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 “We think their whole understanding of the mission of the bureau is outdated, it’s wrong.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.

Corruption Allegations Against Prison Guards Shadow Aryan Gang Trial

Authorities have said all along that one of the most disturbing aspects of the Aryan Warriors case is the way the violent prison gang corrupted Nevada corrections officers.

Former members and associates of the gang who are cooperating with federal prosecutors name some of those corrections officers and spell out their alleged corruption in FBI reports and grand jury transcripts.

They accuse officers of helping the white supremacist gang smuggle drugs into prison yards. They say guards left cell doors cracked open to allow gang members to assault other inmates, passed messages of all sorts among Aryan Warriors and allowed gang members to use cell phones to contact partners in crime on the streets.

One gang member even testified that corruption within the prison system played a role in the killing of at least one inmate, a planned slaying that the witness had warned authorities about in writing.

Take our children to work day is a shocking experience for these kids

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day sometimes works better in theory than in practice.

Especially if your parents work at the Franklin Correctional Institution in Carrabelle.

Sgt. Walter Schmidt wanted to give the kids an idea of what their parents do, reports the St. Petersburg Times.

So he took out a handheld stun device and zapped them with 50,000 volts of electricity — that
feels like being zapped with volts that are 450 times as strong as the current in a household electrical outlet.

Dallas County could be forced to move 900 prisoners

State regulators may force Dallas County to move up to 900 prisoners out of its largest and most-populated jail tower because of lingering fire-safety concerns.

If so, the county would probably have to reopen the Decker jail that was recently depopulated so the county could centralize its jail operations on the Lew Sterrett Justice Center campus.

The moving of so many prisoners would not only be costly at a time when the county is staring at a $60 million budget shortfall, it also would create logistical headaches.

Court allows state to continue early release of prisoners

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the state can resume releasing prisoners under a controversial early-release program.

On Wednesday, Circuit Judge David Tapp, who sits for Pulaski, Lincoln and Rockcastle counties, issued an order directing the state to stop releasing inmates under the program in all 120 counties. That order also applied to parolees who were removed from supervision under the program.

But yesterday, Chief Judge Sara Combs of the Court of Appeals granted Corrections Commissioner Ladonna Thompson’s request to stay Tapp’s order and recommended transferring the case to the Kentucky Supreme Court because of its “great and immediate public interest.”

Give prison staff their jobs back, union urges

The prison officers’ union wants the New South Wales government to allow its members who resigned during the bitter battle over the privatisation of Cessnock jail to return to their jobs.

In a surprise backflip, the government yesterday announced it will now keep the corrective centre under public ownership.

During the dispute 60 prison officers resigned and Corrective Services halved the prison’s population by transferring more than 200 inmates to other institutions.

Tony Howen from the Public Service Association says allowing officers to return to the ranks would ensure the jail gets back to normal quickly.

Guard who abused inmate in Sweden got job at Illinois prison, authorities say

HIRED IN ‘03 | Man who fled sex conviction for abusing female inmate in Swedish prison found working at Sheridan Correctional Center under real name

In 1999, Jerry Pomush was convicted of sexually abusing a female inmate while he worked as a prison guard in Stockholm, Sweden.

But instead of heading to a Swedish prison to serve his 1½-year sentence, Pomush skipped town and headed to an Illinois prison — where he landed a job, authorities say.

Massachusetts’ Mental Health Treatment Policies Prove Deadly for Public, Prisoners

As America’s prisons continue their transformation into mental health institutions, little thought is given to mentally ill prisoners who languish within the harsh confines of prison environments with little if any treatment. That all changes, at least temporarily, when a mentally ill prisoner who has been held in solitary confinement for years is set free without any supervision, and then commits multiple murders.

While the mainstream media recently covered such a story about a homicidal ex-offender – who was released from the Massachusetts Department of Correction (MDOC) and killed a newlywed couple in Washington state several months later – as well as the usual sound bites and hand wringing, past history proves that once the furor dies down it will be back to business as usual.

Officials study costs to close 3 Oklahoma prisons

Senate leaders have requested information about the costs of closing some older state prisons, but say there are no immediate plans to shutter the sites.

Last week, the state Department of Corrections sent Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, a report detailing costs of closing three medium-security prisons. The prisons studied were selected by the department.