Latest Prisons News
Progressive district attorney faces tough-on-crime challenger in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES (AP) — George Gascón won election as Los Angeles County district attorney in 2020 on promises to implement criminal justice reform in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Four years later he faces a tough-on-crime challenger who says such policies have gone...
Authorities used justified force in 5 shootings, Mississippi attorney general says
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Law enforcement officers were justified in using force in five shootings in Mississippi from 2021 to 2023, including a shootout that involved an escaped inmate, state Attorney General Lynn Fitch said Monday. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation examined...
US says Iranian-American held in Iran as tensions high following Israeli attack on country
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a U.S. government-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained by Iran for months now, authorities said Sunday, further raising the stakes as Tehran threatens to retaliate over an Israeli attack on the...
Florida's convicted killer clown released from prison for the murder of her husband's then-wife
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A woman who pleaded guilty to dressing as a clown and in 1990 murdering the wife of a man she later married was released from prison Saturday, ending a case that has been strange even by Florida standards. Sheila Keen-Warren, 61, was released 18 months...
A 22-year-old political prisoner has died in Belarus, rights campaigners say
A 22-year-old political prisoner has died behind bars in Belarus, the country's oldest human rights group said Saturday. Russian-born Dmitriy Schletgauer, who had been serving a 12-year sentence for espionage and “facilitating extremist activities” is the seventh dissenter to...
A man is accused of punching and bloodying another passenger who was sleeping on a US flight
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A man faces a felony assault charge after an unprovoked attack on a fellow passenger who was sleeping during a cross-country flight this week, according to authorities. An FBI agent said Everett Chad Nelson punched the other man repeatedly in the face and...
Prisoners plead for air conditioning in lawsuit against Florida corrections department
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — It was the hottest September in more than a century in parts of South Florida, and Dwayne Wilson could hear his 81-year-old fellow inmate gasping for breath and crying out for help at the Dade Correctional Institution, 45 miles southwest of Miami on the edge of the...
9 arrested in federal investigation into drug trafficking at New Mexico prison
MILAN, N.M. (AP) — Nine people were arrested this week in connection with a suspected drug trafficking operation at a federal prison in a small New Mexico town, authorities announced Friday. The arrests were made Wednesday as the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service raided 13 homes across...
Illinois officials take first step toward construction of 2 new prisons
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois officials Friday announced their impending search for a firm to manage the planning and construction of two prisons with a combined budget of $900 million. The Illinois Capital Development Board announced that it will issue a bulletin as early as...
Court confirms federal takeover of a Mississippi jail but limits power over budget
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — An appeals court says a federal receiver can proceed with a takeover of a Mississippi jail where a judge found unconstitutional conditions and “a stunning array of assaults, as well as deaths.” A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled...
