Here’s a quick wrap-up of some news items that were noteworthy but not covered in our blog this week.
- From the Arizona Prison Watch blog, Tuesday, February 28, 2012: “[T]he ACLU National Prison Project and the Prison Law Office are about to file a class action lawsuit against the state of Arizona for their horrid treatment of prisoners when it comes to health and mental health care.” Additionally, Arizona Prison Watch announced that it will be co-sponsoring a forum on March 22 called “Fair Treatment for All: Ensuring Humane Medical Care for Arizona Prisoners” at the Maryvale Community Center Auditorium at 4420 N. 51st Ave. in Phoenix. The Arizona ACLU is an additional co-sponsor of the event.
- From the Real Cost of Prisons Weblog, Thursday, March 1, 2012: In an egregious example of racial disparities in drug arrests, “93 percent of all marijuana possession arrests in the city of Atlanta [in 2011] were African-Americans, and 7 percent were white. The city’s population is 54 percent African-American and 38 percent white.”
- From the Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press, via SentenceSpeak blog, Thursday, March 1, 2012: “A 2010 report released by the Congressional Research Service revealed the [corrections] industry employs about 770,000 workers….By way of perspective: The U.S. auto industry employs about 880,000 people.”
- From the National Immigrant Justice Center, via the Dignity Not Detention blog, Friday, March 2, 2012: “Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) welcomes the announcement that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released a long-awaited set of new immigration detention standards intended to address critical human rights concerns in the system. Unfortunately, the new standards do not go far enough to protect the rights of all ICE detainees, and ICE has yet to commit to a timeline for implementation that will ensure immigrants are protected from abuse, neglect, and inhumane conditions.” Among other shortcomings, it won’t apply the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 to immigrant detention facilities.
- Also released this week was a new study by The Sentencing Project, The Lives of Juvenile Lifers: Findings from a National Survey (PDF). Among the 1,579 individuals surveyed, the study found “high rates of socioeconomic disadvantage, extreme racial disparities in the imposition of [sentences], sentences frequently imposed without judicial discretion, and counterproductive corrections policies that thwart efforts at rehabilitation.”
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