A controversial decision by Ohio Governor John Kasich to expand Medicaid under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has extended health coverage to all Ohio state prisoners, helping the state save $10.3 million in prison medical care costs in 2014 alone. That is on top of savings due to wholesale changes
It reads like a headline from the 19th century: “Shackling of Pregnant Prisoners Could Soon End in New York.” But this headline appeared just two short weeks ago. It remains a standard practice in many prisons across the country (in 28 states, to be exact ) for women to be handcuffed while pregnant, during labor, and post-partum.
A fascinating new education project is underway in the United Kingdom’s infamous high-security Wakefield Prison. Known for housing those considered to be amongst England’s most violent offenders, the facility has recently started offering meditation classes to its inmates. “Mindfulness meditation” comes from the Buddhist tradition and is being touted as a method for treating low-level
A new federal agency formed in 2008 has quietly been locking up bank executives who have misused public bailout funds. Bankers who are prosecuted in federal court as a result of an investigation by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“SIGTARP”) are sentenced to an average of 69
It feels like every week, we are faced with new accounts of abuse against transgender inmates by prison staff. So it’s with guarded optimism we view a ruling handed down last week that represents a small victory. This past summer, a Maryland judge agreed that the treatment constituted a violation of the Prison Rape Elimination
Cornell University has been one of the most important players in prison education of late, stepping up to fill the major gaps created by stripping access to Pell Grants for prisoners back in 1994 and providing accessible degree and diploma programs to inmates across the state. The Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP) has received a
It’s not all that often we get the chance to post a strictly “feel good” article on here, so when one comes along I’m going to jump on it. This past week Harvard University’s renowned debating team fell to a surprising opponent: prisoners from the Bard prison initiative! The team was comprised of members of The
The end of October will herald new beginnings for roughly 6,000 inmates whose sentences have been reduced under changes to federal sentencing guidelines. While it might be tempting to attribute these changes to Obama’s push this last year for prison reform, these policy changes stem from wheels set into motion quite some time ago. Under
In a move that surprised many in the prison reform community, the president of the local chapter of a Texas prison guards’ union wrote a letter to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) on January 20, 2014, urging officials to introduce major reforms in the state’s handling of death row prisoners. Lance Lowry, president
A shortage of skilled laborers in the craft of welding is poised to seriously hinder America’s production capacity in the coming years. With education policies emphasizing that all students should pursue “traditional” college upon high school graduation, there’s been a serious drop in the number of individuals pursuing vocational training in the last decade or