News

The JPay giveth, while the JPay taketh away.

News about the JPAY tablet seems to be making the rounds again, even hitting the BuzzFeed wire. The articles have been focused on the special tablets they’ve created to be used in the prison setting (see initial coverage here). We wrote about this critical innovation in prison education some time ago because there’s little doubt

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Taking the Charter School Approach to Prison

By Andra Ghent America spends a lot of money locking up a lot of people. Understandably, legislators are trying to find ways of cutting prison costs without increasing crime rates. One tactic legislators increasingly rely on to manage costs is private prisons. Research from the Sentencing Project shows that, between 1999 and 2010, the share

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Arizona Counties Vie for $24 Million Prison Deal in New Budget

By Craig Harris Gov. Doug Ducey is opening the door to allow counties to compete against private-prison companies for a lucrative multimillion-dollar contract to house state inmates. The move comes after county sheriffs — including conservatives — complained that the Republican governor and GOP-controlled Legislature weren’t giving them an opportunity to make money by putting

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Prison Legal News Investigation

By Christopher Zoukis Prison Legal News is seeking information from prisoners and their families concerning deceptive practices which are designed to syphon funds away from inmates’ trust and commissary accounts. We at the Prison Law Blog encourage you to assist Prison Legal News in their investigation. Their notice is as follows: Prison Legal News is

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For-Profit Prisons: A Barrier to Serious Criminal Justice Reform

By Dianne Frazee-Walker

Anyone interested in prison reform is aware the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Even though our country is large, only five percent of the world’s population inhabit the US. Incredibly, the country’s jails and prisons house 25 percent of all the inmates on the planet. An astounding one-quarter of all of the world’s prisoners are spending time behind bars in the U.S. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, every 33 adults in the U.S. are incarcerated in America’s jails or prisons.   

A major contributor to these outrageous statistics, which have doubled since 1990 is the “war on drugs” that has transformed into “the war on indigent people.”

The reasons for incarceration discrimination do not end with economic status. People of color are disproportionately locked-up for minor offenses. A significant factor for this social ill is a lingering policy that has sent countless offenders to prison for years. A small amount of crack cocaine found in the pockets of poor blacks has sent them to prison for decades. However, middle or upper-class whites will endure a mere “slap on the wrist” for cocaine offenses.   

More people are behind bars because of drugs than murder, rape or any other violent offense and it is costing tax-payers more than $50 billion a year to keep this atrocity going.

There is only one entity that is benefitting from this out of control economic disaster. The prison industry.

Business moguls have gotten wind of the mass incarceration problem in the U.S. and are making profits off of a deteriorating situation.

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