“Titus Andronicus” is one of William Shakespeare’s most notorious plays, due to its gruesome violence. But for the performers, the play was therapeutic, said many in the cast. The tale of bloody revenge in ancient Rome that ends with all but one major character killed was performed by inmates at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, … Read more
TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Wednesday sentenced two journalists to one year in prison on charges of publishing false news that harms public security, a judicial official said, amid growing fears of a crackdown targeting all critical voices. Mourad Zghidi and Borhan Bsaiss, both journalists with IFM radio, were detained this month over political comments … Read more
Associated Press OAKLAND — The federal Bureau of Prisons will go to trial next year over claims it allowed an environment where guards at a now-shuttered California prison sexually abused incarcerated women, a judge ordered Wednesday. In the first public hearing since FCI Dublin closed last month, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also … Read more
Seven women who allege they were sexually abused or exploited by a former Riverside County correctional deputy are suing the county and Sheriff’s Department, claiming they coordinated a scheme to prevent the women from coming forward and offered them “hush money.” On Tuesday, March 26, Long Beach attorney Denisse O. Gastélum and Los Angeles attorney … Read more
People are dying in custody at record rates across California. They’re dying in big jails and small jails, in red counties and blue counties, in rural holding cells and downtown mega-complexes. They’re dying from suicide, drug overdoses and the catch-all term natural causes. The number of jail deaths is up even though the number of … Read more
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday challenged the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for its denial of religious exceptions for correctional officers of various faiths, including Sikhs and Muslims, who wear facial hair as an expression of their faith. U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert, who leads the DOJ’s Eastern District of California in … Read more
SAN JOSE — A Santa Clara County judge is upholding the century-plus prison terms of a serial rapist and jail escapee from the 1970s and 1980s after the man got an unusual chance for resentencing through an anomalous series of state actions and court rulings. Eric Patrick Martin, 68, has been in California prison custody … Read more
BY JEANNE KUANG | CalMatters It has been 13 years since Nick C. sat in an Alameda County jail at the age of 24, facing decades in prison and the prospect of never seeing his kids again. He looks back on it as a turning point: Years in juvenile detention and a young adulthood spent … Read more
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Utah Department of Corrections came under fire Tuesday for discriminating against a transgender woman who the U.S. Department of Justice said was driven to harm herself after she was repeatedly denied hormone therapy in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A federal investigation found that the state corrections … Read more
BY BYRHONDA LYONS | CalMatters Each day someone at Patton State Hospital handed Fredreaka Jack her medication: three pills to manage her schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, one or two for her blood sugar, one for hypertension and one for hypothyroidism. That all changed on April 14, 2022. Jack had been sentenced to 32 months in … Read more