The Justice Department will begin transferring thousands of people out of federal prisons this week as part of a sweeping criminal justice overhaul signed more than three years ago (access full article).
The Eighth Circuit on Monday said the government can't collect inmates' prison wages to satisfy victim restitution orders, agreeing with two other appeals court opinions and vacating a lower court order to seize $5,500 from an Arkansas prisoner's trust account (access full article).
he Justice Department’s watchdog said Tuesday that a “combination of negligence and misconduct” enabled financier Jeffrey Epstein to take his own life at a federal jail in New York City while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges (view full article).
Oklahoma prison classifies inmate as a member or associate of the Sureños prison gang, which has primarily Hispanic membership. As a result, he's placed with the gang in administrative segregation. Inmate: My name is Ong and I am a member of the Hmong people of Southeast Asia. So, can I be moved back to my normal cell now, because these people are trying to stab me? Prison: Well, no. For now you stay, because we found your name on a list of gang associates that we will not show you.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission approved new guidelines on Wednesday that will expand federal inmates' ability to qualify for compassionate release from prison (view full article).
Louisiana man is kept in prison 41 days after his release date, part of a plague of "inexplicable and illegal over-detention in Louisiana prisons." Can he sue the head of state corrections? Fifth Circuit: Yup, sure can. We've said as much in other cases. Concurrences: But we were wrong! We should go en banc.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was described by 60 Minutes reporter Cecilia Vega as ‘an agency in crisis’ (view full article).
For the general public, it was the first view of the challenges facing the BOP, a branch of the Department of Justice with an annual budget of $8 billion.
A DOJ investigation has revealed that the BOP failed to prevent 187 deaths by suicide from 2014-2021.
Wherein the Tenth Circuit gives some side-eye to a Colorado prison's "troubling" DEI programming—warning that "race-based training programs can create hostile workplaces when official policy is combined with ongoing stereotyping and explicit or implicit expectations of discriminatory treatment"—but holds that in this particular case it wasn't so bad as to violate a white former officer's Title VII suit. The court also declined to reinstate his equal protection claim.
The Supreme Court opens its new 9-month term today with arguments in a case that considers what the meaning of the word “and” is in a provision of the First Step Act, an esoteric English lesson with real-world impact for thousands of federal prisoners (view full article).