JPI News Digest 6/21/12
Published: June 21, 2012
IL: The High Costs Of High Security At Supermax Prisons (NPR)
Illinois is the latest state poised to close its only supermaximum security prison, the Tamms Correctional Center Human-rights groups routinely criticize Supermax prisons for keeping prisoners in solitary confinement for months or even years on end. They claim that many of them suffer from mental illnesses.
MI: Private Prison Group Quits Mississippi, Heads North (In These Times)
Private prison operator GEO Group. The decision was driven in large part by a class action lawsuit brought against the firm by the Southern Poverty Law Center and ACLU over a youth detention facility run by the group, and a U.S. Department of Justice report condemning that same facility for 8th ammendment violations.
WVA: WVa launches study to target inmate overcrowding (Marietta Times)
West Virginia's jails and prisons have grown crowded at the same time that violent crime arrests and the unsupervised release of offenders have increased, according to a national group's initial review of the state's criminal justice system.
WI: Statewide, Evidence-Based Strategies Next Step for Criminal Justice System, Report Says (State Bar of Wisconsin)
Evidence-based initiatives are the key to reducing recidivism in Wisconsin, and existing and future programs should continue to focus on changing criminal behavior, according to a Denver-based division of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).
DC: Juvenile offenders can turn themselves in (The Examiner)
Local juvenile offenders with outstanding custody orders -- the juvenile-court equivalent of an outstanding warrant -- can turn themselves in Friday or Saturday in a program sponsored by D.C. Superior Court, the Court Social Services Division and the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, Superior Court officials said Tuesday.
CA: Racial Attitudes May Affect Juvenile Sentencing (PsychCentral)
When people imagine a juvenile offender to be black, they are more supportive of handing down harsher sentences to all juveniles, according to a new study by Stanford psychologists.
Posted in Criminal Justice News