Michigan has to close prisons to save money. California's are bursting at the seams.
When Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff is sentenced on Monday, he'll be sent to a real prison with real bars and violent offenders, not a "country club" for white collar crooks, consultants say.
More than 100 police officers and others were searching Friday in a southeastern Louisiana parish for a murder suspect who escaped from jail with three other inmates, a law enforcement official said.
If there's anything Oprah Winfrey knows for sure, it's what the love of a dog can do for your life. "There is nothing in the world like puppy love," Oprah says.
Michigan officials said Friday that the state is closing three prisons and five prison camps in hopes of narrowing a $1.4 billion budget gap for fiscal 2010.
In the black market of prison life, cell phones have become perhaps the hottest commodity. Now, Texas is among a growing number of state governments going after them.
"Get yourself together." Mary Williams repeated those three words often to her 28-year-old daughter, who served three years in a Kansas prison for a 1988 armed robbery.
Ten years ago, teen Daniel Giddings shot a man during an attempted robbery and was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison.
If one California lawmaker has his way, his cash-strapped state may have an arresting real estate listing on the market: San Quentin State Prison.
Mumia Abu-Jamal sits on Pennsylvania's death row, perhaps the most recognized of the 228 condemned inmates at the Greene Correctional Facility, an hour south of Pittsburgh.
Michigan has to close prisons to save money. California's are bursting at the seams.
When Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff is sentenced on Monday, he'll be sent to a real prison with real bars and violent offenders, not a "country club" for white collar crooks, consultants say.
More than 100 police officers and others were searching Friday in a southeastern Louisiana parish for a murder suspect who escaped from jail with three other inmates, a law enforcement official said.
If there's anything Oprah Winfrey knows for sure, it's what the love of a dog can do for your life. "There is nothing in the world like puppy love," Oprah says.
Michigan officials said Friday that the state is closing three prisons and five prison camps in hopes of narrowing a $1.4 billion budget gap for fiscal 2010.
In the black market of prison life, cell phones have become perhaps the hottest commodity. Now, Texas is among a growing number of state governments going after them.
"Get yourself together." Mary Williams repeated those three words often to her 28-year-old daughter, who served three years in a Kansas prison for a 1988 armed robbery.
Ten years ago, teen Daniel Giddings shot a man during an attempted robbery and was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison.
If one California lawmaker has his way, his cash-strapped state may have an arresting real estate listing on the market: San Quentin State Prison.
Mumia Abu-Jamal sits on Pennsylvania's death row, perhaps the most recognized of the 228 condemned inmates at the Greene Correctional Facility, an hour south of Pittsburgh.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill Wednesday repealing the death penalty in his state, his office confirmed.
The next big question about convicted scammer Bernard Madoff, who has been ensconced in his $7 million home for the past several months, is where he'll likely spend the rest of his life.
A record number of Americans served time in corrections systems across the country in 2007, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Center on the States.
San Quentin Prison sits like a fortress along the bay just north of San Francisco. It is bordered by some of the most expensive residential real estate in the country. But at the edge of this scenic peninsula, 5,400 inmates are locked up.
Greek officials have suspended eight prison guards after two inmates staged a dramatic helicopter escape, the Greek Ministry of Justice said Tuesday.
An improvised explosive device went off inside a federal prison in California during a search Saturday, according to federal authorities.
Federal judges tentatively ruled on Monday that California must reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prison system by up to 40 percent to stop a constitutional violation of prisoners' rights.
A riot at a Texas detention center was ended Sunday. One prison building was heavily damaged, and about 700 inmates were going to spend the night in tents, authorities said.
Thousands of inmates rioted at the Reeves County Detention Center in Texas on Saturday, the second disturbance at the prison facility in the last two months.
A former prison secretary has been sentenced to six months in federal prison for having sex with an inmate she was supposed to be supervising, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in the District of Colorado said Friday.
Staffers at a federal prison in central Florida fired shots to break up a large-scale fight that sent eight inmates to hospital emergency rooms Sunday afternoon, officials said.
A federal judge ordered a north Alabama sheriff jailed this week, saying the lawman intentionally served jail inmates "woefully insufficient" meals in order to pocket more than $200,000.
"My total sentence was 55 years -- for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute," recalls Carolyn LeCroy.
An Ohio death row inmate was executed Tuesday after the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute plea that he was too overweight to be put to death.
An Ohio death row inmate who says he is too overweight to be executed took his plea to the Supreme Court on Friday.
A daylong riot at an overcrowded prison in the Mexican border city of Tijuana left 19 inmates dead and nearly 60 wounded, a government spokesman said.
Jose Rivera survived two tours of duty in Iraq, but his job as a corrections officer at a high-security federal prison in California cost him his life.
While inmates in jails across New York pass the time by playing card games -- poker, gin rummy and solitaire -- they may also be helping crack cold cases.
Chante Wright was set to testify against a career criminal when she was gunned down on the streets of Philadelphia in January. Investigators believe it was a hit ordered from prison, by an inmate using a cell phone.
A death row inmate scheduled for execution says he's too fat to be put to death, claiming executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs
SI.com legal analyst Michael McCann answers the key questions following Tuesday's sentencing of disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy to 15 months in prison.
Whenever the segment featuring me and my imprisoned brother, Everett, from Soledad O'Brien's searing CNN special "Black in America" airs nationally, I invariably receive an e-mail, call or comment from a black person saying our story is their story.
Susan Atkins, a terminally ill former Charles Manson follower convicted in the murder of actress Sharon Tate, on Tuesday was denied a compassionate release from prison.
A state watchdog commission has recommended that California phase out its antiquated juvenile prisons by 2011
Hulk Hogan's teen son faces "cruel and unusual punishment," his attorneys say
HBO is betting that Mexican soap fans will go for a gritty, and expensive, drama about women in prison
A new company in Germany is trying to break into the fashion business selling stylish clothes designed and produced by prison inmates.
One inmate was killed and several others were injured when two fights broke out early Friday at a federal prison in Texas, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said.
Ever find yourself struggling to craft the perfect sentence for a loved one who's, um, serving a sentence? Now, you have a friend in the greeting card business.
The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a lower court's ruling that female inmates have a constitutional right to abortions off jail grounds.
Questions are raised about Gus Puryear's performance as chief counsel for the nation's biggest private prison company
For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population
Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation's largest prison systems two years ago.
A federal appeals court has upheld the right of female inmates to be transported at state expense for elective abortions.
Prosecutors point to a jailhouse letter as evidence of a terrorism defendant's guilt. But it doesn't look like he wrote it
The U.S. Supreme Court appeared divided along ideological lines Monday over whether lethal-injection execution methods in about three dozen states are being properly and humanely applied.
One of the women who tried to assassinate President Ford 32 years ago was released on parole Monday from a federal prison in California, according to a Bureau of Prisons spokesman.
Like soldiers in a foxhole, the residents of Supermax's Unit D developed the kind of bonds that come when your days are no longer your own.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering the early release of more than 20,000 low-risk prison inmates from the nation's largest prison system as a way to save money amid a worsening budget crisis
The acquittal of seven guards and a nurse charged in the death of a teenage boot-camp inmate has renewed calls for reform of the state's troubled corrections system
Visiting Supermax, the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," reveals nothing so much as an astonishing and eerie quiet.
The sea of orange moves with an urgent rhythm as music booms in the early morning light. The dancers twirl in unison, every movement carefully choreographed.
Personal tragedy set Kate Braestrup on her path to ministry.
The nation's prisons and jails are filled with people who don't belong there, but police from Memphis to Miami are stepping in to set them free
When Fernando Ortega talks about the seven days and seven nights he spent in a Los Angeles County jail, he recalls the nine-foot-by-nine-foot cell he shared with three murderers, the "stinking urine smell," and finally, the magazine. "If it weren't for the magazine," he says, recalling the publication that distracted him from his menacing surroundings, "who knows what would have happened to me?"
The state's overcrowded corrections system is in crisis. But a federal panel's judgment could force open prison doors
Paris Hilton checked into a Los Angeles County jail to begin a three-week stay for violating her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
I've been, over the years, because of our reporting on controversial issues and my strongly held beliefs on those issues, attacked, and usually pretty vigorously, by both the left wing and the right wing of this nation's media, both mainstream and otherwise, and of course the politicians that form the extremes of our political spectrum.
When Gary Gilmore was choosing between the firing squad and the electric chair in 1977, Dr. Jay Chapman remembers discussing the inhumanity of each option with his colleagues at the Oklahoma state medical examiner's office.
Brian Prins is an affable salesman who touts the benefits of his prepaid collect-calling service in a distinct Long Island accent. He's also an ex-con who served five years in a Pennsylvania state ...
Two California court cases are raising questions about whether prisoners in the nation's toughest prison, SuperMax, are continuing to commit crimes by smuggling coded messages out of the high-security institution.
If U.S. District Judge Sim Lake's suggestion holds, former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling will see the start of the Thirties - the 2030s, that is - at a federal prison in North Carolina.
Former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling, who gained infamy as the man who orchestrated the largest corporate fraud in history, was sentenced to more than 24 years in jail Monday.
Ex-WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers reported to a federal correctional institution in Oakdale, Louisiana Tuesday to begin his 25-year sentence for his role in an $11 billion accounting fraud.
Ex-WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers will report to a federal prison Tuesday to begin his 25-year sentence for his role in an $11 billion accounting fraud.
Russian police forced three inmate hostage-takers to release their 15 captives unharmed Monday after an hours-long standoff at a pretrial detention center in southeast Moscow, said Interfax news agency, quoting prison system director Yuri Kalinin.
A prison guard's unauthorized gun is at the center of an FBI investigation into how a routine arrest Wednesday turned into a gunbattle that killed a federal agent and the guard.
Behind the boilerplate language of the grand jury indictment at the heart of an arrest gone awry is the story of a prison sex scandal straight from a B movie.
A deadly gunbattle broke out at a federal prison Wednesday when a corrections officer opened fire as federal agents tried to arrest him and other guards on charges they traded drugs for sex, officials in Tallahassee, Florida, said.
Jeffrey Skilling was once a hard-charging poster boy for energy deregulation. Kenneth Lay was once a big political fund-raiser for George W. Bush.
More than 1,000 inmates were added to the nation's prisons and jails each week from June 2004 to June 2005, according to a report issued Sunday by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Sao Paulo state Gov. Claudio Lembo announced late Monday that all prison rebellions across the state have ended and 200 prison guards held hostage over the weekend have been freed without injury.
A criminal gang in Brazil launched a wave of attacks against police stations in greater Sao Paulo and uprisings in 64 jails across Sao Paulo state at the weekend, resulting in at least 52 deaths, authorities said.
Convicted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui had no idea they were coming when federal marshals showed up in the middle of the night to take him to the nation's highest-security federal prison to begin serving his life sentence Saturday.
An inmate who used a homemade weapon to take a female guard hostage at a maximum-security California prison Saturday surrendered peacefully after speaking to a family member, prison officials said.
Publicly blasting the United States one last time, al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was formally sentenced to life in prison Thursday for his role in the September 11 attacks.
The following is a partial statement read Wednesday by court spokesman Edward Adams regarding 23 mitigating factors considered by jurors in the sentencing trial of admitted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui:
The jury in the case of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui recommended Wednesday that he should receive life in prison rather than the death penalty for his role in the attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States.
FBI agents and U.S. marshals are searching for a convicted murderer who escaped Wednesday from a federal prison in Louisiana.
Human rights group Amnesty International has condemned the detention of some 14,000 prisoners in Iraq without charge or trial, saying torture is continuing despite the Abu Ghraib scandal.
The Iraqi government Thursday condemned prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, following an Australian TV broadcast of newly released images, the aired timing of which a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq called "irresponsible" and "unnecessarily provocative."
The final two inmates of six who escaped over the weekend from the Cook County jail surrendered to police early Monday after being holed up with a woman and her children in an apartment, a Cicero Police Department spokesman said.
Jail officials in Atlanta said Wednesday they have intercepted letters revealing an escape plot between courthouse shooting suspect Brian Nichols and another "high profile" inmate.
Ex-Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski received 8-1/3 to 25 years in prison Monday for his part in stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the manufacturing conglomerate.
Former Tyco chief executive Dennis Kozlowski faces the music Monday.
The judge in the BTK case on Thursday sentenced Dennis Rader, 60, to a minimum of 175 years in prison for the 10 murders to which he has confessed.
Inmates from rival gangs clashed in three Guatemalan prisons Monday, leaving at least 31 prisoners dead before police restored order, the country's interior minister said.
Just a few city blocks separated the Manhattan courtrooms where Dennis Kozlowski and John Rigas both appeared in recent days.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of a federal law requiring state prisons to accommodate inmate religions.
A New York jury on Thursday convicted U.S. attorney Lynne Stewart and two other defendants of helping terrorists and lying to the U.S. government.
As end-of-the-year festivities gear up across the country, some prison inmates are also getting ready to celebrate the holidays. Here's a list of prisoners from the most notorious cases of the year and their possible holiday plans.
Scott Peterson's fate is now all but sealed. On Monday the jury recommended he be executed for the murder of his wife and the fetus she carried.
Squinting against a cruel sun, Gil Walker emerges from the inmate holding area and heads into the dusty prison yard in Brush, Colo., a blip of a town 91 miles northwest of downtown Denver. Lanky, g...
It is a good time for small companies to break into the prison market. After all, last year the nation's prison population reached 2.1 million, having grown at its fastest pace in four years, accor...
When David Novak first went to jail, he hardly thought of it as a shrewd, career-making move. "I've got nobody to blame but me," he says. "I was the idiot who did what I did." Novak's conviction fo...
Attorneys for Martha Stewart have filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District claiming that the process leading to her conviction was tainted.
Imprisoned domestic diva Martha Stewart may again be caught in a "jam," according to a report published Wednesday.
With one week down and many more to go, Martha Stewart has written an open letter to fans describing her first seven days in prison.
With one week down and many more to go, Martha Stewart wrote an open letter to fans from prison that was posted Friday on her personal Web site.
Martha Stewart reported to prison in West Virginia early Friday morning to begin serving a five-month sentence for lying about a stock trade.
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