September 8, 2018 | Kevin Gavin | WESA Public Radio: The Confluence
Interview with Staff Attorney Alexandra Morgan-Kurtz regarding the issues surrounding the PA prison lockdown and concerns related to the new prison regulations.
A Troubled Federal Prison Unit Gets New Life In A Different State
August 21, 2018 | Victoria Law | The Appeal
Instead of changing its conditions and practices, The Bureau of Prisons is simply moving a problem-plagued federal prison unit in Pennsylvania to Illinois.
On Feb. 3, 2011, staff at Pennsylvania federal prison USP Lewisburg’s Special Management Unit told Sebastian Richardson to “cuff up” and accept a new cellmate. Richardson was terrified; the man with whom he was about to share the cell, known as “The Prophet,” had attacked over 20 cellmates. The Prophet had just been released from hard restraints, a combination of metal handcuffs, ankle shackles, and a chain that encircled his chest. He was also, according to Richardson, ”rocking back and forth in agitation as he waited outside” the cell door.
Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary 'worst inmates' to transfer out later this year
June 11, 2018 | John Beauge | PennLive
LEWISBURG - The mission of the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary is about to change after nearly a decade of housing the worst of the worst inmates who have created problems in other prisons.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has announced it is transferring the special management unit from Lewisburg to a high-security prison in Thomson, Ill. The first transfers are expected to take place late this year.
Special management inmates are locked in their cells 23 hours a day, eat their meals there and are escorted to recreation pens.
As Graterford inmates move to new prison, prospect of sharing cells worries some
May 21, 2018 | Aaron Moselle | WHYY Public Media
SCI Phoenix – the biggest and most expensive state prison in Pennsylvania – is slated to open in Montgomery County next month about a mile from the aged facility it’s replacing.
The $400 million facility, originally scheduled to open in 2015, is considered a major upgrade from Graterford Prison, the Depression-era jail.
But former inmates and advocates continue to be concerned the short move could lead to an uptick in violence if inmates with their own cells at Graterford suddenly have to share at Phoenix — and can’t adjust.
'I felt like a caged animal.' Pa. woman claims jail illegally shackled her during labor
May 10, 2018 | Philadelphia Daily News | Samantha Melamed
Athena Remlinger was supposed to go to court on Oct. 17, 2017. She expected to be sentenced to time served on charges that she participated in a robbery. It was a relief: She was pushing nine months pregnant, and wanted to be home from jail in time to give birth.
Instead, her public defender told her the court date was canceled. The Lebanon County Correctional Facility had decided to induce labor two weeks early — for staffing reasons, she claims she was told.
Though Remlinger pleaded with correctional, and then medical, officials to let her carry her baby to term, they took her to Hershey Medical Center, shackled her to a rocking chair, and gave her Pitocin, a drug that induces labor, she claims in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Middle District.
Transgender inmate says prison wrongly halted hormone meds
June 26, 2017 | Terrie Morgan-Besecker | The Times-Tribune
Steven Fritz, 44, of Scranton, received hormone medications while incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale. She expected to continue the medications when she was incarcerated at the county jail on new theft charges, but the medical staff abruptly stopped the drugs after just three days, she said.
Joseph D’Arienzo, spokesman for the county, declined to discuss the case, citing medical privacy laws. He confirmed the county has no policy regarding hormone treatment for transgenders.
The prison’s denial of treatment is at odds with the state Department of Corrections’ policy regarding hormone treatment for transgenders and likely violates Fritz’s constitutional rights, which could lead to a lawsuit, attorneys for a transgender advocacy group and prisoners rights group said.
In Allegheny County Jail, pregnant inmates have been held in solitary confinement for infractions such as having one too many pairs of shoes
December 23, 2016 | Matt Stroud | Medium
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, along with The Abolitionist Law Center, PA Institutional Law Project, and Reed Smith filed a lawsuit on behalf of five pregnant women who spent as many as 22 days in ACJ’s Disciplinary Housing Unit for transgressions such as storing envelopes in a library book, and possessing three pairs of shoes instead of two. One of the women named in the lawsuit told Rewire that she was placed into the DHU — a euphemism the county uses for solitary confinement — because she kept her physician-prescribed medications in her cell, apparently against the jail’s policy. Once in the hole, she said she felt “like I was going to be in there forever.” When she filed a written grievance with the warden about being placed into solitary, she noted that she was going through a high-risk pregnancy — a detail that one would imagine the jail’s primary overseer might take seriously. A reply was scribbled at the bottom of the form: “If this is a problem don’t come to jail.”
Prison Project points to abuse at USP
December 1, 2016 | Matt Farrand | Standard-Journal
Allegations of abuse at USP Lewisburg are still a common occurrence since the new security protocols were instilled in 2009. The prison uses hard restraints that cut off the inmates' circulation as well as other unnecessary punishments. David Sprout, a paralegal and member of the Lewisburg Prison Project, believes that some of the actions of the penitentiary can be seen as torture.