Results tagged “prison”

A rural Illinois prison has gained federal attention as a potential new site to "house suspected terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba," according to the Tribune in an exclusive report.

Inmates at Cook County Jail's oldest maximum-security prison often resort to using toothpaste caps and toilet paper to jam their jail cell doors and sneak out, but recently it seems the old locks on the doors have rendered their extra efforts unnecessary. "Some of them are so bad they can literally slide the door, give the door a little jiggle, and it will slide open," a Cook County sheriff's correctional officer said to the Chicago Sun-Times. According to an investigation conducted by the Chicago Sun-Times/Better Government Association, there have been at least 288 problems with cell doors in the 608-cell prison called Division 1, between February 2007 and last May.

A couple eager to welcome their recently paroled son home from prison were found shot to death in their basement Saturday morning, Chicago Breaking News reports.

When a race horse’s career is over there are few options: euthanize, slaughter or rescue. A new resolution introduced into the Illinois House late last month hopes to do more than save the retired equines -- it hopes to give inmates a chance to learn caretaking skills and compassion for the animals.

American journalist - and Medill graduate - Roxana Saberi has been freed from an Iranian prison after an appeals court overturned her eight-year sentence for allegedly spying on Iran for the U.S. Saberi, a 32-year-old American-Iranian national, graduated from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism in 1999 and has been in Iran for six years, covering stories for outlets such as NPR and the BBC. Saberi's father, Reza, who lives in Fargo, North Dakota where Roxana grew up, is in Iran to bring her back home, telling the Associated Press, "In the next few days, we will make travel plans to return home."

In a city where a bump leads to a dead innocent teenager, nothing surprises us anymore. Including a prison beating death that stemmed from a name-calling, which happened last year at the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center. Prosecutors in the case of the beating death of inmate Jason Katz claim that Jason Tolen, another inmate, beat Katz to death in March 2008 after Katz called Tolen a "snitch."

Jason Katz and other inmates began teasing Jason Tolen for "snitching" to guards about another inmate's "access to laundry items," prosecutors said in court papers this week. Tolen dared Katz to call him a snitch again, authorities said. It's unclear whether Katz responded, but Tolen walked across the room and punched Katz in the head about 20 times, causing a massive brain hemorrhage and immediate death, according to prosecutors.

Katz was serving a nine-month sentence for illegally selling a firearm. Tolen, who now faces second-degree murder charges for Katz's death, was serving 21-months for possession of stolen firearms, but that would be extended to life if he is convicted. The government, meanwhile, is trying to block the defense from claiming that calling someone names in prison provokes violence. Apparently, none of the prosecutors watch The Wire (language NSFW).

Aldermen approved a measure today towards allowing some felons to operate massage parlors. While anyone convicted of a sex crime would still not be eligible for a massage license, those convicted of other felonies who could prove they'd been rehabilitated would be. [WBBM]

Cook County inmates are often sent to prisons in other counties—not because of overcrowding, but to maintain prison safety, according to a Cook County sheriff's spokesman.

Of all the causes to get behind, it’s not often we hear about activists fighting for prisoners’ rights. But that’s the purpose of The Sewing Rebellion’s + Tamms Year Ten event, taking place this Sunday.

deplorable.

). Even less fun is rotting away in a cell for almost 26 years for a crime you didn’t commit. Now imagine that the key to your freedom was sitting the entire time locked in a box in a lawyer’s office, who couldn’t reveal it due to attorney-client privilege. That’s exactly what happened to Alton Logan. Logan, now age 54, was arrested in 1982 for the murder of a security guard at a south side McDonald’s in a robbery gone wrong. He was identified by witnesses along with Edgar Hope. A few days later, as police were hunting down Andrew and Jackie Wilson for an unrelated murder of two officers, a raid on Andrew’s suspected hiding place turned up a shotgun that tested positive as the gun used in the McDonald’s shooting. But since only two men were involved in the robbery and police conveniently had two men already in custody, charges were never filed against Andrew Wilson in that case. You might remember Wilson -- his allegations of being tortured by Jon Burge and two detectives started the snowball that led to Burge’s firing and a $1 million award by the court. But the plot twists even further -- public defenders Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz, representing Wilson in the police shooting, received word that Hope was claiming Logan had nothing to do with the McDonald’s murder, and was pointing the finger at Wilson. When Coventry and Kunz confronted Wilson he admitted to being the trigger man. Wilson agreed to allow the lawyers to prepare a notarized affidavit of his confession, but it could only be revealed after his death. The affidavit has sat sealed in a metal box in Coventry’s office ever since. Andrew Wilson just died in November of last year -- Coventry and Kunz have now come forward with the new information, and Logan’s attorney is motioning for a new trial. Logan’s case is an example of how our justice system is for the most part effective, but far from perfect. The evidence to help exonerate someone in prison is just sitting around next to back issues of the , and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Even if Coventry and Kunz didn’t care about reprimands and losing their license for breaking the attorney-client privilege, because of that privilege the affidavit would be inadmissible, anyway. At least that’s our hope, as the thought of these two men sacrificing Logan just for the sake of their careers is unfathomable. Can any of our law degree toting readers confirm this? [Trib]

In November we took a look at La-Van Hawkins, a Chicago-born restaurateur who made a fortune in fast food franchises. Hawkins was planning on opening a slew of Nancy's Pizza and Al's Italian Beef franchises on the South Side even as he was waiting to be sentenced to 33 months in prison on corruption charges.

A report released today from the Justice Policy Institute compares drug imprisonment statistics for big counties and concludes that everything is messed up. Granted, the Institutes's slogan is "dedicated to ending society's reliance on incarceration," but the report is still fascinating and surprisingly easy to read. Cook County has the ninth highest rate of admission to prison for drug offenses, with 166 out of every 100,000 people going to prison for a drug offense. But...

George Ryan starts his prison sentence today, and the Sun-Times and Trib have helpfully chronicled every move the former governor has made since last night. You know what that means: time for a Ryan Round Up! Olé! Yesterday, the 73-year-old released this statement to the public, again claiming innocence and thanking his family and legal team. At 5:50 this morning, Ryan left his home in Kankakee in a van driven by his son, George Ryan...