Friday Roundup

• “You’re not going to find Eva Longoria or Pamela Anderson“: An inmate’s advice to other inmates on signing up for a Web-based prison pen pal service. Which may become obsolete if this blogging device for prisoners catches on.
• Woman shackled while giving birth in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County, where undocumented immigrants have no possibility of bail under Arizona’s Prop. 100.
• The Corrections Corporation of America, the country’s largest private prison company, is suing the city of Youngstown, Ohio, claiming that the city’s recently enacted $1-per-prisoner tax violates both the federal and state constitutions.
• New Orleans man charged with gruesome murder was among those released from a local jail in 2008 through a program to alleviate overcrowding.
• From the annals of officer brutality: Two California sheriff’s deputies recently began serving prison sentences for beating an inmate to death; in Georgia, a former sheriff’s deputy will be sentenced later this year for obstructing a federal investigation of an inmate death. (h/t: The Agitator)
• Add paper pushing to the list of causes for local jail overcrowding: In Kansas, it can take 60-90 days to process inmates out of county jail over to the state prison. Why the delay? Apparently, it can take that long just to calculate the inmate’s credits for time served. The Sedgwick County Commission is on the case.
• A Tulsa newspaper columnist tries to square the Sooner State’s ballooning prison population with poll data showing that Okies think judges are too lenient.
• Scandal in Jakarta: Indonesian prison officials axed when investigation turned up a wealthy inmate living in “a spacious air-conditioned cell, furnished with a large-screen LCD TV and receiving regular beauty treatments. She also had a spacious karaoke lounge.”

State and Local Reform Proposals

• “Simplistic”: That’s the California legislative analyst’s criticism of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plan to shift funds from prisons to universities; bill introduced in California would criminalize smuggling a cell phone to an inmate.
• Connecticut may join the dozen states who restrict inmates’ use of freedom-of-information (FOI) laws.
• Michigan debates whether to reinstate good-time credits.
• Ohio hires nonprofit company to collect data and propose solutions to prison overcrowding.
• New Hampshire to consider new approach to parole infractions, sending fewer back to prison on technicalities.
• New York City announces plans to send fewer teenage offenders to jail.
• South Carolina legislators approve warrantless searches for probationers and parolees.
• West Virginia’s prison commissioner says that state’s overcrowded jail and prisons are in crisis. More here and here. And a report on West Virginia’s work-release program.

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