Prison

The inmates in Bellevue are awaiting trial for a variety of offenses, ranging from sleeping on the subway to murder.

Psychiatrist Recalls 'Heartbreak And Hope' On Bellevue's Prison Ward

1:46pm April 25, 2017

by Terry Gross

Dr. Elizabeth Ford treated mentally ill inmates in New York City for more than a decade. It was almost universal, she says, that they had suffered abuse or significant neglect as children.

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Crime
News

New Report Finds State May Be Overusing Solitary Confinement

10:25am April 12, 2017

by Eddie Garcia

A new study by a prison reform group finds that North Carolina may be overusing solitary confinement.

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A prisoner works on the lawn at the Dade Correctional Institution In 2014, in Florida City, Fla. On Friday, Miami-Dade prosecutor Katherine Fernandez Rundle found no wrongdoing in the death of mentally ill prisoner Darren Rainey, who was locked in a showe

After Schizophrenic Inmate Dies In A Shower, Florida Prosecutor Finds No Wrongdoing

6:44pm March 19, 2017

by Laurel Wamsley

Four years after Darren Rainey died in a prison shower, the Miami-Dade prosecutor decided against charging any officers. Since the 1960s, the mentally ill have increasingly been housed in prisons.

A woman watches a TV news report about the riot early Friday at a prison in Roraima, northern Brazil.

World News

Dozens Of Inmates Killed In Another Brazilian Prison Riot

2:06pm January 06, 2017

by Colin Dwyer

At least 33 inmates were killed early Friday, according to officials. The riot follows on the heels of a massacre at a different prison last weekend, in which at least 56 prisoners died.

Kara Salim, 26, got out of the Marion County, Indiana, jail in 2015 with a history of domestic-violence charges, bipolar disorder and alcoholism — and without Medicaid coverage. As a result, she couldn't afford the fees for court-ordered therapy.

Signed Out Of Prison But Not Signed Up For Health Insurance

10:54am December 06, 2016

Most of the state prison systems in the places that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare have come up short on enrolling exiting inmates, despite the fact that many of them are chronically ill.

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Prisoners stand in a crowded lunch line at Elmore Correctional Facility in Elmore, Ala., on June 18, 2015. A trial starts Monday over conditions in Alabama's prisons.

National

Alabama's Prison System Goes On Trial

5:39am December 05, 2016

by Debbie Elliott

A trial starts Monday over conditions in Alabama's prisons. Mentally ill inmates say they're denied basic care. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is conducting a civil rights probe into the prisons.

Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., is one of several New York state prisons under scrutiny for incidents involving officers' excessive use of force.

National

Reports Of Prison Guard Brutality In New York Draw A Harsh Spotlight

7:18pm October 20, 2016

by Brian Mann

A rash of incidents involving guards' use of violence against prisoners, sometimes caught on video, is fueling calls for accountability. Others say the focus should be on increasingly violent inmates.

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After he was sentenced for illegally possessing a firearm, Albert "Prodigy" Johnson, of the hip-hop duo Mobb Deep, discovered how hard it was to eat healthy behind bars. His new cookbook tells the story.

From Mobb Deep Rapper, A Cookbook For Healthy Eating — In Prison

7:25pm October 07, 2016

by Tove Danovich

Behind bars, it takes ingenuity, other prisoners and a little help from the commissary to approximate a proper diet. That's what rapper Prodigy of hip-hop's Mobb Deep learned after going to prison.

Realistic-looking wooden pistols carved and painted by an inmate at the Walls Unit prison in Huntsville, Texas, in 1964. They were intended to be used in an escape attempt but were discovered by employees of the prison.

National

From Homemade Weapons To Inmate Art, An Inside Look At Life Behind Bars

11:09am September 06, 2016

by John Burnett

The Texas Prison Museum displays wooden guns that look real, shanks made from spoons and a chess set carved from soap. The item that gets the most attention? An electric chair nicknamed Old Sparky.

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National

Investigation Into Private Prisons Reveals Crowding, Under-Staffing And Inmate Deaths

3:03pm August 25, 2016

Seth Freed Wessler reported on substandard medical care in privately-run prisons in the federal corrections system for The Nation, which may have led the Justice Department to phase out their use.

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