By Prison Legal News On September 25, 2013, a man who escaped from a California prison in 1977 was taken into custody at his home in Jessieville, Arkansas, where he had been residing under an assumed name. Michael Ray Morrow scaled a fence at the California Institute for Men in Chino some 36 years earlier
A Maricopa County jail employee was murdered in his driveway by a 15-year-old boy who police say was motivated by gangs, drugs, and guns. The teen, identified on September 25, 2013, as Leonard Moreno, will be tried as an adult for the random shooting of Jorge Vargas, 27. Vargas was an eight-year employee of the
A cell phone video, which went viral on the Internet, showed several Angola prison guards kicking prisoners and beating them with sticks, then laughing as they left the prisoners bleeding and crying on the floor. Amnesty International called the incident shocking and urged the government to prosecute the guards. In a rare reaction from one
On February 5, 2014, Prison Legal News editor Paul Wright interviewed Noam Chomsky, 85, at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. Professor Chomsky is the foremost dissident intellectual in the United States, and for decades has been a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy, human rights abuses, imperialism and the media’s facilitation of same. He is also one of the world’s eminent linguists and has been a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955. He was arrested and jailed for anti-war activism in the 1960s.
The author of dozens of books on politics, media analysis, foreign policy and other issues, Professor Chomsky was also one of PLN’s earliest subscribers and has corresponded with Paul on various topics since the early 1990s. However, in his books, essays and interviews, Professor Chomsky has rarely addressed human rights abuses in the United States with respect to policing and prisons – until now.
While Professor Chomsky agreed to be interviewed by PLN, scheduling was difficult due to his extensive travel and speaking schedule. It turned out that the day of the interview was also the day a massive snowstorm hit Boston, and he did not come into work. He graciously agreed to conduct the interview at his home, and Paul and PLN advertising director Susan Schwartzkopf made an adventurous cab ride through the snowstorm to his house.
We extend our thanks to Professor Chomsky for this interview and to his assistant, Beverly Stohl, for making the necessary arrangements.
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PAUL WRIGHT: I think one of the things that’s interesting is I’ve been reading your work since I was in high school, and I would say that for at least 30 years now, 30-plus years, I’ve been reading your work and all the interviews that you’ve done, and very few people ever ask you about domestic issues.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Really?
PW: Yes. About domestic stuff, in terms of … you know, they ask you about human rights in other countries, but not about human rights in this country. I think you did one interview in the mid-90s which we reprinted in Prison Legal News.
NC: There are many. I don’t know what happens to them. There are so many, I can’t keep track. There’s several a day.
Carbon Hill Mayor James “Pee Wee” Richardson, 61, was arrested on September 19, 2013, on multiple charges related to sexually abusing four prisoners at the city’s municipal jail; he was released eight days later after posting a $250,000 property bond. In addition to the criminal charges, Richardson faces a civil lawsuit filed by a former
The mother of a deceased prisoner, has sued jail and hospital officials over the death of her son at the Marion County Jail (MCJ) in Salem, Oregon.
On June 14, 2010, Robert Haws was arrested for several criminal offenses and a probation violation, according to court records. He was held at the MCJ pending trial.
A month later, Haws was playing basketball with other prisoners at 9:30 a.m. During an argument, fellow prisoner Robert Dailey punched Haws in the jaw, knocking him unconscious and causing his head to hit the concrete floor. Dailey and the other prisoners fled.
Guards did not witness the altercation or see Haws lying unconscious on the basketball court. Approximately fifteen minutes later, Dailey and a few other prisoners returned to check on him.
They dragged Haws to the edge of the court and propped him up. He was barely conscious, vomiting and urinating on himself and bleeding from the nose. Unbeknownst to guards, one prisoner made several trips to the laundry room to replace Haws’ bloody clothing.
BY SYDNEY GAYDA / NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM https://www.federalcriminaldefenseattorney.com/prison-education/Image courtesy forbes.com
The New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons Consortium (NJ-STEP) is revolutionizing how inmates will integrate back into society after their release. College-level classes, now offered to prisoners during their incarceration, are expected to offer “an invaluable boost to incarcerated students, help reduce the rates of recidivism and, cut public spending,” according to NJ.com.
“First launched in 2012, the program is being expanded through a $4 million in grants Rutgers received from The Fort Foundation and The Sunshine Lady Foundation.” The program has now expanded to seven correctional facilities across the state. At the Albert C. Wagner Correctional Facility in Bordentown, NJ, a select group of young inmates are taking classes in mostly every subject- from medieval history to sculpture. Once released, inmates are able to redeem their credits at “Mercer County Community College, Rutgers University and several other state institutions.”
Bridget Clerkin, for The Times, reported earlier this week that results of the program have been “positively extraordinary”. Recent research done by the Rand Corporation indicates that “inmates who participate in correctional education programs are 43 percent less likely to go back to prison. And employment after release is 13 percent higher among prisoners who participated in either academic or vocational education programs.”