jail

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Guards Forced Inmates Into 'Gladiator' Fights: Lawyer

Public defender says San Francisco deputies placed bets, threatened prisoners

(Newser) - If they won, they would get hamburgers; if they lost, they would be beaten or experience other negative consequences. This was just one example of the conditions given to two inmates in forced fights that Public Defender Jeff Adachi says were arranged by guards in San Francisco's main county...

Early Garbage Collector Gets ... Jail Time

A city ordinance requires that trash be collected between 7am and 7pm

(Newser) - Most of us have at some point been woken before dawn by the incessant beeping and slamming sounds of the garbage truck just outside the window. But one Atlanta suburb has a city ordinance that actually prohibits trash collection prior to 7am. As a result, Kevin McGill, who's spent...

Incensed Indian Mob Lynches Rape Suspect

35-year-old dragged for 4 miles was thought to be illegal Bangladeshi national

(Newser) - In an out-of-control incident being described as a "Bastille-like storming," thousands of furious Indian protestors busted into a Dimapur jail, removed a suspected rapist, and lynched him yesterday, the Hindustan Times reports. The mob reportedly broke down two prison gates and stripped down Farid Khan—a 35-year-old used-car...

Poverty, Mental Illness Abound in Broken Jail System: Report

Inmates face longer time because they can't pay bail, analysts find

(Newser) - It's not just federal and state prisons that need scrutiny: The country's local and county jails are being "misused," and it's time for reform, a new report finds. Those held in the facilities are typically there for minor infractions, and over the past three decades,...

Jailhouse Smuggling 101: Don't Use Greeting Cards

Sender's method of getting heroin into Western Tidewater Regional Jail failed

(Newser) - Someone, somewhere, must be unaware jail officials screen mail before handing it over to inmates. While checking the post at Virginia's Western Tidewater Regional Jail last week, officials came across a homemade card with the gift of heroin inside, WTKR reports. This was no isolated incident: Officials have recently...

Toddler Found in Bag in Creek, Mom in Jail

She's accused of letting the boy be spanked to the point of bleeding

(Newser) - Mounted police have found the body of missing 14-month-old Cameron Beckford in a bag in Big Walnut Creek near Columbus, Ohio, after his mother allegedly lied about having left the boy on a doorstep because she couldn't care for him. Dainesha Stevens, 24, is thought to have fled an...

Jail Denied Basic Medical Care, Let Inmates Die: Suit

Prisoners could easily have been treated, lawsuits say

(Newser) - A 19-year-old in jail for shoplifting and passing a counterfeit bill died after a foot wound turned gangrenous. A 30-year-old imprisoned for harassment died of a bowel obstruction after being constipated for 13 days. A 61-year-old also jailed for harassment died of a broken femur after falling from her bunk....

Drunk Driver Thought This Jail Was a Bar

Cops are now holding her in that very jail

(Newser) - A woman in Van Buren County, Mich., didn't have far to go after she was arrested for drunk driving. The 39-year-old is being held in the very jail whose parking lot she pulled into early yesterday, Michigan Live reports; she told police she thought the lot belonged to a...

Poor People Going to Jail Over Inability to Pay Fines
Poor People Going to Jail Over Inability to Pay Fines
investigation
May 20, 2014 1:00 PM CDT

Poor People Going to Jail Over Inability to Pay Fines

NPR: As courts impose more and more fees, poor defendants can't keep up

(Newser) - Accused criminals in Washington state might be surprised to learn that they'll need to shell out $125 in court fees to pay for their own jury, and double that amount if the jury requires 12 people instead of six. It's just one example of many dug up by...

Cops Find Gun in Teen's Nether Regions

Police say she tried to smuggle loaded weapon into jail

(Newser) - A 19-year-old woman in Tennessee is accused of trying to smuggle a 4-inch gun into jail when she was arrested on charges of driving with a suspended license, reports the Smoking Gun . Given that the gun had been stolen in car robbery last year, this was probably not wise. But...

Rikers Makes Changes After Vet 'Baked to Death'

Warden Rose Argo will be placed in charge of a facility that doesn't house mentally ill

(Newser) - Rikers Island is taking action over the headline-generating death of Jerome Murdough, the mentally ill homeless veteran who " basically baked to death " in a Rikers cell in February. New York City's Correction Department has removed the warden in charge of Rikers' mental health unit, saying it had...

Homeless Vet 'Basically Baked to Death' in NY Jail

Riker's Island having trouble with mental illness, violence

(Newser) - Guards at Rikers Island are supposed to check on mentally ill inmates every 15 minutes. But when Jerome Murdough was booked for sleeping on a housing project roof, he was left unattended long enough to keel over dead from overheating, the AP revealed today. The former Marine was left alone...

Don&#39;t Get Mad at This Rich, White Teen Killer
Don't Get Mad at This
Rich, White Teen Killer
OPINION
Dec 13, 2013 1:25 PM CST

Don't Get Mad at This Rich, White Teen Killer

The problem isn't that Ethan Couch got off, it's that poor kids don't, Elie Mystal writes

(Newser) - You were probably outraged when you heard about Ethan Couch, the 16-year-old drunk driver who killed four people but avoided jail thanks to his " affluenza "—the (apparently accurate) belief that his family's wealth ensured that his actions had no consequences. "Anybody who thinks that this...

Report: Inmates Control 65% of Mexico's Prisons

According to review of 101 most populated prisons

(Newser) - Mexico's prisons are in "critical condition," says an official, and a new report seems to confirm it: Sixty-five of Mexico's 101 most populous prisons were controlled by the inmates themselves last year, according to the National Human Rights Commission; that's up 4.3% from 2011....

Woman: 16 Days in NJ Jail a 'Death Sentence'

Topless-rights activist Phoenix Feeley threatens hunger strike

(Newser) - Phoenix Feeley thinks that conditions at Monmouth County Jail in New Jersey are so bad that a 16-day stay there amounts to a "death sentence." Feeley, a 33-year-old professional fire-eater, has been locked up for refusing to pay a $816 fine for going topless at Spring Lake beach...

500 Prisoners Bust Out of Abu Ghraib

Most escapees were high-ranking al-Qaeda men

(Newser) - Some 500 prisoners, most of them high-ranking al-Qaeda members, were busted out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison (yes that Abu Ghraib prison , but the Iraqis are back in charge now) in a violent and explosive jail break last night. Suicide bombers raided the prison with cars full of explosives,...

Outspoken Putin Critic Gets 5 Years

Protester Alexei Navalny says evidence was faked

(Newser) - A leader of Russia's protest movement has been found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison for financial theft from a state-run timber firm. Alexsei Navalny is known for using the Internet to attack corruption and the "swindlers and thieves" of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party,...

Person of Interest In Hernandez Case Dies in Crash

Meanwhile, Hernandez denied jail wedding

(Newser) - A man investigators were hoping to talk to in the Aaron Hernandez murder case died in a dramatic car crash this weekend, as his car flew 100 feet through the air and crashed into a country club 6 feet off the ground, the Hartford Courant reports. Thaddeus Singleton III, 33,...

Guy Born in Jail Bails Out His Mom, 19 Years Later

Indian man saves enough money to hire a lawyer

(Newser) - Vijai Kumari was pregnant when she went to jail in India 19 years ago, convicted—she says wrongfully—of murder. Her son Kanhaiya was born after she'd been imprisoned four months, and she eventually sent him away to be raised in various juvenile homes, she says: "It was...

Pack of Smokes in NY Jails: $200

A ban on smoking has led to a budding black market behind bars

(Newser) - Smoking will now also kill your wallet—at least if you're behind bars in New York, where Michael Bloomberg's ban on smoking has led to black market prices that have hit a staggering $200 a pack. As the New York Daily News reports, contraband busts have risen by...

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