Prisoners’ Rights Advocates File Lawsuit Against Allegheny County Jail for Sergeant Brutalizing Disabled Women

The Abolitionist Law Center (ALC), Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP), and K&L Gates filed a lawsuit on Tuesday on behalf of April Walker, LaVonna Dorsey, and Alexus Diggs, three formerly incarcerated women with disabilities, who claim they were brutally assaulted by Sergeant John Raible at the Allegheny County Jail. The complaint describes numerous assaults by Raible against people with disabilities involving the overuse of pepper spray, tasers and placing people with disabilities in a restraint chair for hours without food, water, medicine, or breaks to relieve themselves.

PILP, ALC and ACLU PA send letter to Allegheny County demanding COVID testing and contact tracing of people at ACJ

PILP, ALC, and ACLU PA sent a letter to Allegheny County demanding testing and contact tracing of people at ACJ after dozens of guards quarantined. This comes after numerous reports that people in direct contact with a guard who tested positive are symptomatic and being denied tests.

Prisoners’ Rights Advocates File Class Action Lawsuit Against Allegheny County Over Failed Mental Health Care System at ACJ.

September 15, 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: William Lukas, Abolitionist Law Center, (508)-340-6507, wjlukas@alcenter.org
Rebecca Susman, PA Institutional Law Project, rsusman@pailp.org, 412-254-4771

PITTSBURGH – The Abolitionist Law Center (ALC), Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP), and Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP filed a class action lawsuit today on behalf of people with psychiatric disabilities incarcerated in Allegheny County Jail (ACJ). The lawsuit alleges severe and systemic constitutional violations, as well as violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, for the jail’s failure to provide adequate mental health care and its discriminatory and brutal treatment of people with psychiatric disabilities.

PILP Statement on the Importance of the US Postal Service

August 25, 2020

The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project highly values the services provided by the United States Postal Service, and urges it to maintain its operations, without changes to its operations, service, or delivery.

Communication between incarcerated people and their families is a valuable lifeline. People are frequently incarcerated in prisons far away from their loved ones, and mail may be their only means of contact.

PILP and LPP Send Letter to Warden Spaulding Re: Inhumane Treatment and Deplorable Housing Conditions at USP Lewisburg

July 1, 2020. The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP) and the Lewisburg Prison Project (LPP) sent an advocacy letter to Warden Spaulding at USP Lewisburg after we received a number of reports that people incarcerated at the federal penitentiary are being treated inhumanely and are being housed in deplorable conditions that also do not adequately protect them from COVID-19 transmission, which will likely have a significant impact on their health and safety, as well as prison staff and the community.

Read the full letter here

PILP Sends Advocacy Letter to Governor Wolf Objecting to His Statement re: COVID-19 in Prisons

June 26, 2020

The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project sent Governor Wolf an advocacy letter objecting to his statement that people in PA prisons are more secure from COVID-19. Additionally, PILP urged universal testing, lifting the lockdowns, and necessary services.
Read the letter here