prison

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SF Voters Nix Plan to Tear Down Alcatraz

Motion to transform island prison site into peace center fails

(Newser) - Alcatraz Island shouldn't be transformed into a global peace center, San Franciscan voters decided in rejecting a measure on Tuesday's ballot. Only 28% backed the non-binding proposal to convert the one-time penitentiary and tourist hotspot into a peace dome, the New York Times reports. But DaVid, the measure's main sponsor,...

'Model Prisoner' Sutherland Leaves Jail

24 star served 48 days for DUI, 'never griped'

(Newser) - Actor Kiefer Sutherland walked out of a California jail today after serving all 48 days of his sentence for DUI and violating probation, People reports. The 24 star looked "glad to be out," said a prison spokesman. Sutherland did his time in an 8-by-10 cell, spending his birthday,...

Suspected Mob Gambling Ring Smashed
Suspected Mob Gambling Ring Smashed

Suspected Mob Gambling Ring Smashed

NJ cops bust dozens in major blow to Lucchese crime family

(Newser) - New Jersey officials have nabbed a cadre of suspected mob bosses to bust up a sophisticated $2.2 billion gambling ring, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. Others among more than two dozen arrested included a prison officer and a Bloods gangster, said to be part of an "alarming alliance" between...

Iraq Vet Faces Life Over Suicide Try

Shrinks say she's mentally ill, but Army calls it 'psychobabble'

(Newser) - First Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside faces possible life in prison. Her crime? Attempting suicide in Iraq. At a military hearing this week, her diagnosed mental illness was spurned by superiors as an "excuse” and labeled “psychobabble." Suicide tries remain illegal in a military culture that scorns mental disorder,...

'Guards Gone Wild,' Claims Video Maker

Producer alleges mistreatment in Oklahoma jail

(Newser) - Girls Gone Wild producer Joe Francis claims prison guards abused him by denying him medication and visits and threatened to tie him naked to a chair for 2 days, the Oklahoman reports. In court filings, Francis says the abuse took place during a 3-week stay in an Oklahoma jail earlier...

Jeffs Gets Two Terms on Rape Charges

Polygamy leader sentenced as accomplice in Utah

(Newser) - Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs received consecutive five-year-to-life terms today for two counts of accomplice to rape, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. A Utah judge also made him pay $18,500 on each count of forcing an underage girl to marry in 2001 at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ...

Filling Jails Doesn't Cut Crime
Filling Jails Doesn't
Cut Crime

Filling Jails Doesn't Cut Crime

Study concludes that longer sentences don't make streets safer

(Newser) - Getting tough on criminals through longer prison terms—at an annual cost of tens of billions of US taxpayer dollars—hasn't made a major impact on crime, concludes a study released yesterday. The US prison population has increased 800% since 1970—giving the nation has the world's highest incarceration rate—...

Packed Prisons 'Costly Failure'
Packed Prisons 'Costly Failure'

Packed Prisons 'Costly Failure'

Report calls for shorter sentences, quicker paroles, aid on release

(Newser) - America's prisons, crammed with 2.2 million inmates, are an expensive failure, according to a report by a Washington criminal justice research group. The JFA Institute calls for shorter sentences and parole terms, alternative punishments and decriminalizing recreational drugs—steps that would cut the prison population in half and save...

CIA Probes Its Own Watchdog
CIA Probes Its Own Watchdog

CIA Probes Its Own Watchdog

Agency chief moves to 'call off the dogs' with investigation into secret prisons findings

(Newser) - In an unprecedented move, the director of the CIA is challenging the agency's own inspector general by ordering an internal investigation of his investigation, reports the Los Angeles Times. CIA Inspector General John Helgerson has issued a series of scathing reports about the agency; now director Michael Hayden has ordered...

Ex-Qwest CEO Didn't Foresee Trouble Ahead

Nacchio appeals conviction in $52M insider-trading deal

(Newser) - Former Qwest chief Joseph Nacchio yesterday appealed an insider-trading conviction, claiming he couldn’t have known the telecommunications company was in dire straits when he sold $52 million in stock in 2001. Rebutting a federal court’s guilty finding on 19 counts, the brief asserts Nacchio “believed more than...

Prisoners Sue Over Religious Book Limits

In the wake of post-9/11 crackdown, First Amendment concerns arise

(Newser) - The removal of  hundreds of thousands of  religious books  from federal prison libraries is drawing fire—not just from inmates, but from chaplains and other religious leaders. In the wake of 9/11, the Bureau of Prisons issued an approved list of religious books for institutions it controls, the Times reports,...

Noriega Dodges French Trial in Miami Stir

Dictator's fight against extradition delays release date

(Newser) - Eleventh-hour appeals of his extradition to France kept former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in his Miami prison cell yesterday, his scheduled release date. The dictator was set to face French money-laundering charges, but his lawyers argued that the Geneva Convention prevents his extradition because Paris doesn't recognize his prisoner-of-war status.

Duke Prosecutor Will Do One Day Behind Bars

Nifong sentenced to 24 hours for lying about evidence

(Newser) - Mike Nifong, the disgraced district attorney in the Duke rape case, will spend a night in jail for contempt of court, a Durham, NC, judge ruled yesterday. The judge concluded that Nifong, who has already been disbarred, "willfully" withheld DNA evidence that exonerated three lacrosse players accused of raping...

Wallace Assailant Earns Release
Wallace Assailant Earns Release

Wallace Assailant Earns Release

Man who fired bullet that paralyzed Alabama gov has served 35 years

(Newser) - The man who shot George Wallace in 1972 and later called him a "segregationist dinosaur" will be released from prison later this year after serving 35 years of a 53-year sentence, the AP reports. The Alabama governor was forced to drop out of the presidential race after a bullet...

Psychologists Won't Impose Gitmo Ban

Group votes to list interrogation techniques it won't help with

(Newser) - The American Psychological Association has voted not to ban members from assisting with interrogations at Guantanamo and other military prisons, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Instead, the group approved a measure listing specific procedures members won't help with, including sleep deprivation and water-boarding. "If we remove psychologists from these...

A Prison Aims to Deprogram Young Jihadists

Shia and Sunni students agree on nothing but Harry Potter

(Newser) - The high-security Iraqi prison that once held Saddam Hussein now hosts a pilot program to reeducate jihadist youth. Newsweek visited Camp Cropper, which for the past two months has offered classes and psychological guidance aimed at deprogramming would-be suicide bombers. But the teachers have struggled because the hatred in the...

Marine Gets 15 Years for Killing Iraqi

Sergeant was instigator of kidnap, killing to intimidate insurgents

(Newser) - A jury of Iraq veterans sentenced a Marine sergeant to 15 years in prison and dishonorable discharge today for conspiracy to commit murder and unpremeditated murder, the Los Angeles Times reports. Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins offered no apology for leading a mission of Marines to kidnap and murder an Iraqi man...

Freed Doctor Recounts Libyan Torture

“My wounds are still bleeding,” says Palestinian

(Newser) - In the wake of last week's jubilant homecoming of the Bulgarian nurses released from a Libyan prison, it's their Palestinian cellmate who’s first to go public with his story. Dr. Ashraf al-Hazouz’s joy at release after 8 years is “turning into a hunger for justice,” he...

State 'Exports' Ease Prison Overcrowding —At a Cost

Inmates shipped to long-distance exile

(Newser) - States struggling with prison overcrowding are exporting inmates across borders to serve terms in far-flung private institutions, the New York Times reports. Thousands of prisoners from Hawaii are held in Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kentucky. California plans to send 8,000 prisoners out of state. Critics say the policy disrupts...

Noriega Inspires Fight between Panama, France

Each country wants ex-dictator to serve jail time after US release

(Newser) - Manuel Noriega will be released from a Miami prison in September, but where he'll go after that is up in the air. The US wants to transfer the deposed dictator—convicted of corruption, kidnapping, and murder—to France for more jail time. But some Panamanians want him in a local...

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