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]]>The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) sharply rejected a judge’s justification for releasing former Trump attorney Michael Cohen back to home confinement on Thursday, saying the decision was based on “patently false” assertions.
Earlier Thursday, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Alvin Hellerstein said the recent move by the Justice Department (DOJ) to put Cohen back in prison was “retaliatory” and claimed it was related to his forthcoming tell-all book.
Hellerstein’s decision came after Cohen earlier this month was sent back to prison and into solitary confinement at Otisville federal prison in upstate New York after violating the terms of his home confinement. Reports said Cohen was seen at a restaurant in Manhattan, which raised concerns that he was in violation of his home confinement terms.
COHEN SUES BARR, CLAIMS HE WAS SENT TO PRISON TO PREVENT TRUMP TELL-ALL
Cohen had been released on furlough on May 21 to serve out the remainder of his three-year sentence — but allegedly failed to take necessary steps to finalize that transfer. In a statement, the Bureau of Prisons charged that instead of complying with the terms of the U.S. Probation Office’s Federal Location Monitoring (FLM) program, Cohen was obstinate.
“Any assertion that the decision to remand Michael Cohen to prison was a retaliatory action is patently false,” the Bureau of Prisons said. During this process of transitioning to home confinement, the bureau said, Cohen “refused to agree to the terms of the program, specifically electronic monitoring.”
Additionally, he was “argumentative” and “was attempting to dictate the conditions of his monitoring, including conditions relating to self-employment, access to media, use of social media and other accountability measures.” Cohen also allegedly “refused to acknowledge and sign the conditions of his transfer of home confinement and was remanded into custody.”
“While it is not uncommon for BOP to place certain restrictions on inmates’ contact with the media, Mr. Cohen’s refusal to agree to those conditions here played no role whatsoever in the decision to remand him to secure custody nor did his intent to publish a book,” the bureau said.
It was not immediately clear whether the DOJ would appeal. Cohen and his attorneys accepted conditions laid out by the judge, except for one focused on the book and his use of social media, which is expected to be renegotiated.
“This order is a victory for the First Amendment,” Danya Perry of Perry Guha LLP, who argued on behalf of Cohen at the hearing, said in a statement. “The First Amendment does not allow the government to block Mr. Cohen from publishing a book critical of the president as a condition of his release to home confinement. This principle transcends politics. We are gratified that the rule of law prevails.”
The decision comes after Cohen sued Attorney General Bill Barr for allegedly violating Cohen’s First Amendment rights when he was remanded earlier this month. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) joined Cohen in the suit.
“Today’s important ruling recognizes that individuals retain their right to speak even when they are incarcerated,” Vera Eidelman, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project said in a statement Thursday. “This is a victory for the First Amendment rights of people in prison, and for the public’s ability to hear from a group of people that is too often silenced in our society.”
“He is being held in retaliation for his protected speech, including drafting a book manuscript that is critical of the President—and recently making public his intention to publish that book soon, shortly before the upcoming election,” the petition read.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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]]>The post In four U.S. state prisons, nearly 3,300 inmates test positive for coronavirus – appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>(Reuters) – When the first cases of the new coronavirus surfaced in Ohio’s prisons, the director in charge felt like she was fighting a ghost.
FILE PHOTO: The exterior of the Marion Correctional Institution where there have been positive cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Marion, Ohio, U.S., April 22, 2020. REUTERS/Dane Rhys
“We weren’t always able to pinpoint where all the cases were coming from,” said Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. As the virus spread, they began mass testing.
They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms.
“It was very surprising,” said Chambers-Smith, who oversees the state’s 28 correctional facilities.
As mass coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems — Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — 96% of 3,277 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic, according to interviews with officials and records reviewed by Reuters. That’s out of 4,693 tests that included results on symptoms.
The numbers are the latest evidence to suggest that people who are asymptomatic — contagious but not physically sick — may be driving the spread of the virus, not only in state prisons that house 1.3 million inmates across the country, but also in communities across the globe. The figures also reinforce questions over whether testing of just people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus.
“It adds to the understanding that we have a severe undercount of cases in the U.S.,” said Dr. Leana Wen, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, said of the Reuters findings. “The case count is likely much, much higher than we currently know because of the lack of testing and surveillance.”
Some people diagnosed as asymptomatic when tested for the coronavirus, however, may go on to develop symptoms later, according to researchers.
The United States has more people behind bars than any other nation, a total incarcerated population of nearly 2.3 million as of 2017 — nearly half of which is in state prisons. Smaller numbers are locked in federal prisons and local jails, which typically hold people for relatively short periods as they await trial.
State prison systems in Michigan, Tennessee and California have also begun mass testing — checking for coronavirus infections in large numbers of inmates even if they show no sign of illness — but have not provided specific counts of asymptomatic prisoners.
Tennessee said a majority of its positive cases didn’t show symptoms. In Michigan, state authorities said “a good number” of the 620 prisoners who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic. California’s state prison system would not release counts of asymptomatic prisoners.
Each state manages multiple prison facilities. Ohio, for instance, has 49,000 prisoners in 28 facilities. A total 3,837 inmates tested positive for the coronavirus in 15 of those facilities. But the state has not yet provided results on symptoms for 1,809 of them and did not identify the total number of tests conducted across the prison system.
Arkansas and Tennessee have also taken a targeted approach by conducting mass testing in several of their facilities. Michigan, North Carolina, California and Virginia have started with one facility each.
Most state prisons did not provide the age or other demographic details of those who tested positive for the coronavirus, which has killed more than 200,000 people globally, including more than 53,000 in the United States.
VAST UNDERCOUNT
Reuters surveyed all 50 state prison systems. Of the 30 that responded, most are only testing inmates who show symptoms, suggesting they could be vastly undercounting the number infected by the coronavirus.
Florida and Texas, whose inmate populations are bigger than Ohio’s, report a combined total of just 931 cases — far fewer than the 3,837 inmates who tested positive in Ohio. New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, has reported 269 positive cases among 51,000 inmates. All three states are testing only symptomatic prisoners.
“Prison agencies are almost certainly vastly undercounting the number of COVID cases among incarcerated persons,” said Michele Deitch, a corrections specialist and senior lecturer at the University of Texas. “Just as the experts are telling us in our free-world communities, the only way to get ahead of this outbreak is through mass testing.”
Prison officials in Florida and Texas said they were following guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with state health officials when testing only inmates showing symptoms of the virus. New York’s Department of Corrections said its policy of only testing prisoners who show symptoms was “reflective of testing procedures in the general public.”
Tennessee took an aggressive approach after a dozen inmates tested positive at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in the city of Pikeville last week. The state’s Department of Correction has tested 3,503 prisoners at Bledsoe, the Northwest Correctional Complex and the Turney Center Industrial Complex.
As of Friday, 651 were positive, and most of them were asymptomatic, the department said.
“It’s what makes the pandemic more difficult to manage,” said Marc Stern, former medical director for the Washington State Department of Corrections and a faculty member at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health. “There are a whole lot of people who are asymptomatic.”
After a recent spike in cases at the Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, North Carolina, state correctional officials tested all 723 prisoners last week. Of the 444 who were infected by the virus, 98% were asymptomatic, the state’s department of public safety said. One inmate has died at the prison.
Similarly, mass testing at two Arkansas prisons — the Cummins Unit in the city of Grady and the Community Correction Center in the state capital Little Rock — found 751 infected inmates, almost all of them asymptomatic, the state corrections department said. It did not provide the total number of inmates who were tested.
Arkansas’ prisons have faced contagious disease outbreaks before, such as scabies and chickenpox, but those episodes were easier to manage because inmates showed overt symptoms, said Arkansas Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dina Tyler. “But with this virus, you have no idea because so many are asymptomatic. It makes it very challenging to contain,” she said.
‘24-HOUR TURNAROUND IS CRUCIAL’
Michigan’s Lakeland Correctional Facility houses some of the state’s oldest and most medically frail prisoners. When coronavirus cases surged, the prison saw a spike in infections and deaths. As of April 23, nine Lakeland inmates had died from COVID-19, accounting for a third of the deaths across Michigan’s 29 state prisons.
Nearly half of Lakeland’s 1,400 prisoners suffer from chronic underlying health conditions, according to state data. Many are in wheelchairs, and the minimum-security facility in southern Michigan has its own geriatric unit for its large elderly population.
On Tuesday, the prison tested all 400 inmates in the geriatric ward and plans to test the rest of the facility by the end of the week. Of the 971 tested so far, 642, or about 66%, were positive. A state official declined to disclose how many were asymptomatic.
“We know mass testing is going to make our numbers spike and might make us look bad,” said Chris Gautz, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. “But I don’t think there’s another prison system in the country that doesn’t have large numbers. They just might not be testing as rigorously as we are.”
All tested inmates are quarantined in their rooms or units pending the test results, which usually come back in a day, he said. “The 24-hour turnaround is crucial” because once an inmate tests negative, they can return to the general population, he said.
In the seven state prison systems conducting mass tests, 49 inmates have died.
As the coronavirus spreads behind bars, rights groups and public defenders say they fear more will succumb, and have pressed for the release of nonviolent older and medically high-risk inmates. While thousands have been let out, crowded, often unsanitary conditions have raised concerns that jails and prisons could become vectors for the disease.
“They’re worse than landlocked cruise ships,” Stern, the corrections expert, said, referring to stranded cruise ships that have been overwhelmed by coronavirus infections.
Linda So reported from Washington and Grant Smith from New York. Additional reporting by Brad Heath. Editing by Jason Szep
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]]>The post Prisons and jails are coronavirus epicenters– however they were as soon as created to avoid disease break outs appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Jails and prisons around the United States are considering releasing a few of their inmates for fear that reformatories will end up being centers in the coronavirus pandemic.
COVID-19 has contaminated hundreds of detainees and personnel in city jails, state jails and federal jails.
New York City, California and Ohio were amongst the very first to launch incarcerated individuals. Other states have actually followed, stating it is the only way to secure detainees, correctional workers, their households and the more comprehensive community.
Jails and jails frequently lack basic health products, have very little healthcare services and are overcrowded. Social distancing is almost impossible other than in singular confinement, but that postures its own risks to psychological and physical health.
As a jail scholar, I acknowledge an unfortunate paradox in this public health problem: The United States’ extremely first jails were really designed to avoid the spread of infectious disease.
Early American prisons
The very first U.S. prisons emerged in reaction to the overcrowded, violent, disease-infested jails of the colonial age.
Jails as we comprehend them today– places of long-term confinement as a penalty for criminal offense– are fairly new advancements. In the U.S. they happened in the 1780 s and 1790 s, after the American Transformation.
Formerly, American colonies under British control counted on execution and corporal penalties.
Jails in America and England during that duration were not themselves places of penalty. They were just holding tanks. Debtors were imprisoned until they paid their financial obligations. Vagrants were jailed up until they found work. Accused wrongdoers were jailed while waiting for trial, and convicted wrongdoers were jailed while awaiting punishment or up until they paid their court fines.
Wikipedia, CC BY-NC
Consequently, early American jails were not designed for long detentions, even if individuals often remained for months or longer.
The physical structure of these unregulated local facilities– typically run by constables or civilians who charged space and board costs– differed. Jail could be an extra space in a roadside inn, a stone structure with disallowed windows or a subterranean dungeon.
Worry of disease
Disease, violence and exploitation were widespread in these squalid American colonial and British jails.
John Howard, a British aristocrat whose concepts affected American chastening reformers, ended up being concerned about living conditions in these “home[s] of wickedness, illness, and suffering” when he ended up being a sheriff. In a 1777 book, Howard states smelling vinegar, a typical disinfectant of the period, to safeguard versus the revolting smell of the prisons he went to.
Howard cautioned readers that jails spread out disease not only among inmates however also beyond, into society. He recalled the so-called Black Assize of 1577, in which detainees waiting for trial were brought from jail to an Oxford courthouse and “within forty hours” more than 300 people who had actually been at court were dead from “gaol fever”– what we now call typhus.
He also wrote of contaminated detainees who, as soon as launched, brought illness from prison into their communities, eliminating ratings.
Disease likewise formed Howard’s understanding of how criminality spread.
He described how young “innocents”– the children of people jailed for financial obligation or those waiting for trial for a minor offense– were seduced by rushing bandits’ stories of criminal offense and experience. Thus “infected,” they went on to become lawbreakers themselves.
America’s first jails
Howard’s ideas, particularly the realization that jails postured a risk to the public, were brought to the U.S. by Philadelphia reformers like Benjamin Rush, a physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Following the suggestions in Howard’s book, American penal reformers pushed for new jails designed to ward off disease, crime and immorality of all kinds.
Howard pictured new facilities that would be well aerated and cleaned daily. Clothing and bedding must be changed weekly. There would even be an infirmary staffed by “a knowledgeable surgeon” who would upgrade authorities on the state of prisoner health.
The Royal Collection Trust
American reformers followed Howard’s suggestions that “women-felons” ought to be kept “rather different from the guys: and young wrongdoers from old and hardened transgressors.” Debtors, too, must be kept “totally separate” from the “felons.”
Detainees must be separated from one another, preferably in cells.
Utilizing Howard’s book as their guide, Rush and his associates changed Philadelphia’s aging and overcrowded Walnut Street Prison into among the nation’s first state prisons by1794 The Walnut Street Jail model was soon adopted across the country.
Wikipedia Commons
Healthcare in prisons today
The U.S. long earlier left from the idea that jails should secure both prisoners and society.
The most significant shift in prison health care took place between the 1970 s and today– the age of mass incarceration.
Jail building, although unprecedented in scale, has not kept up. Lots of corrections centers in the U.S. are dangerously overcrowded.
Ann Johansson/Corbis by means of Getty Images
In 1993, 40 states were under court orders to minimize overcrowding or otherwise solve unconstitutional prison conditions. Many more claims followed. Still, the prison population grew.
One effect of overcrowding is that prison officials have a challenging time supplying appropriate health care.
In 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that overcrowding weakened healthcare in California’s jails, causing avoidable deaths. The justices promoted a lower court’s finding that this caused an “unconscionable degree of suffering” in infraction of the Eighth Amendment’s restriction on cruel and unusual penalty.
In the middle of a worldwide pandemic, such conditions are treacherous. A few of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in U.S. prisons and jails are in locations– like Louisiana and Chicago– whose jail health systems have actually been ruled unconstitutionally inadequate.
Criminologists and supporters state a lot more people must be released from prisons and prison, even some convicted of violent criminal offenses if they have underlying health conditions.
Challengers of coronavirus-related releases, including state officials in Louisiana, contend that the relocation positions a high danger to public safety. And victims of violent criminal offenses grumble that they have not been notified when their victimizers are set to be released.
The choice to release detainees can not be made gently. However arguments versus it discount a reality acknowledged over 2 centuries back: The health of detainees and communities are inextricably connected.
Coronavirus validates that jail walls do not, in truth, separate the well-being of those on the within from those on the exterior.
[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation’s newsletter.]
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