ABSTRACT
This Note argues that the Model Rules of Professional Conduct require the Office of Legal Counsel to identify President Biden as its client. Had the agency done so when Biden first took office, it could have immediately implemented Biden's policy preference: keeping former prisoners home during the coronavirus pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Mass incarceration, which caused the sharp increase in the American prison population over the last five decades, explains why America today comprises five percent of the world's population but houses twenty-five percent of the world's prisoners. This widespread issue has led to many others, including prison overcrowding. American prisons are dramatically overcrowded, with 2,068,000 prisoners as of 2019. Of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, twelve of them have a prison population that is more than fifty percent Black, even though only 13.4% of the US population is Black. Although many incarcerated people are in jail awaiting trial, the majority are incarcerated because they were sentenced there. Therefore, sentencing reform must be part of the solution. This Note will argue that prosecutors should have a duty to recommend non-custodial sentencing whenever feasible, and to otherwise pursue the lowest prison sentence available, because of 1) current overcrowding in prisons, 2) the impact of current COVID-19 protocols, and 3) the societal impact of incarceration.
ABSTRACT
"17 The exploding prison population was undeniable-the DOJ reported 240,000 state and federal prisoners nationwide in 1975.18 In 2008, the U.S. prison and jail population peaked at 2.3 million.19 The upward trend has slowed, with just over 2 million at the end of 2019,20 but a March 2020 report estimates 2.3 million people are incarcerated across the United States.21 Unfortunately, even the releases triggered by COVID-19 are already proving to be short-lived-state prison and jail populations are "ticking back up" to prepandemic levels.22 B. Private Prisons Problems of prison overcrowding were widely known in the 1980s, with two-thirds of states under court order to improve conditions that violated the Constitution.23 But as the prison population grew,24 states struggled to balance the need for more facilities and the political pressure to be "tough on crime. The Corporate Duopoly Filling that need in the market, CoreCivic28 and GEO Group29 became the two largest players in the private prison industry. Since its founding in 1983, CoreCivic has become "the nation's largest owner of partnership correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities and one of the largest private prison operators in the United States. "30 CoreCivic reported an annual revenue of $1.9 billion in 2020 and $1.86 billion in 2021,31 operating 113 facilities across 22 states.32 The corporation is also a major contractor in the temporary detention facility business (specifically immigration detention) and holds the longestrunning federal contract in the industry.33 In 2016, CoreCivic was awarded a $1 billion nounparalleled contest bill by the U.S. Administration to build and operate a detention facility for immigrants from Central America.34 In 2019, it was awarded a five-year contract worth $2.1 billion to provide guard services at a private San Diego immigrant detention center.35 GEO Group, considered the second-largest private prison corporation in the United States, was given the first federal government contract for a privately operated prison in 1997.36 Although traditionally showing a smaller profit margin than CoreCivic,37 GEO Group had an annual revenue of $2.35 billion for 2020 and $2.25 billion for 2021-an over $1 billion revenue increase since 2010.38 Worldwide, GEO operates and/or manages "approximately 86,000 beds at 106 secure and community-based facilities . . . and electronic monitoring and supervision services for more than 250,000 individuals. A 2017 study by the Prison Policy Initiative followed the money of mass incarceration-a $182 billion industry.43 While private prisons account for $3.9 billion of that industry, that does not even touch on the number of for-profit interests involved in everything from bail fees to commissary, telephone calls, and video visitation.44 A 2020 report lists over 4,100 corporations that profit from mass incarceration in the United States.45 Central to the success of the private prison industry has been its ability to offer diverse product offerings while maintaining ongoing profit margins.
ABSTRACT
The California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA), a semiautonomous prison labor agency under the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, runs two optical laboratories operated by people incarcerated at Valley State Prison and California State Prison, Solano,1 and these laboratories supply ophthalmic lenses to eligible Medicaid recipients, such as this young patient. Documents we obtained through a public records request revealed that our state's public health agency, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), agreed to pay CALPIA up to $37.9 million for the 2021/22 fiscal year for optical services alone. CALPIA wages in prison-based optical shops range between $0.35 and $1.00 per hour,6 up to 55% of which can be deducted by law for restitution and administrative costs, resulting in an effective pay rate as low as $0.16 per hour.7 Courts have routinely rejected legal challenges to these meager wages by concluding that, because the Thirteen Amendment permits the involuntary servitude of incarcerated people, the federal minimum wage law does not apply to prison labor.8 The result is a strange supply chain that is not always transparent or top of mind: medical devices produced by poorly paid imprisoned people are provided to the poorest members of free society, such as the infant who needed sight-saving glasses. Others have called for public health officials, researchers, and physicians to address the sprawling reach of the prison industrial complex.14 Medical providers could use their position of authority to advocate better pay and conditions for incarcerated workers who produce the very devices that providers prescribe.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 remains a public health emergency of international concern. Efforts at the global and national levels are being made to control its spread. The Nigerian Correctional Service is also proactive in the fight against the disease by organizing COVID-19 awareness training for correctional officers. We conducted a pre- and post-test assessment of COVID-19 knowledge among correctional officers in Enugu State Command to determine the impact of awareness training on their knowledge level. The study also assessed correctional officers’ attitude and preventive practices towards the disease. The mean knowledge score was 19.34 out of 25, and the awareness training significantly improved the participants’ COVID-19 knowledge. We found a significant moderate, positive correlation between knowledge and attitude/practice, and a significantly higher knowledge level among those with higher educational qualifications. Regular hand washing with soap and water (87.9%), wearing face masks (84.4%), and social distancing (83%) were practiced by the majority of the participants. . The majority of the participants (53.2%) received COVID-19 information from multiple sources including the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and the World Health Organization