Subject: Criminal Sentencing and Punishment

• Caged Heat

  November 3, 2006

• The Killing Joke

  June 26, 2007

• Michael Vick Gets 23 Months. Too Bad He Didn’t Kill a Human.

  December 10, 2007

• Sara Hickman: Injecting Music Into the Death Penalty Debate

  February 6, 2008

• Flooded-Prison Lawsuit Moved Back to Texas

  July 17, 2008

• TDCJ Death Sparks A Lawsuit

  September 24, 2008

• ACLU Wants Galveston Jail Evacuated Next Time

  September 30, 2008

• "World Day Against The Death Penalty" Passes Quietly In Houston

  October 13, 2008

• No Death Penalties This Year For The Death-Penalty Capital Of America (That's Us)

  October 17, 2008

• This Guy Gets Cell Phone Service On Death Row

  October 20, 2008

• The Prison Experience Just Isn't The Same Without Cigarettes, Lawmaker Says

  After sticking another inmate with a shiv in the showers, there’s nothing better than a tepid cup of apple wine and a smoke. Unfortunately, TDCJ banned all tobacco products in 1994, making it that much more difficult for a prisoner to relax after a hard day of rec-yard baseball or gang rape. But all that’s done is create a black market, says State Rep. Terri Hodge (D-Dallas), when lifting the ban could actually benefit more than just the prisoners. With a shortage of correctional office

  November 20, 2008

• Prisoners In Beaumont Federal Pen Sue Over Work Conditions

  Earlier this year, we brought you the story of the hundreds of inmates at the maximum-security federal penitentiary in Beaumont who sued the U.S. government claiming officials did not evacuate them during Hurricane Rita and thereby forced them to endure inhumane, medieval conditions. While that legal battle wages on, Norman Sirak, the same Ohio attorney fighting for those inmates, has now filed a separate lawsuit aimed once again at prison officials in Beaumont. But this time, it's not just abou

  December 2, 2008

• TDCJ Comes Up Against The Cell Phone Companies

  A lot of people who read about the epidemic of cell phones in Texas prisons had a basic question -- if you can't discover and confiscate the things, why not just block them? Set it up to jam transmissions in the prison?It turns out TDCJ has thought about that, but it's easier said than done.The prison system found that out Monday when a test of a long-planned test of a jamming system was canceled.We had talked to a retired guard who had predicted the test would be aborted because giant cell phon

  December 16, 2008

• The Nation Notices Harris County Ain't Killing People Much These Days

  We first broke the news in October; the Houston Chronicle noticed it earlier this month, and now Time magazine has discovered it: There will be no one sent to Death Row from Harris County this year.Which, in historical terms, is kind of like saying Texas high schools will not be sending anyone to big-name college football programs.As we noted, 2008 was the first year since 1977 -- when the death penalty was reinstated -- without a capital murder conviction in Harris County. Time says its prime e

  December 23, 2008

• Houston's Child-Porn-Lovin' Attorney Arrested Again

  Man, the Christmas season really blows for disbarred attorney Tom Zaratti.First, on Christmas Eve 2003, he was arrested for possession of child pornography, which ultimately led to a ten-year, $10,000 sentence. But while fortune smiled in the form of early parole, the anti-Christmas spirit came back to bite him in the ass: On December 18 of this year, Zaratti was arrested for "unlawful possession of body armor" by a felon, as well as possession of a "bayonet-type" knife. The items were apparentl

  December 23, 2008

• Groups Protest The "Lock Up the Immigrants" Facility

  Photo courtesy Houston Independent Media CenterJust before noon on Saturday some 50 protesters, including members of Houston's Students for a Democratic Society, gathered at the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center outside Taylor, Texas, a holding facility for families of undocumented immigrants that are waiting for immigration-court dates. Opposed to Hutto's policy of detaining families with children, the group included a group of children protesters -- the A-Scouts.   "The A-Scouts a

  March 9, 2009

• Kindness and Courage on Death Row

  March 12, 2009

• Living and Dying with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor Over Sundance

  How I turned some newspaper stories into a book which became a movie that caused those two guys to kiss

  February 19, 2009

• Crime Doesn’t Pay(back): A Houston Press Special Report on Court-Ordered Restitutions in Texas

  More than 90 percent of Texas parolees walk away without paying off what the state ordered them to.

  December 4, 2008

• Mexican-American Culture

  June 14, 2007

• Rock the Lockup: 2008 Prison Reform Film Festival

  Tales from the big house get on the big screen

  August 14, 2008

• Gone to Hell: Mental Illness and Harris County Jail

  Even though Alexander Hatcher is bipolar and schizophrenic, he wasn't given his meds for his first three months in jail. He got in fights with the guards. Now he's sentenced to prison for a long, long time.

  August 21, 2008

• Former Death-Row Inmate Sent Back to Prison

  Martin Draughon returns to the clink after becoming a test case for alleged flaws in GPS monitoring devices

  March 27, 2008

• Prison Cover-Up

  Prison Breakdown

  March 20, 2008

• A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita

  March 6, 2008

• Gang Lite?

  A new kind of gang in Texas and Houston promises protection but no lifelong commitment

  August 16, 2007

• "Julie Green: The Last Supper"

  Julie Green's "Last Supper" will take away your appetite

  June 14, 2007

• Penal Violations

  September 21, 2006

• Suspended Sentence

  After Innocence probes life following a wrongful conviction

  February 23, 2006

• The Fix Is In

  UTMB is under fire in Dallas for its jail health care. So why is Houston ready to install it here?

  June 9, 2005

• No Pain, No Gain

  Our solution for saving Texas's claim to capital punishment fame

  May 26, 2005

• Ill Will

  A parolee fights leukemia -- and the constraints of ankle monitors

  February 24, 2005

• No Way Out

  How can homeless sex offenders comply with the registration laws?

  January 20, 2005

• Parts Unknown

  Did Donnie Riley kill Tarron Dixon, or was he shooting at someone else in a different Houston neighborhood that night 13 years ago?

  October 14, 2004

• After Oprah

  Ted Poe got the spotlight for a shame-based sentencing -- the victim says it was a sham

  October 7, 2004

• The Last Word

  They've fought for justice for nine years, but time is running out

  July 8, 2004

• The Unlikely Lambs

  Carandiru reveals the human side of Brazilian prisoners, then leads us to their slaughter

  May 27, 2004

• Captive Market

  Companies complain that they can't compete against convict labor

  May 13, 2004

• The Icebox Revisited

  Houston had one of its most shocking race murders 45 years ago. But exactly whose tragedy was it?

  March 11, 2004

• Firing Line

  The new tough-talking probation director has ousted aides, but can he improve services?

  February 12, 2004

• Writer's Block

  Texas prisons start barring book authors from inmate interviews

  December 18, 2003

• Best Champion of the Underdog

  Texas Defender Service

  September 25, 2003

• Doing Time

  With JC in the TDCJ

  September 18, 2003

• Amnesty International Begins 200-Minute Vigil Against The Death Penalty

  Amnesty International has just begun a 200-minute vigil outside the Harris County Criminal Courthouse to protest the upcoming 200th execution under Governor Rick Perry.The original rally title, "Help Rick Perry Win The GOP Primary," was apparently discarded.But holding an anti-death-penalty vigil in Harris County? Why? We don't execute people anymore. Well, at least not as much as we used to.AI will also be issuing a report calling for Perry to commute the death penalties of two inmates schedule

  April 30, 2009

• For Their Own Good: A Chance at Rehabilitation

  May 28, 2009

• For Their Own Good

  May 28, 2009

• TDCJ Guard Gets Two Years For Lying About Kicking Inmate In The Head

  ​A TDCJ guard who had been found guilty of filing a false "use of force" report was sentenced today to what no doubt will be two very uncomfortable years in a federal prison. (Or maybe guards take care of their own? We don't wanna know.)Eugene Morris, 41, had kicked an inmate in the head repeatedly after the prisoner used a racial slur against a guard; Morris then reported he had simply used a bear-hug on the inmate and forced him to the floor after getting head-butted.The details are a little

  August 26, 2009

• ISO A Femme Fatale? Jail Babes Has The Hook-Up

  ​Can't find a match on Match.com? Can't get it in tune on eHarmony? Desperate for a young hottie, but not exactly a catch yourself and unable to fly to Russia for a mail order bride? We've got a dating sight for you: Jailbabes.Jailbabes is just like any other dating site, except all of the women on there are incarcerated. And there might be a few more disclaimers than usual, such as this one: "These ads are written by unique individuals expressing their desires. They may or may not be compl

  October 7, 2009

• Not The Usual Kind Of Prison Business

  ​Last year we wrote about how the Texas prison system was a bit haphazard in deciding which books to ban inmates from receiving (for instance, all S/M-related activity is strictly verboten, yet The Pleasure's All Mine, The Memoir of a Professional Submissive was approved).An editor at Sailing magazine ran across our items while researching the TDCJ policy (or, perhaps, researching S/M activity; we don't judge). Why? She had tried to send two books to an inmate and the TDCJ nixed them.Manning U

  November 3, 2009

• Edinburg Police Foiled In Attempt To Give Pot To State Prison Inmates, Apparently

  ​They do things different down in the Valley. Like, if you're a police department, you donate some marijuana to inmates at the local state prison.Oh sure, Edinburg police are saying it was all a mistake, and no way did they intend to give 25 pounds of pot to inmates by cleverly concealing it in a truckload of bananas, but come on, man -- it's the Valley.We're just surprised they went to the trouble of hiding it.The McAllen Monitor reports that Edinburg police sent a truckload of bananas and ot

  November 11, 2009