prison

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled this week that a private prison company can be held liable for three female inmates who were raped by a guard, The Associated Press' Morgan Lee reports. The Corrections Corporation of America was found liable for $3 million in damages.

That award is on appeal to the Tenth Circuit. The federal circuit court certified a legal issue to the New Mexico Supreme Court on whether the prison operator could be found liable when the employee was aided in committing the rapes due to his job position. The state court ruled affirmatively on the question.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has refused to reconsider a class action by 33,000 Arizona prison inmates over a strong dissent, Courthouse News' Tim Hull reports. The dissent said that inmates failed to demonstrate that their class has commonality and typicality: "'First, before certifying a class, a court must ensure that all members of the potential class have the same sort of claim, and that the claim is susceptible to classwide resolution. Second, a prisoner does not have an Eighth Amendment claim merely because the prisoner is incarcerated in a prison with a defective medical system,'" Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote.

The plaintiffs allege that inadequate healthcare in Arizona's prisons has violated their Eighth Amendment rights. For example, prison officials allegedly made it difficult for inmates to get medications, medical devices and dental care beyond having their teeth pulled.

The case has now settled, and the dissent said class certification should be vacated despite the mootness issues.

The Philadelphia City Paper reports on multiple legislative proposals pending in Pennsylvania to deny prisoners access to open records. On one hand, access to public records allows prisoners, including "jailhouse lawyers," to investigate the conditions of their confinement. On the other hand, public officials report being inundated with public-records requests from inmates, including flr personal information about the public employees who played a role in their incarceration.

Due to Obamacare's expansion under the Medicaid program in the states that have opted for it, more people facing criminal charges might have access to health care and might get diverted away from the justice system. According to The Crime Report, "for law enforcement and courts, that could mean a greater ability to quickly identify alternatives to incarceration for those with mental illness and substance abuse issues. Tim Murray, executive director of the Pretrial Justice Institute, said that healthcare and substance abuse counseling is more effective at mitigating risk than jail."

The Washington Post editorializes that children, even teenagers, should not be held in the adult criminal justice system. Among other reasons, incarceration does little to prevent minors from committing crimes again, minors are the most likely to be sexually abused by other inmates, and "teenagers are not fully developed; studies have shown that their brains aren’t as capable of moral reasoning and impulse control as adults in their early or mid-20s," The Post argues.