by Matt Clarke

On May 15, 2007, legislation took effect that brought Texas into the fold of the other 49 states that have prisoner telephones in state prisons.
State Senator Letica Van de Putte filed SD 1580, authorizing the phones, which took effect Nay 15, 2007. State Representatives Terri Hodge (D-Dallas) and Pat Haggerty (R-El Paso) filed companion bills in the House. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and 142-1 in the House.
Governor Rick Perry, a strong opponent of prison phones, refused to sign the bill, but also did not veto it. Instead, he issued a statement of his concerns regarding the bill and directed the Texas Board of Criminal Justice "to develop stringent Guidelines that assure that pedophiles, predatory sex offenders, murderers, rapists, and other violent offenders - who have forfeited all rights to such privilege by the nature of their offenses - are not granted the phone privilege." How this is implemented remains to be seen.

Why did it take so long for Texas to catch up with the rest of the country? Official paranoia and the influence of "tough on crime" victims rights groups. The official paranoia was somewhat assuaged by the advent of new ...

by John E. Dannenberg

An often overlooked segment of the nation's prison population, alien detainees, was the subject of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit between May 2006 and May 2007. While the largest problem noted was limited access to free telephones to call attorneys and consulates, numerous other deficiencies were found pervasive.

The number of illegal aliens in the United States was estimated in 2006 at 12 million. The total number per year spending some time in alien detention grew to 286,000 by 2006, with available bed space at around 27,500. As of December 31, 2006, 27,607 aliens were in detention.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) budgeted $953 million for detention services for fiscal year 2007. National detention standards apply to the 330 adult and three family facilities used to house detainees. The instant audit reviewed 23 facilities to see how well standards were adhered to, whether ICE's internal compliance reviews were effective and what complaints surfaced in the outside world regarding detainees. Of 35 national detention standards, eight were selected for audit. These included telephone access, medical care, holding room procedures, use of force, food service, recreation, access to legal materials and grievance procedures.

The most persistent problem ...

Government Segregates Muslim Prisoners, Restricts Phone Calls and Visits

By William Fisher

Legal authorities are charging that racial profiling is responsible for low-risk Muslim prisoners convicted for crimes the Justice Department intimates are terror-related being held in a segregated unit, where communications are more severely restricted than for high-profile inmates such as al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui and Unabomber Theodore J. Kaczynski.

The facility is known as the Communications Management Unit (CMU), and is located in the medium security federal prison at Terre Haute, Indiana. Its occupants are almost entirely Muslims.

Under the CMU program, telephone communications must be conducted using monitored phone lines and be live-monitored by staff. Calls are subject to recording and must be in English only. All letters must be reviewed by staff prior to delivery or sending. Visits must be non-contact only, also live-monitored, and subject to recording in English. Telephone calls and mail are monitored, the number of phone calls are limited and visits are restricted to a total of four hours per month, according to special rules enforced by the Justice Department's Bureau of Prisons.

Most federal inmates are granted 300 minutes of telephone time per month. At the CMU, the policy is one ...

A federal jury in New Hampshire has awarded a total of $150,000 to two former prisoners in the continuing saga of false disciplinary charges by a guard at the Hillsborough County Jail.

These cases stem from the actions of guard Cesar Rivas, who claimed nine prisoners surrounded and threatened him on July 14, 2002. Those nine were then ?lugged to the hole.? Seven of the prisoners, represented by attorney Michael J. Sheehan, later filed civil rights actions.

Last year PLN reported a jury award of $20,000 in one of those cases, involving former prisoner Jason Surprenant. [See: PLN, June 2006, pg. 26]. Also, former prisoner Antonio King prevailed at trial on Jan. 30, 2006 but was awarded only $1 in nominal damages and $500 in punitive damages. The federal district judge ordered a new trial on damages, saying King had suffered real harm and was entitled to compensation. On June 7, 2007, a different jury awarded King $5,000. See: King v. Rivas, USDC, Dist. NH, Case No. 1:04-cv-00356-SM. Three other former prisoners settled for undisclosed amounts in the summer of 2006.

On September 15, 2006, a jury awarded the final two prisoners damages. That verdict, however, determined that Rivas had ...

Florida's Broward County Jail: Abuse and Misconduct As Usual

by David M. Reutter

Despite Florida's Broward County jail (BCJ) being under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor, recent incidents reveal prisoners are still at danger. BCJ has been under supervision since a 1994 consent decree that settled a conditions of confinement lawsuit filed over thirty years ago. See: Carruthers v. Jenne, USDC SD FL, Case No. 76-6086-CIV-WMH. "One would think that thirty years is plenty of time to get it right, but BSO [the Broward Co. Sheriff's Office] can't get it right. So the case goes on," said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein.

The court-appointed monitoring did not help Dana Clyde Jones, 44, who was found lying in a pool of clotted blood on BCJ's seventh floor on December 16, 2005. As of June 2006 he remained hospitalized with extreme brain damage; he is not expected to recover. Jones suffered from severe mental illness and was jailed for punching his elderly mother.

"We want to determine first why a prisoner with a serious mental illness was housed where he was housed," said Eric Balban, a Washington D.C. attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project. "We want to know how someone ...

Louisiana Jail Sanctioned With Contempt, Fines and Attorney Fees

A federal district court in Louisiana fined the Bienville parish jail, sheriff, police and the state of Louisiana $l2,000 plus $1,000 per day the jail was not in compliance with a prior court injunction over jail conditions. In a detailed order, the court found 35 consent decree violations, including a lack of clothes, showers, health care, hygiene items, disciplinary rules and no grievance procedure s well as inadequate food, vermin infestation, no confidential attorney mail, visits or phone calls, no known methods to access the jail law library or photo copy services, among other things. The court held that remedial and coercive measures in the form of contempt fines were the only means to ensure compliance with the consent decree. The court also awarded the plaintiffs attorney fees and costs for bringing the contempt motion. See: Jackson v. Whitman, 642 F. Supp. 816 (WD LA 1986).

BOP Liable for Medical Neglect Under State Tort Law


A federal district court in Pennsylvania held that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries a federal prisoner suffered as a result of medical neglect by the POP. In a detailed ruling in the plaintiff's favor, the court held that the BOP was liable under state law standards of medical neglect and breach of duty. Medical negligence by BOP staff was found to be the proximate cause of pain and reduction of use in an injury to plaintiff's wrist, which amounted to malpractice. While the court also found the BOP had deliberately interfered with plaintiff's attorney calls, the court held the BOP was liable only for the medical claims. Plaintiff was awarded $150,000 for his pain and suffering and an additional $183,387.73 for lost wages and future medical expenses. See: Yosuf v. United States, 642 F. Supp. 432 (MD PA 1986) and 642 r. Supp. 415 (MD PA 1986).

The court of appeals for the Second circuit held that federal prisoners at the USP in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, had received adequate notice that their phone calls were monitored and recorded. In this criminal prosecution for prison drug trafficking, the court held that 28 U.S.C. § 2510-20 which bars the recording of phone calls without a court order, does not apply to prisons where prison officials can record prisoners' phone calls as a part of their normal duties. All courts to consider this issue have held likewise. See: United States v. Amen, 831 F.2d 373 (2nd Cir. 1987).

The court of appeals for the Eighth circuit held that a lower court erred when it dismissed as frivolous a lawsuit that Missouri prisoners in Protective Custody (PC) were deprived of religious services, only received 45 minutes of exercise a week, were denied adequate food and laundry and were limited in their calls to attorneys. Note this is not a ruling on the merits. See: Divers v. Department of Corrections, 921 F.2d 191 (8th Cir. 1990).

The court of appeals for the Eighth circuit upheld a Nebraska prison's administrative segregation policy that permitted ad seg prisoners to call only three on a list, and the list was limited to two family members and one female friend. In doing so, the appeals court reversed a lower court ruling, nominal damage and attorney fee award in favor of the prisoner plaintiffs. See: Benzel v. Grammer, 869 F.2d 1105 (8th Cir. 1989).