Second Bump and Update: Several news sources reported the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, MA where Geoghan was doing time and murdered is a medium-security state prison about 40 miles northwest of Boston. See also, this LA Times article.

Other news sources say it's one of the state's most secure prisons.

Which is it? There are two prisons in Shirley, MA, one medium security facility, and the Souza-Baranowski prison, which is maxium security.

The murder occurred at the Souza-Baranowski prison. So the LA Times got it wrong , as did the New York Times when they reported Souza-Baranowski prison in Shirley is a medium-security facility.

Here's some data on the Souza-Baranowski prison:

Officially opening on September 30, 1998, this 500,000 square foot, high-tech, maximum security facility consists of 1024 general population cells, 128 special management cells, and 24 health service beds....Incorporating one of the largest camera matrix systems in the country, 366 cameras record live 24 hours a day. (emphasis supplied by us.)

So let's see the tape. How did this happen? Where were the guards?

And where are the fact-checkers at the LA Times and New York Times?

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Bump and Update: The San Francisco Chronicle reports Geoghan was in protective custody. The inmate who allegedly strangled him was also in protective custody. So the prison apparently allows contact between prisoners in protective custody outside the presence of guards. That's a ridiculous policy--for someone like Geoghan, that's like feeding him to the sharks.

The alleged perpetrator, Joseph L. Druce, 37, was serving a life sentence for murder and armed robbery. "In 2001, Druce was charged with mailing a threatening letter containing white powder and indicating it was contaminated with anthrax. "

The prison where Geoghan and Durce were held was a medium security prison. Why was Durce, a murderer doing life, in a medium instead of a maxium security facility? Surely Geoghan was not the only convicted child molester doing time in that prison. Why wasn't he segregated with other child molesters or high profile inmates (like convicted cops) who need protection from other inmates instead of with a murderer? Why was Geoghan, who was only serving a 9 to 10 year sentence, put in the same place as a violent lifer?

We hope there is an investigation. We hope Durce isn't being framed. We hope there is a good explanation for why guards didn't prevent the attack--and that it doesn't turn out that they turned their heads.

Jails and prisons have cameras all over. The murder should have been captured on video. We hope it's preserved so the facts will come out.

Geoghan is survived by a sister. If she chooses not to sue, maybe someone will bring a class action on behalf of all Massachussets inmates in protective custody against the state Department of Corrections over inmate classification, designation and control procedures. It's tragic this happened to Geoghan. It should not be allowed to happen again.

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(original post, 8/23, 4pm)

Ex-Priest John Geoghan, serving a 9 to 10 year sentence for child molestation was killed in prison today. He began serving his sentence last year and was 67 years old.

We suspect Geoghan knew his sentence would be a death sentence when it was imposed. Child molesters are at the bottom of the prison barrel. We wonder why he wasn't in protective custody. He should have been.

The Justice Department's Bureau of Statistics has released its second report this week on the nation's prison population. Titled Bureau of Justice Statistics Probation and Parole in the United States, 2002, we learn the following:

One in every 32 adults is now on probation, parole or incarcerated.

That's 3.1% of the adult population in the U.S.

Of the more than 2 million probationers discharged from supervision, 62 percent successfully completed the terms of their supervision, 14 percent were reincarcerated because of a rule violation or a new offense, 13 percent had their probation sentence revoked without incarceration and 3 percent had absconded.

As of last December 31, about 1 in 5 probationers were women. More than half were white, 1 in 3 were black, 1 in 8 were Hispanic and 2 percent were of other races.

The bulletin, "Probation and Parole in the United States, 2002" (NCJ-201135), was written by BJS Statistician Lauren E. Glaze. Single copies may be obtained by calling the BJS Clearinghouse at 1-800-851-3420.

You can also read the whole thing here.

This past Sunday, the Justice Department released a report finding that 1 of every 37 adults in the U.S. has done time. The report also found that:

A black male will have a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison while a hispanic male's chance is 1 in 6 and a white male has a 1 in 17 chance...

Talk about just desserts....A Missouri prison guard has been ordered to scrub toilets during his 15 day jail sentence that was imposed following his conviction for peeing on inmates.

Talk about a lame defense:

Hastings admitted during the trial that he knew prisoners were in the room when he and another jailer urinated through a roof grate.

A DNA expert testified that urine samples taken from the jail roof could be linked to Hastings. But defense attorneys contended there was no proof that Hastings' urine - and not the other jailer's - hit the inmates.

Greene County, Missouri has paid the four inmates $100,000.

Here's the latest report from the Justice Department, Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974 -2001, released this afternoon.

The report discloses that more than 5.6 million, about 1 in 37 adults, have served time in state or federal prison. This appears to include only prisons and not local jails, which would make the number of persons who have been incarcerated much higher.

More than 5.6 million adult U.S. residents were serving time or had previously served time in a state or federal prison as of the end of 2001, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. The extent of prison experience, as estimated for the first time, shows that 1 in 37 adults living in the U.S. on December 31, 2001 had been confined in prison at some time during his or her life. At the end of 2001, there were 1,319,000 adults in prison and an estimated 4,299,000 adults who were former prisoners.

The increase in the number of inmates between 1974 and 2001 is 3.8 million. Again, the total of persons serving time in prison in this period is 5.6 million. Here's a portion of the racial and gender breakdown:

At the end of 2001, about 16.6 percent of adult black males were current or former inmates, compared to 7.7 percent of Hispanic males and 2.6 percent of white males. Among black males 35 to 44 years of age, 22 percent were current or former prisoners, compared to 10 percent of Hispanic males and 3.5 percent of white males in the same age group.

Our aging, sick and dying prison population is presenting a fiscal crisis and worsening. What can states do about it?

A report by the non-partisan California Legislative Analyst's Office says elderly inmates cost two to three times more to care for than do younger ones. It notes that the National Center of Institutions and Alternatives estimates incarceration costs for an elderly inmate are $69,000 a year, compared with a national average of $22,000 for all inmates.

Some states are adopting early release for aging prisoners. We hope the practice spreads:

When considering dangerous, violent and predatory inmates, one does not usually envision an elderly man hobbling down a prison corridor with a cane or walker," says a new institute report for the Justice Department's National Institute of Corrections.

"However, in reality, some of the most dangerous and/or persistent criminals sentenced to life in prison without parole 30 years ago are now old, debilitated, frail, chronically ill, depressed and no longer considered a threat to society or the institution," the report says.

The Warden at Angola, Louisiana's harshest prison, takes it one step further:

In a state where a "life sentence" means just that, officials at Angola are determined to provide "death with dignity" for inmates. There is a hospice for the terminally ill. No one dies alone. Since 1998, a glass-enclosed hearse, made by prisoners and drawn by two Percheron horses, carries bodies to the prison cemetery in handmade coffins. Inmates walk behind, singing Amazing Grace as they go.

The National Institute of Justice, which is the research arm of the Department of Justice, has completed a ten year study on boot-camps as an effective alternative to prison.

This NIJ Research for Practice presents findings from 10 years of data analyzing whether boot camps are successful in reducing recidivism, prison populations, and operating costs.

The report found that although boot camps generally had positive effects on the attitudes and behaviors of inmates during confinement, these changes did not translate into reduced recidivism. Programs were often too brief to exert a lasting effect on inmates released to the community and they lacked, as well, a strong treatment model or sufficient preparation for reentry into the community.

Boot camps' efforts to achieve multiple goals contributed to conflicting results. For example, lengthening camps so that more treatment programs could be included, which reduced recidivism, also shortened the discount in time served and undercut lower prison bed costs.

The full report is available here.

We don't like this one bit. New York is going to spend $350,000.00 to test DNA in unsolved rape cases. It's called the John Doe Indictment Project. We call it another way to get around the statute of limitations in rape cases. We'd much rather the money went to test DNA in cases of inmates languishing in prisons who have non-frivilous claims of innocence.

Other objections:

...The New York Civil Liberties Union raised questions about the practice in a memorandum opposing proposed legislation that would have changed New York State law to explicitly allow such indictments. The indictments could violate the due process rights of those accused of crimes, according to the undated memorandum, which appears on the group's Web site, because after the passage of a significant amount of time, an innocent person accused of a crime may be unable to remember what he or she was doing on a specific day, and alibi witnesses also may not remember, may move away or may die.

That's right. Memory weakens over time. Witnesses disappear. DNA doesn't tell you if the sex was consensual or not. It only tells you who was involved. Meanwhile, DNA has proven that 133 people have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. There are likely thousands more of them in our jails. Let's do their testing first.

Update: Here's the latest, the Indictments are coming.

Like us, Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, is going to keep his eye on the prison rape legislation, to see if anything substantive comes on it. His MSNBC weblog today contains all the details.

In Chicago, "two former Cook County Jail guards have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Sheriff Michael Sheahan and 12 current or former correctional officers, alleging that a pattern of harassment and threats forced them to resign because they refused to cover up beatings of prisoners at the jail."

At issue will be whether there was a "code of silence" at the jail that mandated the officers not report on other officers who beat the inmates, and whether violation of that code led to "harassment, humiliation and death threats."

Be prepared....this is one of the ugliest, most graphic articles we've seen on inmate beatings.

According to a new Justice Department report, the prison and jail population has increased to over 2 million people. One of every 143 people in this country are incarcerated.

These are shocking numbers, and the effect is sure to cause even more havoc with state budgets.

Among the findings for the year 2002:

• 2,033,331 people are being held in U.S. prisons and jails, a 3.7% increase over 2001.

• 700 inmates were added every week.

• Black males from 20 to 39 years old accounted for about a third of all sentenced prison inmates.

• More than 10 percent of the country's black male population between the ages of 25 to 29 were in prison, compared to 2.4 percent of Hispanic males and 1.2 percent of white males in the same age group.

• Since 1995, the number of female prisoners has grown 42 percent while the number of male prisoners has increased 27 percent.

• Only half of all state prisoners were serving time for violent crimes.

• Growth in the federal prison system since 1995 mainly reflected more incarcerated drug offenders, accounting for nearly half of the total increase, and immigration offenders, accounting for more than 20 percent of the rise.

When are our elected officials going to realize that the U.S. cannot jail itself out of its criminal justice problems. They need to adopt alternatives to incarceration for non-violent and drug offenders now.

The Justice Policy Institute, which promotes alternatives to prison, said the nation's use of incarceration is rising again at a time when states can least afford it because of budget shortfalls.

"The prison population and budget figures -- taken together -- should be setting off alarm bells in state capitols,'' Jason Ziedenberg, the institute's director of policy and research, said.

"As legislators are struggling to fund education, health care and stave off spending cuts, many are continuing to choose to pay for an expensive justice system that damages communities and does not produce safe, healthy neighborhoods,'' he said in a statement on the government's latest prisoner survey.

Cuba's former ambassador to Belgium, who later spent many years in a Cuban jail as a political prisoner, now 76, writes this very moving New York Times op-ed, A Prisoner Becomes a Warden. It's about prison life in Cuba and about Castro. Here's a quote:

Four months ago, 75 brave Cuban dissidents were rounded up and two weeks later sentenced to prison terms of up to 28 years. Unlike us so-called Moncadistas, today's dissidents did not use violence. Their "weapons" were typewriters, cameras, radios and tape recorders. They are writers, doctors, lawyers, economists, teachers, peasants and human rights activists who believed, naïvely, that their ruler and former revolutionary leader would at least tolerate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (of which Cuba is a signatory) instead of jailing people for possessing and distributing it.

Lately I have been reflecting, after 50 years, on trial and punishment, on the tragic contrast between Fidel Castro, inmate, and Fidel Castro, prison warden.

Check out these costs of medical care in prison. For states looking to cut costs, medical reprieves are the way to go.

Georgia: The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has the authority to release seriously ill prison inmates under the medical reprieve program. Some key facts about the program:

Number of inmates out on medical reprieve: 54

Crimes committed by those on reprieve:

• Drug violations: 16
• Murder: 6
• Armed Robbery: 5
• Burglary: 5
• Robbery: 4
• Voluntary manslaughter: 3
• Aggravated assault: 3
• Arson: 2
• Child Molestation: 2
• Theft by Taking: 2
• Other: 6

The following costs and medical conditions reflect the 10 most expensive in 2002 among individual inmates in the Georgia prison system. The inmates' names were withheld.

• $450,839: Respiratory failure
• $340,423: Lupus, diabetes, renal failure
• $259,450: AIDS, pneumonia
• $172,470: Stroke
• $159,989: Rectal prolapse, surgery
• $153,342: Peritonitis, acute renal failure
• $149,679: Bladder cancer
• $130,529: Cirrhosis of liver
• $131,844: Lung cancer
• $118,888: Aortic aneurysm

Source: State Department of Corrections, state Board of Pardons and Paroles