All in Criminal Justice News

Rape is rampant at this women’s prison. Anyone who complains is punished, lawsuit says.

For years, male officers at the women’s work camp at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex sexually harassed and assaulted inmates in what amounted to a “sanctuary” for systemic abuse, a space where they were shielded from any consequences.

If the women complained about being groped, fondled or forced to perform sex acts on officers, the inmates were the ones who were punished.

Three men exonerated 36 years after being convicted of Baltimore teen's murder

BALTIMORE — Three men have been exonerated, 36 years after being convicted of murdering a 14-year-old Baltimore teenager.

"This journey here for us has been rough," Ransom Watkins said. "We outside them, walls but on the inside — I hate to put it like this — we went through Hell. It wasn’t easy. You see us out here. we’re smiling, we’re happy that we’re free, but we got a lot to fix.”

Prisons Need ‘Child-Friendly’ Facilities for Incarcerated Parents: Study

Should parents who are locked up also be locked away from their kids?

If the answer is “no,” then how much time should incarcerated parents be permitted to have with their children—and how could they use that time?

With over one million parents behind bars, the question is critical for the long-term health of their children—estimated at between 1.5 million and 2.3 million, according to a recent study published in the Florida Law Review.

Pay raises on the horizon as Texas prisons continue to deal with staffing shortages

Then-union spokesman Lance Lowry fretted in fall 2017 about a “mass exodus” in the state’s prison system, with an officer turnover rate so high that nearly 1 in 3 guards fled the agency over the prior year.

Little has changed since — and the vacancy rate is ticking up, as critical positions sit unfilled both Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s 104 adult prisons and at the Texas Juvenile Justice Department’s five youth prisons.

Teenage suicide sheds light on lack of oversight for juveniles in county jails

OKLAHOMA CITY — Before his death, 16-year old John Leroy Daniel Applegate was secluded from other juveniles in a cell in the Oklahoma County Detention Center.

The teenager also was placed on suicide watch intermittently during his time at the detention center before jailers ultimately found him unresponsive in his cell in April, said County Commissioner Carrie Blumert.