Prisons

Video shows Evan Ebel shooting Texas deputy

Yesterday, in announcing a reprieve for quadruple murderer Nathan Dunlap noted that Lisa Clements remains against the death penalty even after what happened to her husband, the late Colorado prison chief Tom Clements. What happened to Clements is that Evan Ebel allegedly murdered him, then took off ... More >>

Ken McGill: Read lawsuit of inmate who suffered stroke in jail, wasn't treated for 24 hours

On September 17, 2012, as detailed in this week's cover story, "Life Sentence," Ken McGill suffered a stroke while incarcerated at Jefferson County Detention Facility for a DUI, and he told everyone he could about it. In response, he was forced to spend the night on the floor of solitary confinement ... More >>

The five best jail-inspired musician memoirs

Pop culture incrementally improved the chances that books would outlive CDs when news spread that Lil Wayne had inked a deal to write a memoir about the eight months he spent locked up on gun charges. Titled Gone 'Til November, the book is scheduled to be released in May. While the hip-hop blogosphe ... More >>

The lifers book club: Of mice and men, hopes and regrets at the Limon prison

See also: The ten best books about America's prisons

The ten best books about America's prisons

This week's cover story, "The Lifers Book Club," reports on the Words Beyond Bars Project, a pilot progam at the Limon Correctional Facility that puts high-security prisoners, many of them serving life sentences, in a room with volunteers to discuss great books. It's a modest effort that could trans ... More >>

Bob Autobee "drops out" of death penalty battle for son's killer, Edward Montour

Frustrated by a decade of legal delays and setbacks, the father of slain state corrections officer Eric Autobee says that he now opposes further efforts to obtain the death penalty for inmate Edward Montour Jr. for the 2002 murder. In a recent interview, Bob Autobee also blasted the leadership of th ... More >>

Damien Echols on the West Memphis Three, exoneration and Life After Death

Is there life after death? After eighteen years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, most of them spent in the debilitating confines of death row, Damien Echols plans to find out. In 1993 Echols, then eighteen, and two other Arkansas teenagers were arrested and charged with the murders of thre ... More >>

Troy Anderson lawsuit: Supermax must provide outdoor rec, judge rules

In what amounts to a landmark decision, a federal judge has ruled that the conditions of solitary confinement at the Colorado State Penitentiary constitute "a paradigm of inhumane treatment" and must change -- notably, so that inmates locked down in their cells 23 hours a day can have at least three ... More >>

Troy Anderson lawsuit: Supermax conditions draw criticism from judge

After nearly five days of testimony in a lawsuit brought by Troy Anderson, a prisoner who's been in solitary confinement for twelve years, a Denver federal judge was strongly urging Colorado Department of Corrections officials to fix the harshest conditions at the state's supermax prison -- before h ... More >>

Prison rape: Justice Department says poor design, training, attitudes fuel assaults

Last year a federal review panel heard some amazing excuses from corrections officials about why their jails and prisons have exceptionally high rates of sexual assault. One sheriff even claimed inmates were faking stories of rape in order to get cookies from researchers.

DIY prison play In the Belly shows aggressive scenes of life inside

On a particularly frigid night in the winter of 2009, Weslie Coleman, Kate Pleuss and Ben Turk were sitting in their collective home and talking about how cold they were. Incredibly cold, they decided. So the three members of the revolutionary theater group Insurgent Theatre decided to plan an escap ... More >>

ACLU, faith groups urge governors not to sell out to private prison giant

A broad proposal by the country's largest private prison company to buy up and privatize state prisons has been met with a stiff rebuke from the American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of justice policy and religious groups, who are urging all fifty state governors to reject the company's "in ... More >>

Inmate rape resolution to be shared over objections of private prison giant

A former prisoner, now a shareholder in the country's largest for-profit prison operator, has won a battle with company management over his campaign to hold the Corrections Corporation of America accountable for reducing sexual abuse at its facilities. The Securities and Exchange Commission has rule ... More >>

Private prisons' blueprint for success: more lobbying, less security

The use of private prisons by states and the federal government continues to increase, yielding billions in annual revenues for two dominant companies in the industry -- despite a lack of solid research that America's experiment with for-profit incarceration actually saves taxpayers money in the lon ... More >>

Jared Polis wants investigation into abuse of LGBT immigrants in detention

Colorado Congressman Jared Polis has called for a government investigation into alleged abuse suffered by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender immigrants detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "Here we have people who are at their most vulnerable -- many without access to any lega ... More >>

Robert Hood: A former supermax warden's resolutions for 2012

Robert Hood.​A former warden at the highest-security prison in the country -- the federal supermax prison outside Florence -- has some intriguing advice for fixing the nation's troubled, budget-draining corrections system in the coming year. Intriguing, in part, because some of the changes Rob ... More >>

Solitary confinement: Isolating prisoners overused in Colorado, study suggests

​A study by researchers at the National Institute of Corrections has found that Colorado's approach to locking down its most unruly prisoners in 23-hour-a-day isolation is "basically sound" -- but could be used a lot less. Instead, even as the state's prison population is declining slightly, t ... More >>

Reader: Prison rape does occur in the Colorado system whether officials want to admit it or not

Alan Prendergast's post about prison rape, which one sheriff compared to UFOs and other cultural delusions, sparked a response from a reader identifying himself as a veteran correctional officer. He says such incidents are no fantasy.

Thomas Silverstein: Judge rules conditions at supermax not "extreme"

Federal judges in Denver are of two minds about the kind of punishment doled out at the supermax penitentiary in Florence. While one is allowing a Tanzanian terrorist's complaint about the prison's restrictions on his mail and visitors to proceed to trial, another has thrown out Thomas Silverstein's ... More >>

Prison rape: Sheriff compares it to UFO sightings, other "cultural delusions"

​Corrections officials are understandably defensive about a controversial Bureau of Justice Statistics survey that indicates a high incidence of prisoner sexual abuse in their facilities. But is that any reason for jail bosses to claim inmates are concocting fake stories of prison rape in orde ... More >>

Prison rape: New resource center focuses on improving prosecution, prevention

​You won't find many prisons where the subject of rape behind bars is openly discussed, by inmates or staff -- not because it isn't a problem, but because it is. A Bureau of Justice Statistics report estimates that more than 200,000 adult prisoners endured sexual assaults in 2008, roughly one ... More >>

Private prisons thrive on greed and bad policy, new report says

​Back in the lock-em-up frenzy of the 1990s, overcrowded state prison systems relied heavily on the emerging private prison industry to handle their excess inmates. Now that state prison populations are falling, you might expect the private sector to be taking a few hits, too -- but guess agai ... More >>

Harley Lappin: Private prison industry woos another top public official

​There are two revolving doors in every prison system. One is for the inmates, many of whom fail on parole and keep coming back. The other is reserved for top administrators who, even amid scandal, move easily from high-powered positions of public trust to high-paid jobs in the private prison ... More >>

Scott Howard: Prison rape survivor's story going international

Scott Howard​The story of Scott Howard, who endured extortion and rape by an inmate gang in Colorado's prison system, was told in detail for the first time in my feature "The Devil's Playground" three months ago. But our account quickly went viral -- and Howard, now free to speak out about pri ... More >>

Mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement: New bill seeks to stop the madness

​Roughly four out of every ten prisoners in solitary confinement in Colorado is either developmentally disabled or mentally ill, a figure that's been rising steadily over the past decade. Senate Bill 176, headed for a statehouse committee review later this week, seeks to drastically reduce tha ... More >>

Letters: The Flagstaff House helped me propose to my wife

Tom Clements, new Colorado prison chief: Can he bust out of the state's revolving door?

Tom Clements.​This week, the Colorado Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment of Tom Clements as Department of Corrections executive director. It's not one of the most glamorous posts in Governor John Hickenlooper's cabinet, certainly, but it's one of the most crucial if the state is goin ... More >>

Raped and extorted by a prison gang, Scott Howard was called a "drama queen" by corrections officials

Scott Howard: Inmate's history of obtaining bogus refunds tip of prison-tax-fraud iceberg

​This week's cover story, "The Devil's Playground," recounts the ordeal of Scott Howard, a Colorado inmate extorted and sexually assaulted by the 211 Crew prison gang. But it's also about Howard's history of obtaining bogus tax refunds while behind bars, a talent the gang was eager to exploit. ... More >>

Prison advice about snitching, shanks and pretending that man with makeup is a woman

​Here at the Criminal Affairs Desk, we get letters from inmates. Boy, do we get letters. But one recent missive from a Colorado prisoner offers some of the best advice we've ever heard for negotiating a long stretch in the state prison system. Such as: Don't ask, don't snitch. Keep an eye out ... More >>

Solitary-confinement report conclusions outrage prison activists

Colorado's supermax is so much fun the state is opening a second one. ​The release of a twelve-month study about the mental effects of solitary confinement at Colorado's supermax is still weeks away. But preliminary results leaked from the report -- which suggest state prisoners suffer little ... More >>

Thomas Silverstein: After 26 years in solitary, "Terrible Tommy" wins a round in court

Thomas Silverstein at Atlanta's penitentiary (inset) in the 1980s and at ADX in 2007.​When you've spent your time since the early days of the Reagan years in a cell smaller than some people's closets, progress tends to get measured in small, small increments rather than sweeping events. But T ... More >>

Supermax showdown: Don't confuse us with facts

"We were lucky that day": Colorado Department of Corrections Sgt. Bill Nelson describes responding to a 2007 inmate attack on Limon staffer Pam Kahanic (left).​At first glance, the idea of tapping into the badly stretched state budget for a few million to open one wing of a new supermax prison ... More >>

Will throwing more money at the prison system reduce inmate violence?

​Recent Denver Post stories about increasing inmate violence at some state prisons have arrived just in time for the annual budget battle between lawmakers and the Colorado Department of Corrections -- a nice bit of timing that should be regarded with a certain wariness. The DOC would like t ... More >>

New website shines light on dark corners of the prison system

What goes on beyond the fence? Solitary Watch wants to know.​Get in serious trouble, go to prison. Get into some bad shit inside prison -- attacking staff, running heroin, or maybe somebody doesn't like your gang tattoo -- and you go to the hole, also known as solitary confinement or (in priso ... More >>

Child-sex offender suspected of trying to recruit new prospects from jail

Gino Rael -- keeping the postal service busy in a disturbing way.​Gino Rael, 26, is a registered sex offender who received a four-year deferred sentence in 2006 for enticing a child. So what did he allegedly do while in Boulder County Jail this summer on unrelated charges? Sent letters to youn ... More >>

Three things not to be: A prison guard, pregnant and charged with rape

"Inappropriate? Moi?"​Corrections officers aren't supposed to brutalize the inmates in their custody, but they're not encouraged to be too fond of them, either. The system frowns on "inappropriate relationships" between staff and prisoners -- and such dangerous sexual liaisons tend to lead to ... More >>

Immigrant hot potato one reason for ongoing protests at Aurora detention center

A photo of an ICE bust in progress, from the organization's 2008 annual report.​Since May, an interfaith group has staged a vigil the first Monday of each month at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, 11901 East 30th Avenue -- and they'll be there again tonight at 6 p.m. Among the many rea ... More >>

Grim details emerge in prison death of sex offender

Inmates claim Ronald Ferguson had been in the unit only a few hours when he was killed.​Last week, we reported on the bludgeoning death of inmate Ronald Ferguson, a convicted child molester, at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility outside of Canon City. A fifty-year-old habitual off ... More >>

MSNBC's prison-reality show and the death of a pedophile

Ronald Ferguson, 50, beaten to death at Territorial prison last week. ​Lockup, MSNBC's voyeuristic peek at life inside America's nastiest prisons, launched its new season Sunday night with some cell floodings and tough talk by thick-necked inmates at Colorado's own Limon Correctional Facility. ... More >>

Bronson

Clemency for these six prisoners could save millions and serve justice -- so why won't Governor Ritter try it?

For sale: supermax prison, like new

​State representative Glenn Vaad was appalled to discover recently that corrections officials have delayed opening a $200-million supermax because of Colorado's fiscal woes. There's nothing that offends Vaad, a Republican who represents the Greeley area, more deeply than the idea of a brand-ne ... More >>

In the Florence pen, it's risky not to join the riot

​The dysfunctional high-security federal penitentiary in Florence has been the scene of all sorts of gang-related mayhem, from the grisly 1999 disembowelment of inmate Joey Estrella to the 2008 racial uprising in the yard, in which guards fired on brawling prisoners and killed two (as reported ... More >>

Male guards and female prisoners -- a brilliant idea!

Photo by John Johnston There's plenty to get disgusted about in the story of a Colorado female inmate who was awarded $1.3 million in damages for two years' worth of sexual assaults by a male guard. As this report in the Denver Post recounts, federal judge David Ebel blasted the Colorado Department ... More >>

So... you want to contact Joe Nacchio in prison?

The Federal Correctional Institution in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, where Joe Nacchio will be staying for quite a while. Today's a big day for former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio -- the day when he must report to the Federal Correctional Institution in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania and begin serving his six-year ... More >>

Om Time

The Dhamma Brothers tells a tale of meditation and redemption in prison.

Can a troubled Colorado prison change the way inmates think?

Kudos for "The Caged Life"

Death of a Cowboy