The Associated Press revealed today that the state of Louisiana has spent three years and over $1 million so far fighting a lawsuit that would require them to put air conditioning on death row. An expert for the plaintiffs estimated that installing air conditioning would have cost around $225,000. Small government!…
In a remarkably civil letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the state would comply with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act “wherever feasible.” That’s a big step from previous Governor Rick Perry, who called the law “counterproductive” and “unnecessarily cumbersome.” Texas is…
As of 2010, there were around 205,000 women in prison in the United States, and a million more under some kind of criminal justice supervision, counting those on probation and parole. But would the country benefit from not incarcerating women? At all? Ever?
Considering that the United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, at 754 per 100,000 (as of 2009) (Jesus), this is probably a much-needed resource.
A transgendered woman incarcerated in the Massachusetts state prison system has won the right to have the state pay for her sex reassignment surgery, after a US District Judge agreed that the surgery was "medically necessary." Naturally, this has led to people making A Big Thing about what "medically necessary" means,…
After being arrested in 2005 for forging checks, Amber Lovill failed multiple drug tests while on probation. After failed yet another drug test while pregnant, she was jailed for the good of the child. Activists say this constitutes gender discrimination.
