Tag: Prisons
Artist Josh Begley’s most recent project is a website that collects satellite photography of all 4,916 prison facilities in the U.S. and puts them on one page for you to scroll through and weep. Begley says that he hit on the idea while he was in a data visualization class at NYU: When discussing the idea […]
At long last, one of the men at the center of the mass cover-up of violence within Rikers Island has resigned, reports The New York Post. William Clemons, the Chief of the Department of Corrections, has “submitted his resignation Monday under pressure from Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte,” according to the Post’s sources. Clemons became warden […]
Rikers Island is a mess. In addition to the systemic abuse of minors and the “culture of violence” at the correctional facility, it seems that officials lie about inmate deaths that result from neglect. According to a report by DNAinfo, at least four families of patients who died while at Rikers in the past decade […]
New York corrections officials will no longer place inmates under 18 in segregated housing — a face name for solitary confinement — reports the Associated Press. In some cases, prisoners as young as 9-years-old were subjected to “special housing.” This common sense policy wasn’t adopted by prison brass because they all of a sudden had […]
Today, City Hall will announce the Task Force on Behavioral Health and the Criminal Justice System, a new panel that the de Blasio administration hopes will reduce the rate of incarceration among mentally ill people in NYC. The Times has de Blasio’s statement: “For far too long, our city’s jails have acted as de facto mental health facilities,” Mr. de […]
In a deal sparked by an NYCLU lawsuit, New York State will scale back the use of solitary confinement in its prison system, banning the practice for prisoners under 18 and limiting it for pregnant and developmentally disabled people. “New York State has done the right thing by committing to comprehensive reform of the way […]
To illustrate the disconnect many long-term prisoners feel with the modern, web-connected world, a reporter with Buzzfeed FWD spoke to several prisoners serving long sentences who have never used the internet to describe what they think it’s like. The responses are striking. With few exceptions, it’s illegal to go online the if you’re imprisoned in […]
Hundreds, possibly thousands of inmates in California’s prisons are in their third week of a hunger strike. They are protesting the “cruel and unusual punishment” practice of solitary confinement and the ways in which prisoners are placed solitary confinement, often based on flimsy reasoning and evidence. In solitary confinement, prisoners remain completely alone in tiny, […]
About 150 female inmates in California were sterilized between 2006 and 2010 after receiving misleading information and being pressured into surgery, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting. Documents suggest that since the 1990s, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation performed up to 250 sterilizations without the legally required case-by-case medical consultations. These practices hark […]
Many of America’s prisons boast visiting rooms that are festooned with bizarre wall art, so that friends and family members of incarcerated people can take pictures of their loved ones on backdrops other than the depressing, institutional grays and whites of the correctional facility. Artist and photographer Alyse Emdur has compiled six years worth of […]
