JPI News Digest 6/27/12
Published: June 27, 2012
Austrailia: Outrage grows over jailing of mentally ill (ABC News)
Four mentally disabled men are being kept in prison near Alice Springs, even though they have not been convicted of a crime. Mr. Gooda says there needs to be appropriate facilities and support outside of the prison system. "People get caught up in a system where they are unfit to plead and therefore get immersed in things like the Mental Health Act," he said.
MN: Xavius Scullark-Johnson, Prisoner, Dies After He's Denied Health Care (HuffPost Crime)
A prisoner was left in his urine-soaked cell to die after a nurse turned away an ambulance, even though he had suffered several seizures, according to documents obtained by the Star Tribune.
FL: Florida planning additional prison (Miami Herald)
As the Department of Corrections confirmed plans Tuesday to privatize 20 work release centers across Florida, a separate proposal to outsource prison inmate health care services was the focus of a legal dispute in a Tallahassee courtroom.
WV: Report: Hundreds of violent felons in W.Va. jails
(San Francisco Chronicle)
Nearly 500 violent West Virginia criminals, including 65 convicted of homicide and more than 120 sentenced for felony sex offenses, remained in the state's regional jails last month because the prisons are at capacity, according to figures shown Monday to legislators.
NY Times: Justices Bar Mandatory Life Terms for Juveniles
Some 2,000 juvenile offenders serving life sentences without parole were given hope of eventual release by the Supreme Court on Monday. The court ruled that laws requiring youths convicted of murder to be sentenced to die in prison violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
UK: Brazil prisoners reading books to shorten their sentences
(The Telegraph)
Inmates in four federal prisons holding some of Brazil's most notorious criminals will be able to read up to 12 works of literature, philosophy, science or classics to trim a maximum 48 days off their sentence each year, the government announced.
Posted in Criminal Justice News