Featured Prison: Northeast Correctional Center

The Northeast Correctional Center in Bowling Green, Missouri, opened in 1988 and has a capacity of 1,975 high - medium security inmates.

In 2008, inmates and filmakers collaborated on several projects including:

The single-channel video Time and Time Again was produced during an extended collaborative project with inmates at Northeast Correctional Center (NECC), a close-security men’s prison in Bowling Green, Missouri. The script is written as a long list of common clichés, proverbs, and other familiar sayings about time, arranged to create a through-line as it progresses. Filmed inside the prison, the phrases are recited by a group of 20 actors from NECC and are edited into quick succession. The language is by nature generic and overly familiar, phrases we have heard over and over, but who is speaking them makes all the difference to their meaning.

Jan Estep » Time and Doing Time

Recently, NECC has been in the news because an inmate at the facility threatened to kill President Barack Obama in a letter. The inmate, Josh Randall McCallum, faces federal charges that could land him five more years in prison.

Missouri inmate charged with threatening to kill President Obama in letter mailed from prison

MO Department of Corrections - Northeast Correctional Center

Northeast Correctional Center - Missouri - Profile - Prison Talk

Alberici Enterprises: State of Missouri Northeast Correctional Center

Northeast Correctional Center

To submit a little known fact about this or any other prison, or to suggest a prison for next week's featured prison, please email me at vlu777@gmail.com

Archive of all Featured Prisons on Genpop.org

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Prison Book: 4,000 Days by Warren Fellows

4,000 Days: My Life and Survival in a Bangkok Prison. Alright, so this book isn't about the American Prison system but it's a fantastic read anyway. Warren Fellows is an Australian who was imprisoned in Thailand for drug trafficking. Fellows was locked up for 11 years, or 4,000 days, along with professional rugby player and former Olympian, Paul Hayward. While in prison in Thailand, Fellows became addicted to the very drug he had been trafficking. His conviction was overturned on appeal and he received a royal pardon in 1989.

The book, 4,000 Days is a journal of Warren Fellows' time in Thai prison. It is extremely unpleasant, horrifying and shocking. By the time you put the book down, you find yourself wondering how any human being can go through that and come out relatively alright. For those of you who have seen the movie Brokedown Palace, this is 200 times worse. I read this book before my return to Thailand 3 years ago and I couldn't help but think about it the whole time I was there, about 3 weeks or so. A spectacular trip otherwise, I kept thinking about the fact that there were prisons in this country that treat people the way I read about in that book. Haunting to say the least.

4,000 Days is a fantastic read and a definite recommendation to anyone wanting to know about prisons and justice systems around the world.

To suggest a book to be featured on Genpop, please email me: vlu777@gmail.com

Click here for the archive of all prison books.

Technorati Tags: prison, thailand, warren fellows, crime, law

The High Cost of the Death Penalty

On Tuesday I had an argument with @Imajyn about the cost of the death penalty. I caught this tweet:

I'm not talking about the death penalty. I <3 the death penalty. WAY cheaper than life in prison. I'm talking about eugenics (http://twitter.com/Imajyn/status/4664075202)

And I thought I ought to educate the fellow. Some of the things that were said in the ensuing argument would have been amusing had we not been talking about a life or death issue. It got me thinking about how amazing it is to me that people still believe in this myth, that the death penalty costs less than life in prison. Even when you stop to think about it, it doesn't make sense, and yet people insist it is true. I suppose none of them are really stopping to think about it.

Regardless, I was looking for some good facts to sling his way and prove my point, when I came across this excellent article in the New York Times:

... keeping inmates on death row in Florida costs taxpayers $51 million a year more than holding them for life without parole. North Carolina has put 43 people to death since 1976 at $2.16 million per execution. The eventual cost to taxpayers in Maryland for pursuing capital cases between 1978 and 1999 is estimated to be $186 million for five executions.

Perhaps the most extreme example is California, whose death row costs taxpayers $114 million a year beyond the cost of imprisoning convicts for life. The state has executed 13 people since 1976 for a total of about $250 million per execution. This is a state whose prisons are filled to bursting (unconstitutionally so, the courts say) and whose government has imposed doomsday-level cuts to social services, health care, schools and parks.

Read more: Editorial - High Cost of Death Row - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: death row, death penalty, capital punishment, budget, cost, execution, prison, crime, law

DNA Exoneration Project Gets Federal Grant Funds

The newly-created Colorado Justice Review Project, which will review 5,000 rapes, murders and manslaughters to ascertain if defendants were wrongly convicted, has received $1.2 million in federal grant funds.

The DNA project will be administered by the Colorado Attorney General's Office and the Denver District Attorney's Office.

Under the program, some people previously convicted of felonies can apply to have DNA testing performed in their case, according to the Colorado Attorney General's Office.

"DNA is one of law enforcement's most effective tools for convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent," Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in a release. "These grant funds will allow us to use DNA to ensure that no Coloradan has been wrongly convicted."

Suthers said that in addition to working with the Denver District Attorney's Office, he will work with several other organizations, including the University of Denver College of Law, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Colorado Public Defender's Office.

The organizations will help run the program and select which cases will be reviewed.

Read more : wrongful-convictions: DNA exoneration project gets $1.2 million

Technorati Tags: dna, colorado, exoneration, dna testing, innocence, wrongful convictions, prison, crime, law

Support the Innocence Project of Florida

Wilton Dedge’s Bike Blast | Innocence Project of Florida

This weekend, October 10-11, 2009, the Annual Bike Blast will take place in Titusville, FL. This event is very special to us because it is coordinated by Wilton Dedge, who was exonerated in 2004 after DNA testing proved he did not commit the rape for which he was convicted and imprisoned.

Wilton owns a great biker bar in historic Titusville called the Southern Room (345 S Washington Ave) which will be the epicenter of the the event. They expect there to be as many as 5,000 bikes at this 2-day event.

The best part is that they will be having a Poker Run to raise money for the Innocence Project of Florida, which will assist our efforts to find and free the wrongfully convicted. You can view the Poker Run flier and register for the Poker Run. If you would like to be a vendor at the Bike Blast, you can see vendor information and fill out this vendor form.

Come to this great event and support Wilton and the Innocence Project of Florida. For more information, click here.

Technorati Tags: innocence project, florida, prison, crime, law

Featured Prison: Southern Ohio Correctional Facility

A maximum security prison in Lucasville, Ohio, Southern Ohio Correctional Facility is home to Ohio's death house, where they execute death row inmates.

The prison opened in 1972 has about 1350 inmates and 671 staff. On site, it runs a farming program and the harvested crops are donated to a homeless shelter.

In 1993, a riot broke out at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, during which the prison was controlled by 450 inmates. Several factors contributed to causing the riot, including overcrowding and "discontent in the general population that the authorities were going to force Muslim prisoners to undergo tuberculosis vaccinations in violation of their religious beliefs. During negotiations, the inmates did not feel they were being taken seriously, and voted as a group to kill an Officer in retaliation. They handcuffed Officer Vallandingham, who they had taken hostage, and killed him by strangling him with a dumbell from the prison weight room. During those eleven days, representatives from the Sunni Muslims, Aryan Brotherhood, and Gangster Disciples met every day in an improvised leadership council." (Wikipedia). $40 million dollars in damage is said to have been caused by the riot. Since the riot, the prison is said to be haunted.

As the home of Ohio state executions, this prison has been in the spotlight lately. The state of Ohio has halted executions until the lethal injection procedure is overhauled in an attempt to avoid another botched execution. Last month, Ohio botched the execution of Romell Broom, making it the first time in modern American history that an execution has been abandoned after it began. A grueling, painful two hours after it began.

Southern Ohio Correctional Facility - Ohio DRC

Southern Ohio Correctional Facility/Prison-Lucasville, Ohio - Prison Talk

Southern Ohio Correctional Facility

Haunted Southern Ohio Correctional Facility

Southern Ohio Correctional Facility Riot

Another week to live: Ohio delays execution of Romell Broom after officials can't find inmate's usable vein | Mail Online

To submit a little known fact about this or any other prison, or to suggest a prison for next week's featured prison, please email me at vlu777@gmail.com

Archive of all Featured Prisons on Genpop.org

Technorati Tags: prison, law, crime, capital punishment, death penalty, death row, death house, execution, lethal injection, southern ohio correctional facility, ohio

Cameron Todd Willingham Meeting Post-poned

Looks like Governor Perry of Texas doesn't want it confirmed that he killed an innocent man:

A well-placed source has confirmed to TIME that Perry ignored the written pleas from several members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, including two of his own appointees, to reappoint the board's well-respected chairman, Austin lawyer Sam Bassett. Bassett's departure has resulted in a delay in an important investigation of evidence in a death-penalty case that critics say will prove an innocent man was executed on Perry's watch.

...

Much of the case for Willingham's innocence rests on the conclusions of two prominent forensic arson experts including Craig Beyler, who was scheduled to testify before the commission last week. But Perry's new forensics chairman, Williamson County district attorney John Bradley, a well-known, tough-on-crime prosecutor, cancelled last week's meeting on Willingham, saying he needed time to get up to speed on the commission's work. Beyler's testimony in the Willingham case has now been put off until Bradley sets a hearing, and he has not indicated when, or if, he will, saying he needs to talk to state leaders about the role of the commission. So far, leading Democrats in the state senate who pressed for the creation of the commission are praising Bradley's integrity, but say they will call a hearing in a few weeks to hear what his plans are.

Read more: Texas Forensics Board Gutted Ahead of Death-Penalty Case - TIME

Technorati Tags: cameron tod willingham, texas, forensics board, rick perry, governor perry, death penalty, execution, capital punishment, innocence, wrongful conviction, prison, crime, law