmate death at a state prison this month. Richard Sharpe, the dermatologist convicted of killing his wife, was found in his cell at MCI-Norfolk hanging by a bedsheet.
Both deaths are under investigation.
A prisons spokeswoman says Walker was found hanging by a T-shirt in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Leslie Walker, executive director of the inmate advocacy group, Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, tells The Boston Globe the deaths are concerning because the Correction Department has successfully prevented suicides after a high rate for several years.
source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MA_INMATE_DEATH_MAOL-?SITE=RIPRJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT”

Worcester County Jail to install wind-turbine test tower

WEST BOYLSTON

Intent on reducing energy costs while also supporting renewable energy, Worcester County Sheriff Guy Glodis today announced the first step in the process to install wind turbines on the grounds of the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction in West Boylston.