Last month, a small, black-and-white newsprint magazine quietly made a case in a Florida courtroom to protect the fundamental rights that nearly every citizen in the industrialized world holds dear. Yet the odds are, you didn’t hear a word about it. Prison Legal News has reported on the legal landscape of prisoners’ rights in America’s […]
Press Coverage
In this section you'll find press coverage of our work.
Hundreds of South Carolina Inmates Sent to Solitary Confinement Over Facebook From the Electronic Frontier Foundation
In the South Carolina prison system, accessing Facebook is an offense on par with murder, rape, rioting, escape and hostage-taking. Back in 2012, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) made “Creating and/or Assisting With A Social Networking Site” a Level 1 offense [PDF], a category reserved for the most violent violations of prison conduct […]
Court rejects Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s drug testing of welfare applicants From the Miami Herald
TALLAHASSEE – A federal appeals court on Wednesday dealt another blow to Gov. Rick Scott’s crusade to conduct drug tests on welfare applicants when it upheld a lower court ruling that the practice was unconstitutional. The unanimous ruling from a bipartisan panel of judges concluded that the state failed to show any evidence as to […]
State Prison Chief Focuses on Inmate Health Care From the Daily Business Review
Department of Corrections secretary Mike Crews is threatening to stop payments to a Missouri-based company that won a five-year, $1.2 billion contract to provide health care to the majority of the state’s prisoners, accusing Corizon of failing to provide adequate treatment. Crews sent a letter to Corizon CEO Woodrow Meyers on Friday saying that the […]
Florida Lawyers Want More Spent on Legal Aid, but Differ on Who Should Pay From the Wall Street Journal
Hundreds of Florida attorneys, including a former state Supreme Court justice, are asking the state’s judiciary to raise the annual bar dues that lawyers pay to $365, a $100 hike opposed by state bar leaders. Two legal non-profits pushing for the hike say the extra dollars are needed to prop up a legal-aid financing system […]
Lawyers Are Seriously Asking To Be Charged Higher Dues From the Daily Business Review
A coalition of Florida legal aid organizations and supporters filed a petition Monday with the Florida Supreme Court asking to raise the cap on Florida Bar dues by $100 to fund legal aid programs. The group called Access for Justice wants Bar dues raised from $265 to $365 annually for Florida’s nearly 100,000 lawyers. The […]
Housing Discrimination Lawsuit Filed From NBCMiami.com
It was like a sting operation: send both black and white people into an apartment building posing as renters; then see if they’re treated differently because of the color of their skin. It resulted in a discrimination lawsuit being filed in federal court. “Discrimination, completely,” said Zipporah Hayes, one of the housing testers who went […]
Housing group charges racial discrimination at Miami apartment complex From the Miami Herald
When Zipporah Hayes arrived at Elite River View Apartments to ask about a two-bedroom apartment for rent, the rental manager told her there were no units available, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the apartment complex owner. Two hours later, Alexandra Del Rosario visited the same complex and asked about an apartment. The rental […]
Lawyers for the poor seek hike in bar dues From News4Jax.com
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Joined by a former state Supreme Court justice, attorneys for the poor are trying to raise annual Florida Bar dues by up to $100 to address what they call a fiscal crisis. The attempt to hike the annual dues, which have not increased since 2001, from the current $265 has sparked an […]
ACLU, Flagler sheriff reach agreement on postcard-only policy at jail From the Daytona Beach News-Journal
PALM COAST — An old policy of restricting mail sent and received by Flagler County jail inmates officially ended Thursday with an agreement reached between the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. The ACLU, along with the Florida Justice Institute, filed a class-action lawsuit in early 2013 against Flagler […]
