OM Colombia sees lives change as inmates of the prison in Cartagena, Colombia, learn about God’s love and work to better their lives through crafts.

Absconders include 10 awaiting death penalty, serving life sentences

IADL
3 Dec 2018
 

While conducting research at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a music theory professor discovered manuscripts of music that haven't been heard since World War II.

Sonia Doe, pictured here, reached a settlement with the New Jersey Department of Corrections that will make it standard for the state to assign jail stays to a person based on their gender identity, not the sex assigned at birth.; Credit: /The ACLU New Jersey

For 18 months, Sonia Doe faced humiliating strip searches in front of male guards. Male prisoners exposed themselves to her. She faced sexual harassment, discrimination and physical threats from corrections officers and inmates alike.

Doe, who is transgender, has lived her life publicly as a woman since 2003. Yet, Doe — a pseudonym used for her lawsuit — was transported to four different men's prisons across New Jersey from March 2018 to August 2019.

It took a lawsuit filed that August for Doe to finally be transported to a woman's prison weeks later.

As part of the settlement for that lawsuit Tuesday, the New Jersey Department of Corrections will now make it customary for prisoners who identify as transgender, intersex or nonbinary to be assigned a jail stay in line with their gender identity — not with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Tuesday's news marks a major policy shift for the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

Research has shown that transgender inmates face particular danger while in prison, but few states offer them protections like these. Connecticut and California passed laws in 2018 and 2020, respectively, that require transgender inmates to be assigned prisons based on their gender identity. Rhode Island, New York City and Massachusetts also have housed inmates based on their gender identity.

"When I was forced to live in men's prisons, I was terrified I wouldn't make it out alive. Those memories still haunt me," Doe said in a statement announcing the settlement. "Though I still have nightmares about that time, it's a relief to know that as a result of my experience the NJDOC has adopted substantial policy changes so no person should be subjected to the horrors I survived."

Doe faced harassment, discrimination and abuse

According to court documents reviewed by NPR, Doe was placed in men's prisons in spite of the state's Department of Corrections knowing she was a transgender woman.

Clear documentation, including her driver's license, showed her gender identity, but Doe was still forced to remain in men's prisons. In addition to facing physical assaults and verbal and sexual harassment in prison, she was also forced to remain in solitary confinement for long stretches.

Corrections staff would refer to her as a man and address her using male pronouns, according to her complaint. She also was denied gender-appropriate clothing items and had difficulty receiving her hormone therapy regularly and on time.

The settlement forces agency-wide changes

The new policy will require staff to use appropriate pronouns, and prohibits harassment and discrimination based on gender identity.

As part of the settlement in the Doe case, all New Jersey state corrections officers, regardless of rank or facility, will have to sign an acknowledgement that they have read the policy. The agency also will provide targeted training on the changes.

The Department of Corrections also said it would guarantee gender-affirming undergarments, clothing, and other property for the inmates. Medical and mental health treatment, including gender-affirming care, also will be provided "as medically appropriate."

Inmates who are transgender also will be given the opportunity to shower separately and won't have to go through a strip searches or pat downs by an officer of the opposite sex.

"The settlement of this lawsuit puts in place systemic, far-reaching policy changes to recognize and respect the gender identity of people in prison," said Tess Borden, ACLU-NJ Staff Attorney. ACLU New Jersey represented Doe along with Robyn Gigl of Gluck Walrath LLP.

As part of the settlement, the New Jersey Department of Corrections have agreed to pay Doe $125,000 in damages and $45,000 in separate attorney's fees.

Longstanding issues at New Jersey prisons

Doe was not the only transgender inmate who has faced frightening treatment in New Jersey prisons.

Rae Rollins, a transgender woman, filed a lawsuit in March saying she was one of several inmates attacked by corrections officers earlier this year at the scandal-plagued Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. In January, several women were severely beaten by corrections officers at that facility. Ten correctional police officers have been charged in connection to the alleged beatings of prisoners.

Rollins sought a transfer to a different women's prison after the incident, but was moved to a men's prison instead. Rollins has since been moved to an out-of-state prison, according to the state's records.

Earlier this month, New Jersey's embattled corrections commissioner announced his resignation from his post — a day after Gov. Phil Murphy said the state would close the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Ramen noodles are supplanting the once popular cigarettes as a form of currency among state prisoners, but not in response to bans on tobacco products within prison systems, finds a new study.

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When hurricanes Helene and Milton decimated multiple states, incarcerated people were left to fend for themselves. That can’t happen again.

Location: Government Information - J 16.1:929-30/SUPP.

Prison ministry in Ntaja, Malawi is reaching out to prisoners and guards alike; planting seeds and bearing fruit.

While according due paramount importance to the legal right of the prisoners to be treated with respect, it would be most significant to note that while taking the right step in the right direction at the right time, the Madras High Court in a most commendable, cogent, convincing and current judgmen

Highlights: High prevalence of mental health challenges among prisoners, leading to 80% of unnatural deaths be

New York : Oneworld Publications, 2022.

Some trivia from prisons across the country

OM Colombia sees lives change as inmates of the prison in Cartagena, Colombia, learn about God’s love and work to better their lives through crafts.

Byzantine penal codes make sentencing an esoteric science and leave inmates with little recourse

The health department has directed that social distancing is the only effective way to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, but it is impossible to do so in prisons as they have more prisoners than their prescribed capacity, he said in a statement.

Iran is ready for a full prisoner exchange with the United States, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei was quoted as saying by Khabaronline news website on Sunday, adding that Washington has yet to respond to Iran's call on a prisoner swap.

Why have inmates manufacture license plates when they can help put an end to a housing crisis?

The notorious North East prison has been dubbed 'Monster Mansion' due to list of violent killers and rapists it houses

They covered 211 miles inside Magilligan to raise money for scrubs

In December 1944, Adolf Hitler surprised the Allies with a secret counterattack through the Ardennes forest, known today as the Battle of the Bulge. In the carnage that followed, there was one incident that top military commanders hoped would be concealed. It’s the story of an American war crime nearly forgotten to history.

After desperate house-to-house fighting between German and American forces, American soldiers wrested control of the Belgian town of Chenogne. Americans rounded up the remaining German prisoners of war, took them to a field and machine-gunned them.

Reporter Chris Harland-Dunaway found an entry in General George S. Patton’s handwritten diary referring to the incident in Chenogne. Patton called it murder. So why then was there no official investigation?

Through vivid interviews with a 93-year-old veteran who witnessed the event, conversations with historians and the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials, and analysis of formerly confidential military records, we investigate why justice never came for the American soldiers responsible for the massacre at Chenogne.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In the carnage that followed the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, there was one incident that top military commanders hoped would be concealed. It’s the story of an American war crime nearly forgotten to history.

**Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

This episode was originally broadcast July 28, 2018.

In December 1944, Adolf Hitler surprised the Allies with a secret counterattack through the Ardennes forest, known today as the Battle of the Bulge. In the carnage that followed, there was one incident that top military commanders hoped would be concealed. It’s the story of an American war crime nearly forgotten to history.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

A legal fight continues to improve health conditions for state prison inmates.

The post Lawsuit continues to press for better care for state prisoners threatened by virus appeared first on Arkansas Times.

Prisoners being transported in Tasmania Police vans have no restraints and are forced to crouch of lie down when they're inside, according to the state's police union, which warns it is only a matter of time before someone dies.

A sick prisoner's push for early release in the midst of the COVID pandemic.

Could the coronavirus lock down make the community more sympathetic to the position of prison inmates? Also, why history can complicate the prejudices we all hold dear. And, George Pell says a so-called culture war over sex and gender was part of a campaign against him. Is he right?

It's dark and its subject matter is unpleasant, but solid direction and powerhouse performances make this crime thriller memorable.

When 40,000 seedlings propagated by prisoners at Loddon Prison were not going to be planted, locals stepped in to make sure the trees would find a home.

A Mid West conservation and land management program is skilling up prisoners in Greenough and reducing the rate of re-offending.

A crime spree allegedly committed by a high-risk fugitive has prompted the SA Government to "clean up" the laws that govern the supervision of former prisoners.

Canberra's jail still houses men and women together and newly released documents show corrections do not know whether prisoners have been meeting for clandestine affairs.

Music, dance, art and poetry are keeping prisoners connected to their culture and, in some cases, reducing their chances of reoffending.

“We need everyone's voice right now.”

Over 50 Fort Dodge inmates have joined together.

There are a few days left to put in a submission on the Electoral (Registration of Sentences Prisoners) Amendment Bill.
The bill would allow prisoners serving sentence of imprisonment under three years to vote, essentially restoring the status quo ante that existed before the members bill advanced by then National MP Paul Quinn was passed by a slim majority
For anyone interested in my views, they're published below. I've been sufficiently organised this time to publish them here a few days before submissions close, so if there are any errors, please let me know. 
The Justice Committee
Electoral (Registration of…

It is dark when I wake . It is Day 48 of the lockdown . The sun has not risen and the birds have not woken. It is Thursday . Sage are meeting today with our government . Sage used to be that herb that you stuffed up a chicken together with onion . Now it i

IN THESE uncertain days of lockdown, I sense a strange inversion of intergenerational strife.

Five new Covid-19 cases have been recorded among prison inmates and three Department of Correctional Services officials have recovered.

Palestinian officials said Friday that Israel is forcing banks in the occupied West Bank to close accounts held by the families of prisoners in Israeli jails to prevent the Palestinian Authority from providing stipends to them. Israel has long objected to the Palestinian Authority's payments to the families of prisoners and those killed in the conflict, including militants, saying it rewards terrorism. The Palestinians view the payments as a social safety net for those living under decades of military occupation.

Prison ministry in Ntaja, Malawi is reaching out to prisoners and guards alike; planting seeds and bearing fruit.