Department of Correction

11 Stories

Family: He Died in Prison Assault Weeks Before Release

Relatives say Daniel Williams was essentially kidnapped by inmates, though warden in Alabama claimed overdose

(Newser) - Daniel Terry Williams, serving a 1-year sentence for second-degree theft, was due to be released from Alabama's Staton Correctional Facility early this month. Instead, he left two weeks early because he'd been beaten so badly that he was brain dead, according to family, who claim he was tortured...

Prison Worker: I Wore Tampon, Was Fired for 'Smuggling'

Joyce Flores says guards monitoring body cameras mistook the product for contraband

(Newser) - A former employee at a Virginia prison says she put in a tampon and headed to work—and for that, she was fired. In a sex discrimination lawsuit, dental hygienist Joyce Flores, 48, says she was interrogated for hours at Augusta Correctional Center on July 17, 2019, after a body...

A State Couldn't Find This Sex Offender. Now, a Dozen More

Brandon King was convicted of incest with a child, per Wisconsin's Department of Corrections

(Newser) - Wisconsin is missing 13 sex offenders who should be under active supervision. A rep for the state Department of Corrections has said 13 of 965 sex offenders who are to be monitored are unaccounted for, apparently after removing or tampering with their monitoring devices, per NBC News , which reports the...

Drug Dog Collapses, Dies After Prison Search

Officials believe reaction to synthetic pot killed Jake

(Newser) - An Alabama Department of Corrections drug-sniffing dog was carrying out a contraband search at a prison last week when he sniffed out something that killed him. Authorities say Jake, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois, collapsed after detecting the substance during a contraband search Thursday at the Staton Correctional Facility, the Montgomery ...

Inmates Get Unreal Punishment for Rap Video

7 inmates given combined 20 years in solitary confinement

(Newser) - A " music video " filmed at South Carolina's Kershaw Correctional Institution made inmates famous on the Internet last year. They're now paying the price, big time. Public documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation show seven inmates were handed a combined 20 years in solitary confinement for...

Inmates Use Cellphones to Scam From Behind Bars

NBC News investigates Georgia's problem

(Newser) - Some 13,521 cellphones were confiscated from Georgia's 57,000 prisoners last year—far more than the 628 nabbed from Texas' 149,000 prisoners, or the 10,427 taken from California's prison population of about 114,000. And they aren't just being used to phone home. An...

Court Deals Blow to Murderer Seeking Sex Change

Overturns 2012 ruling in hotly debated case of Michelle Kosilek

(Newser) - A sharply divided federal appeals court has overturned a ruling ordering Massachusetts to provide taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery for an inmate convicted of murder. Michelle Kosilek, born Robert Kosilek, is serving a life sentence for killing wife Cheryl Kosilek in 1990. Kosilek has waged a protracted legal battle for surgery she...

Court Disagrees With Nevada's 'One Good Eye' Prison Policy

Convicted killer John Colwell's lawsuit will move forward

(Newser) - Sure, having two eyes is nice, but "one eye is good enough for prison inmates." That was the policy apparently in play when the state of Nevada denied a partially blind prisoner cataract surgery—but such a policy is also "the very definition of deliberate indifference,"...

Guards Faked Log on Night of Castro's Suicide
 Castro Guards 
 Faked Log on 
 Night of Death 
NEW REPORT
Oct 10, 2013 10:16 AM CDT

Castro Guards Faked Log on Night of Death

Failed to check on him, report says; speculates he died of 'auto-erotic asphyxiation'

(Newser) - Prison guards failed to properly make their rounds and check on prisoners the night Ariel Castro apparently hanged himself, and then falsified their log book to indicate that they had, according to an Ohio Department of Correction report released today. It wasn't the only problem that night: When guards...

Oops: Colorado Releases Hundreds of Prisoners Early

Court deciding who should go back to jail

(Newser) - Hundreds of Colorado inmates have gotten early tickets out of the big house thanks to clerical errors, an audit by the state's Department of Corrections has revealed. Judges are currently looking over the cases to determine how many of the freed convicts should be locked back up, the Denver ...

Transgender Con Upset Over Fading Femininity

Killer suing for surgery wants more treatment

(Newser) - A prisoner who has sued for a sex-change operation has complained that treatments to feminize her body have stopped, the AP reports. “My breasts have shrunk, genitals have regained previous size, facial hair is thicker,” Michelle Kosilek, formerly Robert, wrote in a letter to the court considering the...

11 Stories