BOP

Baltimore County, Md. jail oversees a "work detail" program under which detainees work for various arms of the county, including the county's recycling center, where they are paid $20 per day despite regularly working nine-to-ten-hour shifts sorting recycling. Former detainee files a class action, alleging that he's owed unpaid minimum wage and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Fourth Circuit: Maybe so. The FLSA doesn't apply to work in or for the prison directly, but it might apply here. Case un-dismissed.

The federal Bureau of Prisons is closing the notorious Special Management Unit at Thomson penitentiary in Illinois, after frequent reports of violence and abuse. View full article and previous coverage.

NPR and The Marshall Project have uncovered violence, abuse and a string of inmate deaths at a new penitentiary in Thomson, Ill (access audio and article).

There have been at least 167 recorded assaults at Thomson between January 2019 and October 2021, according to data provided by the bureau. But this is an undercount, as it doesn’t include more serious incidents or deaths that were dealt with outside the prison disciplinary system.

The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland take immediate action to reform the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons in response to Associated Press investigations that exposed widespread problems there, serious misconduct involving correctional officers and rampant sexual abuse at a California women’s prison (view full article).

Michael Carvajal, the director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons whose tenure at the agency was marred by scandals and pandemic-induced struggles, will resign after nearly two years in the top position amid heavy criticism of his leadership of the agency, the Justice Department said Wednesday (view full article).

Inside one of the only federal women’s prisons in the United States, inmates say they have been subjected to rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers and even the warden, and were often threatened or punished when they tried to speak up (view full article).

Prisoners and workers at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, California, even have a name for it: “The rape club.”

Kerry Max Cook, 68, spent 20 years on death row for a 1977 murder. Now, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has formally declared him innocent, citing stunning allegations of prosecutorial misconduct (access full article).

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has released its second of two interactive resources providing an overview of certain Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) programs.

Turn Key Health Clinics is a medical care provided utilized by local jails and detention facilities in counties across the country, including Tulsa, Cleveland, and Oklahoma. To date, at least 50 people in Turn Key’s care have died. Turn Key’s policies and practices have also endangered many others detailed in local jails.

Inmate at Pennsylvania federal prison is sexually assaulted by a guard on several occasions and subjected to inhumane conditions of confinement, like being forced to sleep on a cold metal bunk in below freezing temperatures for months. Can he bring constitutional claims against the guard and the warden? Third Circuit: Absolutely not.