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November 5, 2022
Rounding up recent disheartening stories in incarceration nation
In recent days, I have seen a number of notable stories and commentaries focused on various discouraging incarceration realities in US prisons and jails:
From The Marshall Project, "Why So Many Jails Are in a ‘State of Complete Meltdown’"
From NBC News, "Tech glitch botches federal prisons' rollout of update to Trump-era First Step Act"
From the New York Post, "Rikers Island detainee is 18th person to die in NYC’s prison system in 2022"
From the New York Times, "‘Dying Inside’: Chaos and Cruelty In Louisiana Juvenile Detention"
From the Omaha World Herald, "‘Waiting on death’: Nebraska prisoners are getting older, and it’s costing taxpayers"
From PennLive, "Sick people in Pa. jails are suffering, dying: ‘The Constitution allows for medical neglect’"
From the Reno Gazette-Journal, "Inmate deaths, drug overdoses on rise at Washoe County Jail"
From Washington Monthly, "Do Prisons Need to Be Hellholes?"
From WSB-TV, "Reality star Joe Exotic says zoo has better living conditions than Atlanta Federal Penitentiary"
November 5, 2022 at 08:58 PM | Permalink
Comments
Working in a jail is a thankless job. Here in Lexington, Kentucky, the local jail is at least 118 officers shot of the number needed to properly run it. Many officers are working double shifts 3 days per week. About six Saturday nights ago, there were more than 1,000 inmates in the jail, which was reportedly being run by only eight (8) officers, including intake. The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government spends more than $40 million per year running this jail, or about 14% of the entire budget. For most of the 82 counties (out of 120 total counties) that have jails in Kentucky, operating the county jail is generally the single largest expense for the Fiscal Court and the Judge-Executive. Something has to change. And it's more than sending defendants to rehab!
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Nov 5, 2022 10:12:37 PM
