The revised United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, named the Nelson Mandela Rules, were adopted unanimously in December 2015 by the UN General Assembly and set out the minimumstandards for good prison management, including to ensure the rights of prisoners are respected. The 122 Rules cover all aspects of prison management…
Louis D. Brandeis Quotes. “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” “Whatever limitations the PLRA has imposed on prison- ers’ rights litigation, it is imperative to prevent the statute from pulling an iron curtain across…
We need an oversight committee, Getting quality health care can be hard enough for everyday people. But for the more than 49,000 people in Illinois prisons, that process can be even tougher. Two years ago, a team of court-approved researchers went to eight prisons across the state and reported widespread problems, including major backlogs and…
Criminalization of Mental Illness Ought to be a Crime A lack of mental health treatment options is a major contributing factor in the mass incarceration of people with mental illness in Massachusetts and across the country. The Treatment Advocacy Center in 2014 found data that “there are now 10 times more individuals with serious…
We Spend $9 Billion a Year to Lock Up People With Mental Illnesses: Here’s What We Should Do Instead San Antonio, TX has found a better approach to mental illness than handcuffs and jail cells. http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/we-spend-9-billion-year-lock-people-mental-illnesses-heres-what-we-should-do-instead
The following story comes from Mustafa Zulu, who has been in solitary confinement for most of the past 22 years. He was born and raised in Washington, DC, where he watched both parents struggle with drug addiction. At the age of 16, he was tried as an adult and convicted of murder. He is currently…
From Sentencing Law and Policy: An Affiliate of the Law Professors Blog Network http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2014/03/might-obamacare-end-up-reducing-prison-populations-more-than-any-reform-in-a-generation.html The question in the title of this post is drawn from the headline of this new Newsweek article that purports to explain “How Obamacare May Lower the Prison Population More Than Any Reform in a Generation.” Here are a few highlights: [The] the Patient…
1764: Beccaria developed in his treatise a number of innovative and influential principles: punishment had a preventive , not a retributive, function; punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed; the probability of punishment, not its severity, would achieve the preventive effect; procedures of criminal convictions should be public; and finally, in order to…
Give elderly chance at parole A bill is being considered by the Legislature, HB 3668, that would permit elderly prisoners to apply for parole. People may wonder who are these elderly people? Miss P. is 63 years of age. She is confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk but a few steps alone. She has…
http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/about-us/our-blog/69-no-state/2413-prisons-are-a-very-poor-place-to-treat-the-mentally-ill- Prisons Are a Very Poor Place to Treat the Mentally Ill (Oct. 10, 2013) Yes, jails are America’s “new asylums.” Thousands of people with treatable mental illness who once might have been patients getting treatment are instead inmates essentially getting punished for being sick. The front-page charts in your outstanding article provide a…
