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Keeping babies out of prison
The US state of Minnesota passed the ‘Healthy Start Act’ in 2021, making it the first state to allow some jailed mothers to live outside of prison with their new babies. A few other states, including Indiana and Illinois, have nurseries in prisons which allow mothers to keep their babies with them. In most states, if a woman gives birth in jail or prison she is separated from her baby within hours or days. Safia Khan, Deputy Commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Corrections, said: “The idea was to find ways to prevent separation happening at a very critical time for the development of that newborn baby and to allow for that mother-child bond.” In the last two years, 38 women have been screened for the Healthy Start programme, although only 12 have been accepted. Women can be rejected if their sentences are too long or if their parental rights have been terminated.
Dying as a Muslim in a US prison
The Islamic faith specifies rites and process to be carried out when someone dies – but a man detained at New Jersey State Prison (NJSP) has told broadcaster Al Jazeera that Muslims who die there are being cremated in defiance of their beliefs. Many prisoners have no next-of-kin to handle funeral arrangements, so this can lead to bodies being kept refrigerated for a long time and then cremated. A Muslim should be buried after a ritual bath called ghusl and the covering of the body with two white sheets or towels, known as kafan. A janazah, or funeral, is performed before burial. For Muslims, the last rites are a final farewell and religious act of vital importance. The processes should apply equally to those who convert after imprisonment.
Still slopping out
Prisoners in six Malaysian jails built by the British in the colonial era are still forced to slop out, often having to share buckets, according to local newspaper The Star. The oldest of the prisons, opened in 1849, is in Georgetown, Penang, and it has the worst conditions. Malaysia’s Parliamentary Special Committee on Human Rights says that overcrowding is the cause, mainly due to the high number of drug-related cases, and that slopping out must cease. Committee Chair William Long said: “These pre-war prisons cannot be renovated. New ones will have to be built on the original sites.”
Guard abused women in prison
A public inquiry in New South Wales has heard how former prison guard Wayne Astill sexually abused prisoners at his workplace, Dillwyania Women’s Correction Centre. Authorities in the Australian state set up the hearings after Astill was sentenced to 23 years for 30 offences committed over three years against at least 13 women. According to a newspaper, the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, the inquiry learnt that prison management ignored multiple intelligence reports which should have raised alarms. Former NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin admitted it displayed “a catastrophic failure at the jail.”
Prisoner releases ease overcrowding
Thousands of prisoners across Nigeria have been released from prison to tackle overcrowding. Over 4,000 prisoners have been released, out of nearly 81,000 held in 253 prisons across the country. The people released were mostly detained over unpaid fines up to a maximum of one million naira (£980).
Stopping drugs in mail
The smuggling of drugs via incoming mail presents a problem for American prison authorities, as it does in the UK. Traffickers are reported to have innovated new ways of infusing narcotics directly into everything from children’s drawings to love letters. Paper, ink, and stamps are now all vehicles for contraband. There have even been reports of prisoners rolling joints with family photos laced with fentanyl.
Most of the USA’s two million prisoners are held in state-run prisons, and at least 15 states, including Texas and Pennsylvania, have banned prisoners from receiving physical mail. Now a bill has been introduced in Congress to tackle the problem in US federal prisons, which hold around 130,000 people. Proposed laws would require all incoming mail to be scanned, with prisoners provided with an electronic copy within 24 hours of receipt. The original mail would be withheld for testing, but would be delivered to the prisoner within 30 days if it proves drug-free.
In a pilot scheme at two federal prisons, mail was destroyed after scanning. But according to Logan Seacrest, a resident fellow on the R Street Institute’s Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties team, a greeting card or piece of artwork from a loved one provides a lifeline for people behind bars – “Taking away the tactile experience of touching a handwritten letter or smelling perfume on an envelope would likely have a negative impact on prisoner wellbeing, which can increase recidivism and antisocial behaviour.”
Sex scandal at Belgium’s biggest prison
Reports in Belgium say that ‘wild jacuzzi orgy parties’ were held by staff at Lantin prison near Liège. It is a minimum-security prison holding both men and women. Ten guards at the prison have been identified as holding the parties and even having sex with each other whilst working shifts. The employees are facing an inquiry into the allegations.
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