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North Dakota Still Focused On Reform Two Years After Visiting Norwegian Prisons With PLO
Bismark Tribune – October 14, 2017, In a Bismarck classroom last month, students learned the Pythagorean theorem.
They took notes and asked questions as their teacher explained how to calculate the hypotenuse of right triangle. It was fairly normal, except the students and teacher wore the same outfit — jeans and a white T-shirt — and none of them will be allowed to leave school property for several months or years.
The classroom is inside the North Dakota State Penitentiary. The man teaching that day is serving a 30-year sentence.
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“Tender Justice” North Dakota’s New Prison Practice Inspired During 2015 EPP Tour of Norwegian Prisons
Terry Pullins is on his second tour in the North Dakota prison system. He’s also done time in California. Since he never got farther than the fifth grade, the 40-year-old Pullins has spent nearly as much time behind bars as he did in school. But last December brought the most acute punishment he has ever suffered: Pullins lost his daughter in a car accident.
Most inmates in most prisons endure that sort of grief alone. But Pullins is at the Missouri River Correctional Center near Bismarck, N.D. This is a prison designed as much as possible to imitate life on the outside. The warden and staff rallied around him. “Every day I needed help,” Pullins says. “Those two weeks were rough, but they were there for me. I don’t always feel like I’m in prison. I feel like I’m somewhere bettering myself.” Full Story
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USA Today Story – PLO’s “European Prison Project” Has Positive Impact In U.S. Facilities
March 31, 2017 – USA Today highlights the positive influence PLO sponsored “European Prison Project” has on participants. States like North Dakota have already implemented a few Norwegian practices, as a result those facilities have seen a decrease in violence.
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PLO ANNOUNCEMENT: New Immigration Detention Project
The Prison Law Office is starting a new project to investigate and litigate conditions in California Immigration Detention Centers. The following five positions have been created to staff the project.
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Phoenix New Times Article Features Prison Law Office Lawsuit Against Arizona Department of Corrections
The May 19, 2016 cover story of the Phoenix New Times newspaper features the tragic experience of an Arizona woman who needlessly died due to ADC’s and Corizon’s failure to treat her cervical cancer, and details the problems uncovered by the Parsons v. Ryan lawsuit filed by our office, the ACLU, and other attorneys challenging the state’s broken health care system.