Prison Practices

07.18.17

A “How-To” Guide for Activists Registering Jailed Voters

By Katrice Williams

Many Ohioans are misinformed about Ohio’s voting laws including who is eligible to vote with a criminal record. These myths are most common among jail officials, local election authorities and in communities with a high population of persons returning from prison.

06.26.17

Bail Reform Key to Solving Jail Overcrowding

By James Kosmatka

“On Wednesday, June 14^th, Sheriff Jim Neil declared a state of emergency at the Hamilton County Justice Center due to jail overcrowding. The ACLU of Ohio has taken bail reform head on, and it is rapidly becoming one of our main criminal justice focus areas.

03.28.17

Ohio (and the Nation) Should Cut Ties with Prisons for Profit

By James Kosmatka

The ACLU of Ohio has been fighting “prisons for profit” for years. The trend to privatize prisons as a method to reduce costs has been ineffective, and only contributes to the surging rates of mass incarceration, with Ohio prisons at 130% of capacity.

12.16.16

Truth in Sentencing

By James Kosmatka

Sentenced to ten years, out in two. Outrageous!

And false.

The myth that prisoners serve small fractions of sentences is one of the most destructive falsehoods driving the tragedy of mass incarceration. In Ohio and elsewhere, the use of parole and probation has shrunk to levels that can only be described as harmful to us all.

07.08.16

Locked Down, Locked Away: What’s It Like Being Released from Solitary Confinement?

By Adrienne Gavula

Mr. Kenyatta is a prisoner rights activist and businessman who was released from prison 13 years ago. He spent time in solitary confinement at both of Ohio’s maximum-security prisons and was part of the ACLU lawsuit, Austin v Wilkinson, which drastically changed prisoner classification in Ohio to ensure more humane living conditions.

06.08.16

A Family Surviving Solitary Confinement

By Adrienne Gavula

This post is part of the joint report between Disability Rights Ohio and the ACLU of Ohio – “Shining a Light on Solitary Confinement: Why Ohio Needs Reform.” Take action to reform solitary confinement in Ohio.

Justin committed a crime. He was found guilty of aggravated murder and robbery, along with two others.

12.04.15

A Call for Justice: ACLU of Ohio’s Pay-to-Stay Press Conference

By Dan Rogan

On Monday, November 9^th, 2015 the ACLU of Ohio held a press conference to launch its newest and powerful report, In Jail & In Debt: Ohio’s Pay-to-Stay Fees.

Senior Policy Director Mike Brickner spoke briefly to the media about what these fees are and their negative and lasting impact.

07.06.15

My Interview With a Corrections Officer

By Adrienne Gavula

Often, when we as a society talk about reforming our criminal justice system, it’s about finding jobs for individuals released from prison or diverting them to treatment in the first place. Rarely do we focus on the conditions of incarceration and its impact on people once they’re released.

06.30.15

Summer Break at the Statehouse: A Review of the First Six Months

By Lisa Wurm

The Ohio General Assembly has now passed the state budget, and the first quarter of the two-year legislative session is over. As always, the ACLU of Ohio has been very active at the Statehouse in what was a very busy first six months.

06.24.15

How a Hunger Strike Caused Change in Youngstown Prison Policy

By Adrienne Gavula

If you go without food for just eight hours, your body will decrease its use of energy, the heart will pump slower, you will produce less heat, and hunger pains build.

Earlier this year, the ACLU of Ohio watched in dismay as people in Ohio’s super-maximum security prison in Youngstown went on a hunger strike.

05.11.15

Solitary Confinement is NOT Rehabilitative

By Adrienne Gavula

It was a chilly October last year when my colleague and I visited the super-maximum security (super-max) Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown. Before entering, I thought there was nothing more restrictive than the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, aka Lucasville prison. I could not have been more wrong.

04.29.15

Ohio Prisons, Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness

By Adrienne Gavula

Let’s imagine…

You are locked inside a room the size of your bathroom for 23 hours a day and let outside for one hour, but only when it’s warm and only in a cage the size of a walk-in closet. Your meals are eaten inside this room, and there is limited reading and television access.

04.20.15

Name Game: Ohio Can’t Hide Solitary Confinement

By Adrienne Gavula

It doesn’t matter whether you call it local control, disciplinary control, administrative segregation, or restrictive housing, it’s extreme isolation. Putting people in solitary confinement is something the U.S. Supreme Court has deemed “physical and mental torture.”

Since 2012, Ohio has operated a tiered system in which prisoners are given a level ranging from 5b down to 1.

04.10.15

Is Being Alone Bad For You?

By Adrienne Gavula

Putting people in isolation is devastating and makes recovery next to impossible. If you didn’t have a mental illness going into isolation, it’s likely you will have one coming out.

Research shows that prolonged solitary causes a persistent and heightened state of anxiety, nervousness, headaches, insomnia, nightmares, and confused thought processes.

04.08.15

Families Matter: Prison Phone Calls for Less Profit

By Shakyra Diaz

Imagine that your child is hundreds of miles away and having to ignore their phone calls because you can’t afford to pay the bill. Imagine not being able to wish your father or mother a happy birthday. Imagine not being able to give your condolences following the death of a cousin.

01.23.15

Jailhouse Woes: What’s the Real Solution to Reduce Population?

By Kim Schuette

It doesn’t take too much imagination to see the heads slowly wagging back and forth at the local coffee shop when they learn the news. I can even see the eye rolls, too.

No, not from surprise or disbelief, but from the senselessness of it all.

12.13.14

Mass Incarceration Means Mass Health Problems

By Adrienne Gavula

Our country’s public health is at risk. No, it’s not from Ebola or this year’s virulent strain of the flu.

It’s from mass incarceration.

A new report, “On Life Support: Public Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” issued by the Vera Institute of Justice, focuses on the alarming impacts of imprisonment on individual and community health.

11.12.14

Pope Francis: Solitary Confinement Is Torture

By Adrienne Gavula

Ever since smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel heralding Pope Francis as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, he has made headlines for addressing controversial social issues. So, it was no surprise when he recently discussed mass incarceration, he did it with the gusto politicians have never been unable to muster.

10.31.14

A New Prisoners Report: How Does Ohio Compare?

By Shakyra Diaz

The United States is the world’s largest jailer. With only 5 percent of the population, it has 25 percent of the world’s prison population.

In 1926, following a mandate from Congress, the National Prisoners Statistics Program began collecting demographic data voluntarily provided by states about people detained in jails, state, federal, and private prisons in the United States.

10.22.14

Death by Secrecy

By Mike Brickner

Ohio’s death penalty has had a long and sordid history. Just look at the past decade:

» Four botched executions.

» Ten people granted clemency by the governor.

» Fifty-six recommendations from an Ohio Supreme Court taskforce of experts to revamp our broken system.

10.01.14

Treating Our Addiction to Mass Criminalization

By Shakyra Diaz

“The United States will never be able to prosecute or incarcerate its way to being a safer nation,” said last week U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, at a conference held by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

09.11.14

Will the next execution be as botched as the last?

By Kimberly Millhoan

At this point, we do not know. But we do know that it’s a gamble the State of Ohio is willing to take, as officials recently released the revised execution schedule for the next two years.

In April, we urged Governor John Kasich to pause executions through the end of 2015 so that courts and experts could take the time needed to ensure that lethal injections do not amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

09.10.14

Failing Grades: An Aramark Report Card

By Steve David

With school starting back up, there is one set of report cards already coming out. The state of Ohio should think twice before signing off on the grades that Aramark Correctional Services is bringing home.

A recent report found that Aramark failed to meet contract compliance scores at seven of the twenty-six state prison facilities where it is currently providing food service.

08.29.14

What happened when hundreds of prisoners in Youngstown staged a 14-hour uprising?

By Tim Cable

Well, since it happened at a private prison, it’s hard to know – privately-run prisons lack the transparency required at state-run facilities. During the incident and the days following the uprising, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the for-profit company that runs the prison, kept its lips sealed.

07.31.14

It’s Time for Prisons to Dump Aramark

By Mike Brickner

For about a year, food service in Ohio has been handled by a private company, Aramark Correctional Services. While privatization of public services is not ordinarily a civil liberties issue, it is when the switch affects peoples’ rights. Such is the case now.

07.09.14

Maggots, Incompetence, and Unsafe Conditions: It’s time Ohio ditch prison private food vendor

By Mike Brickner

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: a private company comes in to Ohio prisons promising it can achieve huge cost savings by taking over for the wasteful government. Legislators sign on, and after the private company takes over, everything begins to fall apart.

06.11.14

This For-Profit Company Needs To Stop Making Money By Locking Up Immigrants

By Shakyra Diaz

Right here in Ohio, a company is making millions in taxpayer dollars by keeping people in prison. The longer people stays in prison, the more money they are worth.

Prisons for profit are a multi-billion-dollar industry that depends on, and profits from, our national addiction to incarceration. 

05.30.14

Ohio’s Children Will Now Be Free From Isolation

By Shakyra Diaz

Children in Ohio’s youth prisons will finally be free from extreme isolation and seclusion. After youths suffered collectively through thousands of hours of being locked in isolation, the Ohio Department of Youth Services has now agreed to “dramatically reduce the conditions under which seclusion is allowed and the duration of seclusion.”

05.09.14

Missed Opportunities: Using Medicaid Expansion at the Local Level to Reduce Costs and Save Lives

By Shakyra Diaz

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (ODRC) is well on its way to ensuring that all who are eligible for Medicaid leave prison with a Medicaid card in hand.  According to ODRC, 90% of the over 50,000 people incarcerated in state prisons are eligible for Medicaid.

04.21.14

A Day at Lucasville

By Nick Worner

On April 3, 2014, the ACLU of Ohio toured the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF), a high security prison located in southern Ohio better known by the moniker “Lucasville.”

Below are some reflections on our visit to SOCF, from three of the staff members who visited the facility.