Trustee flees Cass County jail, gets recaptured

From Cass Co. Sheriff: A Cass County trustee walked away from the Cass County Jail Monday morning around 9:15 am. The inmate walked away from the Cass County Jail and allegedly stole a car from a nearby residence in Harrisonville. Harrisonville Police Officers in the area located the vehicle shortly after it was stolen and pursued the vehicle into the county south of the Justice Center. The vehicle crashed and the subject fled into a wooded area 3 miles southwest of Harrisonville.

Deputies and law enforcement officers from Harrisonville and the Missouri State Highway Patrol assisted in a search of the area. The subject was located in a field moments later and taken into custody without further incident around 10:30 am.

Should prisons be allowed to cut meals?

One Indiana prison has stopped serving lunch on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. If it works, state officials might try the same thing at other facilities. (They're following in the footsteps of Georgia prisons, which don't serve lunches on weekends. Ohio is mulling over the idea.) The ACLU isn't happy about this, but its Indiana organization hasn't gotten any complaints from prisoners yet. Also, I loved this from the prison spokesman:

DOC officials said inmates can always get chips, cookies and Ramen noodles in the commissary to tide them over between meals. Prisoners have to pay for those.

"You'd be amazed at what prisoners can do with a bag of Ramen," Mulroony said. "It's as good as anything served in a restaurant."

Holden inmate escapes for a few hours

From The Star: Lee’s Summit police arrested a 22-year-old jail inmate Sunday evening who escaped earlier in the day while being treated at St. Luke’s Medical Center East.

The inmate was identified as James M. Fannin of Lee’s Summit. The incident was reported shortly after 7:30 p.m. when guards from the Brice Detention Center in Holden, Mo. arrived at the hospital. He was arrested by patrol officers just before 11 p.m. near the hospital.

Mo. has no place for a girl convicted of murder

If Alyssa Bustamante is convicted of murder -- and it's crucial to note that she HASN'T -- the authorities could have a big problem, the Post-Dispatch reports. They could, theoretically, put her in the adult prison system. It seems more likely that a judge would place her in the juvenile justice system's care, which is an option in Missouri. The state actually does a good job working with young offenders because the youths are given lots of counseling and education. Once the offender hits 21, there's another hearing to see if they can be released or whether they'll be sent to prison as an adult.

But Missouri's juvenile-justice system doesn't have a secure facility for girls convicted of murder. There might not be a good place to put Bustamante if she's found guilty.

Woman smuggled drugs via kissing, Pa. prison alleges

The woman was reportedly visiting her boyfriend, an inmate, when she gave him a particularly long kiss. Authorities thought something was suspicious when they saw the man swallow something afterwards, so they put him in a "clean cell" and waited for a baggie of marijuana to pass out of his system, the police say.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, cripjak!

VIDEO: Prison guard throws nonlethal grenade into inmate's cell

Wisconsin has finally released video of a guard throwing a stinger grenade -- a nonlethal device -- into a prisoner's cell. (The AP had to fight for the video.) The state paid almost $50,000 to the inmate to settle a lawsuit.

KCPD works officer-involved shooting

Kansas City police are working an officer-involved shooting from early this morning in Old Northeast. The suspect allegedly tried to run over officers, which led them to open fire on him, the department states. That suspect was wounded, but is expected to live. The full press release from KCPD can be found below the jump.

Ohio letting mothers raise children behind bars

With the number of women in prison skyrocketing over the last three decades and most female prisoners being single mothers, Ohio is trying an unusual program of letting mothers who are serving prison time to raise their children.

Experts say it is best for moms and children because the women as less likely to commit crimes when they get out. The children benefit by being with mom during critical periods of development.

Critics say it is waste of taxpayer money and prisons should be a place of punishment.

| Bob Cronkleton

Inmate's cat can't visit him in prison, even if it is his reincarnated mom

The man, who's doing time in Germany, actually went to court over the matter. The court turned him down, saying that he hadn't provided proof of the reincarnation.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, cripjak!

You make the call: Is this payback? Or an appropriate complaint?

Recently, the Topeka Capital-Journal uncovered a serious problem at the state women's prison near Topeka: There are allegations of inmates offering sexual favors so staff will deliver contraband to them. Now? The state DOC has filed an ethics complaint against a lawyer who helped a Cap-Journal reporter get access to prisoners and interview them.

A prison employee says the attorney identified the reporter as his "legal assistant," which they argue was a violation. The lawyer says he said "assistant," which was technically true. He argues that state officials, embarrassed over the stories, are retaliating against him.

Okla. town plans all-Christian prison

Several states have units or programs with a Christian theme, but the proposed prison in Wakita, Okla., would have an all-Christian staff, too. (That's less common, experts say.) The prisoners would have to agree to be sent there, and they'd have to participate in a rehabilitation program to get them ready for release back into the real world. State officials are mostly supportive, though the biggest roadblock sounds like it'll be the state's weak budget, not constitutional concerns. More here from the Tulsa World.

Shawnee man says he was mistakenly jailed for 25 days

Joe Lambe has the full story here, but the nutshell is that Adolph Moreno is suing Johnson County and Overland Park because he was supposed to be jailed for two days. Instead, he says, authorities kept him for 27 days -- and sent him a bill. The authorities haven't commented yet with their side of things.

Mo. inmate says he was abused -- prison's videotape goes missing

Tony Rizzo has a big story this morning about a case where an inmate is claiming that he was the victim of cruel and unusual punishment:

A Missouri prison inmate claims he was restrained for 17 hours without breaks to get a drink of water or use the bathroom. But videotape that could prove or disprove Darrin Scott Walker’s allegations of abuse cannot be found.

And a federal judge this week concluded that prison officials intentionally destroyed the tape “in a manner indicating a desire to suppress the truth.”

Apparently, this is something of a recurring problem with the authorities.

Wis. guard used Stinger grenade on inmate -- AP wants the video

The great state of Wisconsin paid $49,000 to an inmate after a prison guard threw a Stinger grenade into the man's cell. That type of grenade "sprays 180 rubber pellets in a 50-foot radius." It's usually used against crowds and not, say, a single dude in an enclosed space. In what was a veritable orgy of poor decisions, the incident was actually filmed with a handheld camera. And the AP is suing to get a copy under open-records laws.

In its reply, the department acknowledged its mistake about how the video was taken but said the tape still could not be released because doing so would allow prisoners who view it to "devise counterstrategies" for when guards use force.

A whole new meaning to "ball and chain"

In Sicily, a man was sentenced to prison, but got transferred to house arrest -- and soon asked to be put back in prison because he was sick of arguing with his wife.

Neb. prison guard actually wanted in Czech Republic

The prison's background checks must not be very deep: The guy's Interpol poster was the first result you got when looking him up via Google.

Convicted sex offenders have nicer TVs than I do

Or they did, until the Minnesota governor found out. The state had bought two dozen 50-inch plasma TVs for the state's treatment facility for sex offenders -- each one worth about $1,500 plus a $700 mounting bracket. Officials said it was a good deal "because patients can be watched to see how they respond to what's on TV." The govenor had the TVs removed. (If he's looking to unload them, I will gladly swap my 24-inch Sharp analog set. Only 7 years old! Color resembles those found in nature!)

MO has record number of inmates

At the end of September, we had 30,720 inmates -- which was a little more than our previous high, 30,654, in 2005. The number had been slowly declining since then. Authorities aren't actually sure what's to blame for the increase.

More prisons starting hospice programs

As life sentences have become more common, more prisoners are dying in prison -- and will continue to do so. About one-third of all U.S. prisoners will be 50 or older next year. So, the New York Times reports, more prisoners are starting hospice programs to help terminally ill prisoners. In some cases, they use other inmates as volunteers to sit with the dying.

The Times piece is a longer read, but it was interesting to see how the experience affected the volunteers. A lot of them are doing time for hurting and, in some cases, killing other people. Helping the dying prisoners helped give them a basic sense of empathy.

N.C. forced to free 20 violent criminals

Back in the 1970s, the state of North Carolina had a funny way of describing "life sentences" -- 80 years in the state prison. That's not the case now, but the courts have decided that it still applies to prisoners convicted back them. Which means that 20 inmates, found guilty of rape and murder, will now be set free, thanks to good-conduct points.

A governor's list of prisoners set for freedom describes a range of gruesome crimes: John Montgomery, 58, was sent to prison in 1973 for raping a 15-year old girl while on escape from Guilford Correctional Center.

Faye Brown, 56, was convicted on a first-degree murder charge for the 1975 killing of a state trooper during a bank robbery. Steven Wilson, 52, went to prison in 1978 for abducting and raping a 9-year-old girl.

Trading sex for favors in Kan. prisons?

Gov. Mark Parkinson has asked the DOJ's National Institute of Corrections to review the state's prison system after the Cap-Journal's report this month on sexual misconduct at the Topeka women's prison. Namely, the paper reported that a staffer had gotten an inmate pregnant, and it detailed allegations that inmates traded sex with staff for contraband items. Parkinson would like for the review to be done by January.

Should female prisoners be handcuffed during labor?

And by labor, I mean having a baby, not breaking rocks or making license plates. Forty states still allow it, and the New York Times' editorial page argues the practice should end. In Arkansas, a woman sued prison officials because she said that being handcuffed during her labor led to other injuries. A federal appeals court sided with her, though narrowly.

Inmates sneaked out of their cells for sex

In Indiana, six inmates -- three dudes, three chicas -- were accused of escaping their local jail because they reportedly crawled through the ceiling to get to each other's cells, where they had sex and drank jailhouse booze. An appeals court, however, has sided with our jailbird swingers, saying that it wasn't an escape attempt because they didn't try to leave the jail property.

Should female guards strip-search male inmates?

In San Francisco, a federal appeals court ruled that it was OK for a female prison guard to strip-search male inmates, especially since, in this case, the facility was shorthanded. But the court says it wants to review its own decision.

Report: KS women's prison has thriving black market

The Cap-Journal had a big report this weekend about the women's prison in Topeka, focusing on what's believed to be a thriving black market at the prison. Namely, some inmates allegedly trade sexual favors with some employees, who agree to help sneak contraband -- drugs, tobacco, etc. -- into the facility.  Snip:

TCF inmates and corrections officers say as many as one-third of the Topeka facility's 250 employees have at one time been involved in contraband activities with prisoners, but top administrators of the Kansas Department of Corrections say that percentage is inflated.

DOC officials say a more realistic estimate is 2 percent of the 3,000 employees at the state's eight prisons.