On February 16, 2014, Sri Lanka opened its first prison school in the Watareka prison. According to Chandrasiri Gajadeera, minister of rehabilitation and prison reform, the school will offer classes from the 9th grade through G.C.E. Ordinary level, the equivalent of a U.S. high school diploma. Students under the age of 30 who have passed
By Christopher Zoukis / BlogCritcs.org
On February 14, 2014 the New York Times ran a story about a very promising initiative called the University of the People. This young online school, founded just four years ago, offers courses to disadvantaged and underserved groups mostly for free (application costs run $0 to $50 and examination costs are $100). The University of the People has 700 students from 142 countries currently taking classes. Some 25 percent are from the United States and 30 percent are from Africa.
While there are several popular online courseware platforms currently in existence – think of edX and Coursera – University of the People is different. Classes often consist of 20 to 30 students and run for ten weeks. Quizzes and homework assignments are expected of all students, regardless of the diverse range of countries where they might reside. While a reported 3,000 professors have volunteered, only 100 have actually been used in either courseware development or instruction. Current degree offerings include degrees in computer science and business administration.
The idea behind such an initiative is that there is a way to offer free – or very low-cost – high quality education to students anywhere in the world, all through a central course delivery system. Programs like the University of the People manage to do so through open courseware which often relies heavily on textual content. This is an essential component of any such global program due to the lack of broadband internet access in African countries, a major geographic focus of such educational initiatives.
By Christopher Zoukis / BlogCritics.org
Book marketing in the world outside of prison is fairly straightforward. The author writes a book, ideally has the foresight to build an author platform in the process, and then uses the platform and other tools to market their book once it is published.
These other tools often consist of a snazzy website, writing commitments at relevant and visible publications, outreach to book reviewers, optimizing Amazon sales page copy, and targeted advertisements. Many, many books profile this straightforward, yet work-intensive and challenging process.
But what if the author is in prison? What if they don’t have access to a computer, the internet, email, or even a regular landline or cell phone? Now things start to get interesting. This article focuses on my experiences as an incarcerated book author and my efforts to promote my books, even from within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, where I currently reside. It is presented with the hope of helping those inside prison in marketing their books, and to enlighten regular book authors of how good they really have it.
Find A Dedicated Outside Assistant
Authors outside of prison have it easy. Their first question is, “Where do I start?” This is often several steps down the road for incarcerated authors. For the incarcerated author, the first question is, “Who can help me do what needs to be done?” And this can often be a crippling issue.
Incarcerated authors understand early on that they cannot possibly market a book from prison without the expert assistance of someone outside of prison, someone who has access to a computer and the internet. Often this position can be filled by a dedicated family member or friend, or, if absolutely necessary — and if funds are available — then by paying an assistant or helper. Due to the hustle and bustle of regular life outside of prison, this latter option is often the best by far. While it is challenging, effective assistants can be found on websites like Craig’s List. It is this outside assistant that will help with most of the following tasks. Finding a good one is perhaps the most essential task in the book marketing process.
By Christopher Zoukis Image courtesy www.corrections.com
In the field of correctional education there are numerous tools, different types of prison education programming which can be used to teach and treat our incarcerated students. These include basic literacy, high school equivalency (often in the form of GED classes), Adult Continuing Education, Adult Basic Education, vocational training, college in prison, and more. All of these are effective at helping our incarcerated students prepare for a law abiding life outside of prison. All of these forms of correctional education programming have been shown to reduce recidivism, instances of prison misconduct, and victimization. But the one proven time and time again to be the most effective is postsecondary correction education; college courses offered in prisons. And with this knowledge, we examine one such correctional education study that proves this point, and emphatically so.
According to the Institute for Higher Education Policy, one study on correctional education in Texas specifically looked at the costs and benefits of running college-level education programs for state prisoners. For the 2004 year alone, they found the following:
Are you a college professor who is in search of a worthwhile project for your students? An undergraduate or graduate student in search of an internship? Are you particularly talented at academic research, public relations, web design, or marketing? Do you want the chance to make a difference by shaping modern public policy and thought?
A former West Virginia judge is facing up to ten years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges that he conspired to protect a county sheriff from allegations of drug-related activity.
Former Mingo County Circuit Court Judge Michael Thornsbury, 57, pleaded guilty on October 2, 2013 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, and will be sentenced in January 2014. He resigned from his elected post the same day and consented to voluntary disbarment in a letter to the state Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Thornsbury was charged with conspiring with Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum and other officials to offer a lighter sentence to a defendant from whom Crum had bought drugs and owed a $3,000 debt for campaign signs. According to federal prosecutors, that defendant, George White, is now serving a 1-to-15-year sentence imposed by Thornsbury, who offered a more lenient sentence if White would fire his attorney and hire another one preferred by the judge. The offer was intended to silence White’s lawyer, who was providing information about Sheriff Crum to federal investigators and the news media.
“For a judge to violate someone’s constitutional rights is really beyond the pale,” said U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin. “But to violate someone’s rights in order to obstruct a federal investigation, that’s really unthinkable. Elected officials shouldn’t be treated differently than anyone else.”
By Prison Legal News On June 27, 2013, Prison Legal News filed suit in U.S. District Court against Nevada Department of Corrections (DOC) Director James G. Cox and other defendants, seeking to enjoin unconstitutional censorship by state prison officials. The lawsuit contends that the Nevada DOC has engaged in “unlawful censorship of books, magazines and
By Christopher Zoukis
A common pastime of prisoners is writing those outside of prison. This traditional correspondence regimen helps to alleviate the boring stretches of down time and allows prisoners to expand their world through the extension of those they write to. As such, the value of this activity cannot be downplayed. Pen pals not only help to pass the time, but also to ground a prison inmate to the world they will one day again belong.
The prison pen pal market is dominated by two distinct entities: companies which operate prison pen pal websites, and magazines which contain advertisements of people outside of prison who are seeking a pen pal in prison. In our Directory of Pen Pal Companies for Prisoners we list both. Pen pal companies and publications are notorious for folding without notice and closing shop abruptly. As such, prisoners should verify a company’s or publication’s history before sending any money to its operators. Due to this regular occurrence, some of these organizations will become out of date shortly after posting. That is just the name of the game. To help the Prison Law Blog readers with selecting a quality prison pen pal service, we’ve gone ahead and hyperlinked the web addresses of the pen pal companies that we feel we can recommend.
With this being said, enclosed below is PrisonLawBlog.com’s Directory of Pen Pal Companies for Prisoners. Perhaps it will help to connect those inside of prison to those caring souls outside, who are interested in throwing a lifeline to the incarcerated.
By Dianne Frazee-Walker
Every year New York City attracts thousands of people bringing in the New Year.
Gathered in Times Square are crowds waiting to watch the famous ball drop at the crack of midnight.
What is hidden behind the gala of toasting champagne glasses, kisses, confetti, and streamers are about 105,000 remote New York City children who have parents spending New Year’s Eve behind bars.
Thanks to progress the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents made during 2013, this year these kids may have reason to celebrate.
The year 2014 holds a hopeful future for these inner city youngsters because the needs of children with incarcerated parents has finally been addressed and changes are underway.
Tanya Krupat, program director of the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents at the Osborne Association, confirms two crucial advancements were made this year to benefit children of incarcerated parents. Acknowledgment of a population that has been in the dark for decades finally came to the attention of The White House and Congress.
Since one of every 28 children in the U.S. has a parent in prison, which is now higher than the number of kids that have a deployed parent, children’s entertainment media has capitalized on this stigmatized issue.
By Prison Legal News
On August 16, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, sitting by designation, unsealed a number of court documents related to a contempt motion seeking sanctions against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, for violating a settlement agreement in a lawsuit that alleged high levels of violence at the CCA-operated Idaho Correctional Center (ICC).
The unsealed documents revealed that current and former CCA employees had submitted sworn affidavits confirming CCA’s earlier acknowledgement that officials at ICC had falsified staffing records. The affidavits further indicated the understaffing may have far surpassed the company’s admission that ICC falsified almost 4,800 staff hours reported to state prison officials.
The district court had previously unsealed other documents related to the contempt motion on August 6, but the most recent unsealed records shed additional and unflattering light on CCA’s conduct relative to staffing discrepancies at ICC.
The underlying class-action lawsuit, litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), alleged excessive levels of violence at ICC that were in large part due to understaffing. In fact, a study conducted by Idaho prison officials in 2008 found that ICC had “four times more prisoner-on-prisoner assaults than Idaho’s other seven publicly-operated prisons combined.” [See: PLN, May 2013, p.22; Nov. 2011, p.10].
The case settled in September 2011, with the settlement providing that the federal court would resolve alleged violations of the agreement. As part of the settlement, CCA agreed to comply with the staffing pattern required pursuant to its contract with the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC), and to add a minimum of three additional guards “to enhance the overall security of the facility.”
We have profiled every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Learn about each prison’s location, security level, educational and recreational offerings, and much more.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best P.C.
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