Watch How Quickly a COVID Outbreak Exploded Through a California Prison
The COVID-19 outbreak at California’s San Quentin State Prison last summer was a catastrophe of epic proportions. Twenty-eight people serving prison sentences and one correctional officer died. Nearly two in three prisoners tested positive over three months; many were transferred out for treatment, straining San Francisco Bay Area hospitals. “It’s like a horror movie,” one…
Southern California Jails Have Become COVID Superspreaders
FG Trade/Getty Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.This week, COVID-19 cases in Orange County jails increased more than 400 percent. It’s exactly what the ACLU saw coming. In June, the ACLU, on behalf of half a…
Hundreds of Black People Are in Prison for Life Even Though Jurors Thought They Were Innocent
Roderick Vidau with two of his childrenCourtesy of Vidau’s attorney Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.Roderick Vidau didn’t think the jury would convict him. In 2005, when Vidau was 28 years old, a police officer in…
How a Private Prison Company’s Defamation Suit Against One of Its Critics Backfired
Robyn Beck/Getty Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.The mother who would end the Trump administration’s family separation policy arrived at the US-Mexico border in November 2017 with her 6-year-old daughter in tow. Ms. L, as she…
Congress Is About to Bar Unidentified Federal Agents From Policing Protests
Bureau of Prisons agents block protesters from assembling in front of Lafayette Park in Washington DC on June 3, 2020.Sue Dorfman/ZUMA Wire Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.Congress is set to approve a defense policy bill…
The Freakout About Giving COVID Vaccines to Prisoners Has Already Begun
Sandy Huffaker/Getty Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.Toward the end of a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was asked about a proposal to give the state’s prisoners early access to the forthcoming…