Elizabeth Hawes is an award-winning prison writer and former editor of Reflector, the prison news magazine at Minnesota Correctional Institution (MCI)—Shakopee, where Hawes is serving her Life Without Parole sentence. In November 2020, Hawes won an award in the PEN America Prison Writing Contest. In 2018, Hawes completed the play Supernova, examining women’s incarceration and […]
• The Washington Post reported that attorneys visited the DC jail unannounced last week under a court order to inspect the conditions and health care precautions being taken. Of the 1,442 people held in DC custody, 452 people—or one-third—are held in isolation, where they are prohibited from showering or cleaning their cells. One of the […]
• NPR obtained the findings from a 2017 investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Adelanto Processing Center in California, operated by the private prison company GEO Group. The report found the facility in violation of ICE standards for several reasons, including […]
• Reports this week on the suicide of high-profile detainee Jeffrey Epstein at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan have been full of questions and speculation about how such a thing could have been allowed to happen. Epstein had reportedly been on suicide watch, but was taken off and was in a cell […]
• The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class action lawsuit recently, alleging that Florida’s use of solitary confinement constitutes a violation of the 8th Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. About 10,000 people—or 10 percent—of those held in Florida prisons currently live in solitary, which is double the national average. Admire […]
• Twin Cities Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) issued a press release reporting the conditions at Stillwater Prison in Minnesota, where incarcerated men have been locked down, effectively in solitary confinement, for the past 27 days. A recorded conversation with a man held at Stillwater described the conditions of the lockdown as a “humanitarian crisis,” including confinement “for […]