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A fight between two inmates Sunday resulted in one person dead and another facing additional charges. A disagreement and some teasing between two cellmates was reportedly taken as a slight and escalated into fisticuffs inside their cell... After the victim was punched several times in the head, he was then strangled with a "ligature made from a laundry bag,". Both inmates were housed in a section of the prison typically reserved for sex offenders. Mawien was convicted in 2004 of two amended charges of attempted aggravated sex assault, a first-degree felony; and forcible sex abuse, a second-degree felony. He was...

SNIPPET: "ONTARIO, Calif. -- State lawmakers are holding a hearing today in Ontario to discuss the rise in the number of criminal gangs using networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Officials say the hearing entitled "Gangs 2.0: The Emerging Threat of Cyberthugs" will explore the use of social networking tools in gang recruitment and gang-related crime. Assembly majority leader Alberto Torrico, and attorney general candidate, says gang members both in and out of prison are making more use of technology."

Some folks in this dying Mississippi River town would rather take their chances with suspected terrorists in their backyard than watch their neighbors continue to move away in despair over the lack of jobs. News that the federal government may buy the nearly empty Thomson Correctional Center and use the maximum-security state prison to house Guantanamo Bay detainees has given people in Thomson hope that things might be about to turn around in this woeful town of 450. "This town is slowly but surely dying off, and I mean that literally because the people that are retired are dying off...

Ten months before Al Qaeda in 2001 struck a deathblow in the heart lower Manhattan, one of the terrorist group's founding members plunged a sharpened comb through Pepe's left eye and into his brain, blinding the 42-year-old prison guard and causing severe brain injuries that plague him to this day. Pepe told FoxNews.com he worries that sending Mohammed and four of his alleged fellow 9/11 conspirators to New York could compromise the safety of the guards at the MCC prison. Keeping the prisoners in one location, he said, was especially dangerous. Teaming up against Pepe, they beat and blinded him,...

Posted: Nov 13, 2009 3:14 PM Updated: Nov 13, 2009 3:15 PM MARION, IL (KFVS) - SNIPPET: "Ali Al-Marri, 43, is serving an eight year sentence for being a so called "sleeper agent." He has admitted to training in Al-Qaeda camps and having contact with the alleged planner of the September 11th attacks."

<p>CHICAGO — A White House official says the Obama administration is considering buying a northwestern Illinois prison to house a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, along with federal inmates.</p>

Al-Qaeda runs jihad from British prisons David Leppard Protected by high curving walls and set in open fields in the featureless Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire, Long Lartin prison should be one of the most secure buildings in the country. Its “supermax” segregation wing, built at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign, was designed to house dangerous inmates. The IRA’s place as the main threat to Britain’s security has now been taken by Al-Qaeda and a new breed of terrorist is being held inside Long Lartin’s supermax isolation unit. The most prominent today is Abu Qatada, a radical Islamist...

I am really not sure who Sandra Rose is. It appears she has some kind of Hollywood celebrity blog, but she sure understands prison, Nancy Pelosi and, it appears, the constitution. She writes: Remember kiddies, if ObamaCare passes and you don’t buy health insurance you’re going to prison. I keep forgetting that you think health care will be free! House speaker Nancy Pelosi (who I think has a touch of Alzheimer’s) confirmed this legislation again today during a press conference. Shomari Stone, KOMO reporter: “Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail for not buying health insurance?” Pelosi:...

A near-empty prison in rural Illinois has emerged as "a leading option" to house suspected terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an Obama administration official said Friday. PHOTOS As they work to shutter the controversial detention center, federal officials are talking to Illinois officials about buying the Thomson Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison about 150 miles west of Chicago. With Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and other key officials warm to the idea of a federal purchase of the prison, federal officials have stepped up investigations into turning Thomson into a super-maximum facility with a unit for former Guantanamo detainees....

A convicted killer has been found guilty of brutally raping a woman seven months after he was released from prison on parole. Mark Shirley subjected his victim to degrading and humiliating abuse in a bid to re-enact a ritualistic murder he committed 22 years ago. Shirley, 39, who was sentenced to life in 1987 but was later released on licence... Shirley was convicted of murdering 67-year-old Mary Wainwright in Cardiff when he was 16. He was found guilty at Cardiff Crown Court and handed a life sentence, but released after 16 years on parole in 2003. He was recalled to...

A judge's decision to reduce a killer's sentence because he has genetic mutations linked to violence raises a thorny question – can your genes ever absolve you of responsibility for a particular act? In 2007, Abdelmalek Bayout admitted to stabbing and killing a man and received a sentenced of 9 years and 2 months. Last week, Nature reported that Pier Valerio Reinotti, an appeal court judge in Trieste, Italy, cut Bayout's sentence by a year after finding out he has gene variants linked to aggression. Leaving aside the question of whether this link is well enough understood to justify Reinotti's...

11/2/2009 - QALAT, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Air Force security forces members along with Army Soldiers from the Zabul Provincial Reconstruction Team met with prison officials as part of an on-going mentoring project at a nearby prison here Oct. 28. The prison, located close to the PRT compound, has become an important project for the team due to activity this summer. "We had seen the prison have some real troubles this summer," said Lt. Col. Andy Veres, the PRT commander. "Some of the trouble had been from the inside and some from the outside, so we thought it was important to...

Arizona May Put State Prisons in Private HandsBy JENNIFER STEINHAUER Published: October 23, 2009 FLORENCE, Ariz. — One of the newest residents on Arizona’s death row, a convicted serial killer named Dale Hausner, poked his head up from his television to look at several visitors strolling by, each of whom wore face masks and vests to protect against the sharp homemade objects that often are propelled from the cells of the condemned. It is a dangerous place to patrol, and Arizona spends $4.7 million each year to house inmates like Mr. Hausner in a super-maximum-security prison. But in a first...

The average length of stay until expected release of parole violators that are recommitted with a new felony conviction is 36.71 months.[1]Ohio. Based upon this figure, the cost to incarcerate is $94,834 per recidivist in this demographic. The total incarceration cost alone for these recidivists is between $35.8 and $58.7 billion. Can prisoner recidivism realistically be reduced to a figure below ten percent? It can’t happen overnight, but yes, it can. With state and federal budgets for departments of rehabilitation & corrections reaching incendiary levels, the need to implement new and innovative programs has become profound.

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) – A Sicilian builder transferred from prison to house arrest tried to get himself locked up again to escape arguments with his wife at home, Italian media reported Thursday. ... Police charged him with violating the conditions of his sentence and made him go home and patch things up with his wife.

ZURICH (Reuters) – Film director Roman Polanski could face two years in prison if extradited to the United States after fleeing sentencing in California on child sex charges in 1978, the Swiss justice ministry said on Friday. "The United States want him to be extradited for sexual intercourse with a minor. This carries a maximum sentence of two years under U.S. law," justice ministry spokesman Folco Galli said on Friday. The United States has now formally asked Switzerland to extradite Roman Polanski, the ministry said, adding it would reach a decision based on a hearing and information provided by Polanski's...

At midyear 2008, there were 4,777 black male inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents being held in state or federal prison and local jails, compared to 1,760 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents and 727 white male inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents.

A convicted con artist from California who roiled a southeastern Montana community with his unlikely bid to take over its empty jail says he intends to return to the state to pursue a military training center. *snip* The company struck a deal last month with unwitting officials in rural Hardin, Mont. to take over its never-used, 464-bed jail. The plan unraveled after media revelations about Hilton's criminal past sparked an investigation by Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock. In his first interview since the jail proposal's collapse, Hilton tells The Associated Press that his intentions had been honest but his "tainted"...

Imagine you are a New Hampshire inmate facing Obama's economy. Your choices have been limited to the picture on the left and the picture on the right. Which would you choose? People at the lowest levels of society (you know, those quieted voices that Obama claims to represent) have realized that hope for them is all but gone in Obama's America, with some preferring to spend their time in prison to testing their prospects on the outside. "Inmates know that the economy is still weak and the job prospects aren't good, officials say. With no job and nowhere to live,...

Sex felon haunts jail at age 100 Here's proof that only the good die young. Meet Theodore Sypnier, the oldest inmate in New York. The geriatric jailbird celebrated his 100th birthday in upstate Groveland Correctional Facility in May and has spent most of his 90s in prison after pleading guilty to attempted sodomy of a child. Sypnier said he is treated no differently than the spring chickens behind bars with him. He catches Z's in a standard prison bed, wears a two-piece forest-green uniform and chows down on regular mess-hall slop. "It's probably just as bad as being the youngest...

A sobbing spokeswoman for the secretive company occupying the Hardin jail welcomed an investigation by Montana's attorney general Friday and expressed concerns for her own safety amid rumors about her company. Becky Shay, in a 45-minute, wide-ranging press conference during which she occasionally broke into tears, said the California-based American Police Force welcomed an information request made Thursday by Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock. Meanwhile, an attorney involved in the project cut ties with APF Friday and a second company, once named as a subcontractor, denied any involvement. Shay said she hadn't been formally served papers by the attorney...

CODY, Wyo. - Michael Hilton of American Police Force arrived in Hardin with promises of Mercedes police cars and expertise in operating prisons. He delivered the cars last week, but may have learned about prisons following a 1993 conviction for grand theft. Public records from police and state and federal courts in California show that Michael Anthony Hilton, using that name and more than a dozen aliases over several years, is cited in multiple criminal, civil and bankruptcy cases, and was sentenced in 1993 to two years in state prison in California. Hilton pleaded guilty in March 1993 to 14...

LONDON — Willy Wonka would be horrified. Children who eat too much candy may be more likely to be arrested for violent behavior as adults, new research suggests. British experts studied more than 17,000 children born in 1970 for about four decades. Of the children who ate candies or chocolates daily at age 10, 69 percent were later arrested for a violent offense by the age of 34. Of those who didn't have any violent clashes, 42 percent ate sweets daily. The study was published in the October issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. It was paid for by...

Below is a posting at Resistnet of someone in the town of Hardin, Montana witnessing BO's thugs taking over a town with a civilian police force with the purpose of forcing people to take the swine flu vaccination. The private police force has plans for thirty other town across the U.S. according to the eyewitness account. The eyewitness account is verified by an article at http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/61320122.htmlFrom: A Good Friend in Montana Subject: OUT OF TIME: CITY OF HARDIN, MT NOW BECOMING A POLICE STATE! TV Ch8 Verified This came to me from a faithful watchman! WE ARE OUT OF TIME!...

HARDIN - Officials from American Police Force, a California security company working to lock down a contract with Two Rivers Authority to fill and operate Hardin's new but empty jail, provided more details Saturday of how the finished facility will look and operate. At a Saturday morning press conference, Becky Shay, APF's new public-relations director, said the company hopes to build a 30,000-square-foot military-style training facility northeast of the jail and a 75,000-square-foot dormitory for the trainees to the southeast, all on a 50-acre plot of land. She said the buildings would be paid for by APF's "business activities," including...

...[W]e're reprising the harrowing 1977 grand jury testimony of the 13-year-old California girl with whom the director had sex after plying her with Champagne and a Quaalude at the Los Angeles home of Jack Nicholson. Polanski, now 74, fled the U.S. for Europe before he could be sentenced for the sex crime and remains a fugitive from justice. In graphic testimony, Samantha Gailey described the illicit encounter with Polanski, which began with her posing naked in a Jacuzzi for him as he purportedly snapped photos for French Vogue. From there, Polanski approached her in a bedroom of Nicholson's Mulholland Drive...

Ultimately the government's ability to force people to comply with its regulations involves the threat of imprisoning those who refuse to comply. If the Democrat controlled Congress decides to arbitrarily force some people to purchase health insurance will it adopt severe measures to insure compliance with its requirement. Will any government requirement to purchase health insurance include the threat to imprison those who refuse to purchase insurance or pay a fine? Will government confiscate money or property from those who refuse to purchase health insurance or pay a fine? President Barack Obama falsely compares the purchase of health insurance to...

Simple place for a simple man By Ann Coppola, News Reporter Published: 11/05/2007 The nondescript setting that is Point Lookout Cemetery seems fitting for those who rest here. Austere columns support a wired arch above its entrance that holds the word “cemetery” in large white letters. They match the stark, cross-shaped grave markers, which tell nothing of those buried beneath them. Perhaps there is no story to be told for the dead here, but for Louisiana State Penitentiary inmates this facility's cemetery still serves as a symbol of dignity. Of Angola’s 5,000 inmates, 90 percent are expected to die in...

Nigerian anger over China deaths Nigeria has close ties with China and trade between the countries is booming Nigeria MPs have asked the government to investigate the status of Chinese residents in the country, saying some may be staying there illegally. The demand follows allegations that Nigerians in China, especially those in jail, are being mistreated. The MPs asked the government to reject a request by the Chinese authorities to cremate the bodies of 30 Nigerians who have died in Chinese jails. There are an estimated 700 Nigerians currently in prison in China. The BBC's Chris Ewokor in Abuja says...

An August 10, 2009 National Endowment for the Arts conference call in which artists were asked to help support President Obama's agenda -- a call that at least one good government group called "inappropriate" -- has prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to prevent such a call from ever happening again. "The point of the call was to encourage voluntary participation in a national service initiative by the arts community," White House spokesman Bill Burton told ABC News. "To the extent there was any misunderstanding about what the NEA may do to support the national service initiative, we...

Airplane shoe bomber Richard C. Reid no longer faces severe limits on his prison activities or communications after the Obama administration quietly ended years of hard-nosed curbs against the British-born al-Qaeda terrorist. This summer the Justice Department halted six years of measures that kept Reid from associating or praying with fellow jailed Muslim terrorists, and limited his access to the news media and pen pals. That move has outraged victims of al-Qaeda and security experts. The recommendation to lift the restrictions was made with input from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, which prosecuted Reid in 2002, federal officials said......

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday will submit to a panel of three federal judges a plan that would reduce the inmate population at California’s overcrowded prisons by substantially less than what the court has ordered, a move that a top prison administrator acknowledged will place state officials at risk of being held in contempt. Although the final plan will not be submitted until late Friday, administration officials have briefed other parties involved in the court proceedings on its major elements. They said exact projections of how much the prison population will be reduced have not yet been calculated,...

CAMP BUCCA, Iraq - The U.S. military on Wednesday closed Camp Bucca, an isolated desert prison that was once its largest lockup in Iraq, as it moves to release thousands of detainees or transfer them to Iraqi custody before the end of the year.

SAN FRANCISCO, (AP) -- A federal judge has sentenced a Silicon Valley financier to more than 8 years in prison for bilking banks and investors out of millions of dollars in an attempt to buy a pro hockey team and finance a lavish lifestyle. William "Boots" Del Biaggio III was sentenced Tuesday in San Francisco. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to a felony charge of forging financial documents to obtain $110 million in loans from several banks and two NHL owners.

Here is a video report about Maryland Prison officials who are struggling to prevent the illegal use of cell phones by prison inmates. More than 900 cell phones were confiscated from inmates last year. Inmates have reportedly used smuggled cell phones to make extortion calls, and even order hits on witnesses. NOTE: It makes you wonder just how prevalent this problem is around the country. . . . (VIDEO)

Wrongly convicted Texans become instant millionaires New law makes Texas most generous state for payments to cleared prisoners.DALLAS — Thomas McGowan's journey from prison to prosperity is about to culminate in $1.8 million, and he knows just how to spend it: on a house with three bedrooms, stainless steel kitchen appliances and a washer and dryer. "I'll let my girlfriend pick out the rest," said McGowan, who was exonerated last year based on DNA evidence after spending nearly 23 years in prison for rape and robbery. He and other exonerees in Texas, which leads the nation in freeing the...

One in 35 Americans are caught up in the corrections system and incarceration is on the rise. Why is this when the US crime rate has dropped so remarkably? The United States incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other nation. It has only 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. If you count everyone ensnared in the corrections system – on probation or parole – millions of Americans (one of every 31) are anything but free in the land of liberty (1). “Incarceration is a rich country’s hobby,” says Scott Henson, a Texan journalist...

Some wonder why Phillip Garrido, accused of taking Jaycee Lee Dugard in 1991, served only 11 years of a 50-year federal sentence for a similar 1976 crime.As details continued to emerge about Jaycee Lee Dugard's alleged kidnapper, questions intensified Monday over how Phillip Garrido could have served only 11 years in prison after a 1976 rape and kidnapping for which he had been given a 50-year federal sentence as well as a life term in Nevada. Garrido was convicted of kidnapping in federal court for abducting Katherine Callaway in South Lake Tahoe on a November night nearly 33 years ago...

Take it from those who have been there: Prison life is hard on people who need to be in control. Especially politicians accustomed to giving orders, cutting deals, spending millions - and getting their way. Former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo is due to report to federal prison tomorrow, assigned to serve his 55-month sentence at a low-security institution in Ashland, Ky. His attorneys have fought that, wanting Fumo placed closer to family in Philadelphia. What's definite, experts say, is that prisons specialize in turning people like Fumo from kings to peasants. In free society, his dominion included four homes,...

PHILADELPHIA – A former Pennsylvania state senator convicted on fraud charges is scheduled to report to federal prison in Kentucky on Monday. Sixty-six-year-old Vincent Fumo has been sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for defrauding the Senate and two nonprofits of several million dollars. ... The 66-year-old Fumo was a wealthy Democratic power broker during a 30-year state Senate career.

In a case that's been widely ignored by the mainstream media, justice prevailed today as Letalvis Cobbins was found guilty of the vast majority of charges, including that of first-degree murder. Cobbins was one of a group of thugs who carjacked, then raped, tortured and murdered two Knoxville residents. For more on the story, see the Knoxville News-Sentinel. http://digg.com/d311xYc

Bernie Madoff had little to lose by confessing to masterminding the world's biggest Ponzi scheme -- he's dying of cancer, sources told The Post. Madoff, who is serving 150 years at a North Carolina federal lockup after pleading guilty to swindling more than $65 billion, has been telling fellow inmates he does not have much longer to live. "He's been taking about 20 pills a day for his cancer," said one inmate. "He talks about it all the time. He's not doing very well." There's been much speculation as to why Madoff took the entire fall for the scheme --...

Music legend-cum-murderer Phil Spector is whining about being locked up in a "snake pit" of a prison with such other high-profile killer nutjobs as Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan -- but California corrections officials say Spector is full of beans. "Imagine sending me to the same prison -- shows how low they can go," fumes Spector in a letter to a buddy, Bay Area music manager Steve Escobar. "They'd kill you in here for a 39-cent bag of soup!" SNIP Spector wrote Escobar that Phil's 29-year-old wife, ex-Playboy model Rachelle Short, has begun making an 800-mile round trip drive to...

Spector: I’m scared in this snake pit prison By JAMES CLENCH Published: Today rigTeaserImage JAILED music legend Phil Spector has told of his terror at being held in a "snake pit" prison with crazed killers. The record producer, 69, is banged up in the same nick as cult massacre maniac Charles Manson.

SNIPPET: "Since 9/11, the general focus on prison radicalism in the media and in government has been on the process of certifying imams and literature available to inmates. Fully understanding the impact of this phenomenon, however, requires a historical look back at Islam in prison. The seeds of jihad were planted in the prison soil by men like Warith Deen Umar long before we were attacked in 2001. Having spent 26 years working in New York 's Department of Correctional Services, I have witnessed this process of radicalization first-hand. Sometimes it was monitored; sometimes a recruitment cell was infiltrated. As...

In January 1968, Johnny Cash set up his band on a makeshift stage in the cafeteria at Folsom State Prison in California. "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash," he said in his deep baritone to thunderous applause. Song after song, the inmates thumped their fists and cheered from the same steel benches now bolted to the floor. The morning that Cash played may have been the high-water mark for Folsom — and for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The men in the cafeteria lived alone in their own prison cells. Almost every one of them was in school or learning...

There’s a boom in rodeos in America, but I doubt that many riders would want to find themselves in this ring. These photographs by Mark Saltz (click to expand them) are of the Angola Prison Rodeo, staged by the fearsome Louisiana State Penitentiary, which sells tickets to it on its website. Why do the prisoners take such insane risks? Because it’s the nearest many of them will get to a taste of freedom. Also, the last man left in the poker game (see below) wins $150, which makes you a rich man in jail. Hat tip: Richard O’Connor.

Despite the repugnant abuses inflicted on guards by the terrorist detainees at GITMO, that facility must remain open. Irrespective of critics, who are angered over the Ritz-Carlton treatment accorded to some of the world's most loathsome terrorists who must be confined in that facility. Ritz-Carlton treatment? You bet! Scores of terrorist complicit detainees who were ordered released from GITMO have returned to their Islamist jihad against the West. Unlike detainees at GITMO confined in that facility for attacking U.S./Coalition forces in Afghanistan, or engaging in other terror activity, -- the detainees in seven secret Iranian political prisons are in real...

SNIPPET: "The following are excerpts from the letter, as published by norooznews . [1] "...The people who gave me this information hold sensitive positions in the regime... They say that all sorts of incidents are occurring in the prisons... Mr. Hashemi... Some of the detainees say that [certain] people [in the prisons] are raping girls who have been arrested, causing them vaginal tearing and injuries. They are also raping young boys, causing them depression and severe physical and emotional harm... so that [today, after their release] they hide in the corners of their homes. "In light of the gravity of...

Hundreds Hurt in 11-Hour California Prison RiotSOLOMON MOORE Published: August 9, 2009 LOS ANGELES — Rioting inmates smashed and burned a large California prison on Saturday night and Sunday morning, injuring 250 prisoners and hospitalizing 55. The 11-hour riot, at the Reception Center West at the California Institution for Men in Chino, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, broke down along racial lines, with black prison gangs fighting Latino gangs in hand-to-hand combat, the authorities said. No prison employees were injured, no deaths were reported, and no inmates escaped, state officials said. But 10 of the 33 prisons in...