JPI Daily News Digest 7/31/12
Published: July 31, 2012
VA: Coalition urges Va. governor to reject bids to privatize facility for violent sex offenders (Washington Post)
Eleven organizations sent a letter to Virginia’s governor Monday opposing offers by two companies to operate a state facility that detains violent sex offenders for treatment after their sentences are completed. The Justice Policy Institute was one of the organizations writing the letter to the governor.
ID: Women's prison program strives to help addicts recover (KTVB)
A special program at the women's prison south of Boise is credited with turning around the lives of thousands of female offenders.
MA: House, Senate reject amendment on repeat offender bill, set up showdown with governor (Boston Online)
House and Senate lawmakers, setting up a showdown with Governor Deval Patrick, voted on Monday to reject an amendment Patrick had proposed that would have given judges some discretion in sentencing certain repeat offenders.
AZ: Arizona parolees to pay drug test fees (Tucson Citizen)
Arizona stands to save $500,000 a year under a new law that requires parolees to pay a portion of their drug-testing fees each month, but prisoner advocates fear the additional costs will strain personal budgets.
OR: Lane County makes detention center cuts (Register Guard)
Terry Strong had a dilemma. The juvenile group worker at Lane County’s Department of Youth Services was the lone adult on the pod, a compound of 16 narrow, locked rooms overlooking a broad common area in the youth services building set aside to hold young offenders for anywhere from a few hours to a few months.
National: A lifetime sentence for felons (Washington Post)
IN 1965, WHEN he signed the Voting Rights Act, Lyndon B. Johnson called the vote “the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” In the midst of the civil rights movement, Johnson sounded a call to arms against racial disenfranchisement. Nearly 50 years later, that unfortunately remains a battle.
International News
UK: Stradishall: Justice system failing mentally ill prisoners (EADT24)
The annual Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) report of HMP Highpoint (North and South) suggests that vulnerable prisoners face segregation and long delays before being provided with specialist care.
Posted in Criminal Justice News