Mohamed Huque, author of “Made In Prison: The Rise of America’s New Labour Class,” has given an interview in which he discusses the use of a federal prisoner workforce:
Mohamed Huque, author of “Made In Prison: The Rise of America’s New Labour Class,” has given an interview in which he discusses the use of a federal prisoner workforce:
Earlier this week, The Urban Institute issued a new report, The Growth & Increasing Cost of the Federal Prison System: Drivers and Potential Solutions, which, in terms of the Bureau of Prisons’ unrelenting growth, provides:
Today’s NY Times features a story by John Tierny, and corresponding profiles of four inmates, that addresses the growing shift away from the “lock ‘em and throw away the key” sentencing policies that came into vogue in the 1980s. Describing the story of a 27-year-old female, nonviolent, first-time federal drug offender who was sentenced to life imprisonment (without the possibility of parole, which the federal system discontinued in 1987), Tierney offers:
Echoing the Heritage Foundation’s recent work concerning the over-federalization of crime (see here, hereand here), which follows on reports by the ABA’s Task Force on the Federalization of Criminal Law and The Federalist Society, USA Today features a column by Vikrant Reddy, an analyst with the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center of Effective Justice, that takes issue with the appropriateness and impact of perpetually growing federal prosecutions:
From Guernica magazine comes a thoughtful article about the import of prison tourism. Writing about sight-seeing at the former Alcatraz federal prison, S.J. Culver notes how the tour reflects changes made in the face of objections from the federal Bureau of Prisons:
As noted, on Wednesday the GAO issued a report concerning federal prison overcrowding and its impact. Yesterday, Michael McLaughlin at The Huffington Post posted a story about the report that offers additional insight into the nature and extent of the problem:
After a day of meetings with incarcerated clients, I returned to my computer to find news of a just issued report from the General Accounting Office, Bureau of Prisons: Growing Inmate Crowding Negatively Affects Inmates, Staff, and Infrastructure. As set forth in the Highlights:
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A Triple-Bunked Cell in a BOP Facility |
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing concerning “Rising Prison Costs: Restricting Budgets and Crime Prevention Options,” a Webcast of which can be viewed here. In his statement, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), author of the Second Chance Act, offered: