California outlaws private prisons and immigrant detention centers
California on Friday banned private prisons and immigrant detention centers under a bill signed by the liberal state's governor. The measure stipulates that beginning next year, the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is prohibited from entering into or renewing a contract with a private, ...
Freed inmate tells Iowa students to listen to claims of injustice
A man who spent 25 years in prison for an Iowa murder that he did not commit urged college students Tuesday to listen to and help inmates who say they are not guilty. Terry Harrington recounted how he was wrongly arrested in the 1977 shooting ...
Ex-convict-turned-writer Joji Abe, known for a bestselling humor-filled novel depicting the lives of inmates, died of pneumonia at his home in Tokyo on Monday, his family said. He was 82. A native of Tokyo, Abe joined a gangster group when he was in junior high ...
In first sign of better ties, Russia and Ukraine begin long-awaited prisoner swap
Russia and Ukraine on Saturday began a long-awaited prisoner swap in a step that could ease bitter tensions over Moscow's annexation five years ago of the Crimea region. While the unfolding exchange could help build confidence between Moscow and Kyiv — formerly Kiev — and ...
Jailed British-Iranian aid worker ends hunger strike in Iran
Jailed British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has ended a hunger strike in Tehran designed to push for her release, her husband told the BBC on Saturday. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, began the hunger strike roughly two weeks ago. She was arrested ...
Florida governor signs law allowing felons to vote, but there's a price
Florida's Republican governor on Friday signed a bill to restore the voting rights for felons who have served their time, but he wants them to pay all fines and restitution before casting a ballot, a hurdle that immediately drew a lawsuit from civil rights ...
With changes in emperors come amnesties, so who will benefit?
One convenient thing about Japanese law for those of us who are professors of it is that it is quite modern. Virtually all Japanese laws and institutions antedate the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and, of those, most have a 20th-century provenance. Compared to Anglo-American ...
Hair salon at Gifu women's prison gives inmates a chance to learn new skills and rehabilitate
There's a unique hair salon in the village of Kasamatsu in Gifu Prefecture where inmates at the women's prison work as hairstylists as part of a rehabilitation project that aims to equip them with marketable skills for when they rejoin society. "It is a precious ...
At least 42 inmates found strangled in Brazil prison gang clashes
At least 42 prisoners in Brazil were found strangled to death on Monday in four jails in the Amazon jungle city of Manaus, where a fight between rival prison gangs resulted in 15 dead the day before, authorities said. A federal task force is being ...
Chinese court sentences Japanese man accused of stealing state secrets to 5½ years in prison
A Chinese court has sentenced a Japanese man who was detained some two years ago on charges of spying to 5½ years in prison, sources have said. The court in the city of Yantai, in the eastern province of Shandong, also ordered the seizure of ...
Two Reuters reporters jailed in Myanmar freed after more than 500 days
Two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar after they were convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act walked free from a prison on the outskirts of Yangon on Tuesday after spending more than 500 days behind bars. The two reporters, Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe ...
Expensive daily products at Osaka Prison prompt human rights concern from lawyers
Tissue paper and other daily products sold at Osaka Prison are so expensive that inmates mostly cannot purchase them, a situation amounting to a human rights violation, according to local lawyers. The Osaka Bar Association advised the prison to make improvements in a statement dated ...
