"Plea Bargaining has come to dominated the administration of justice in America." a quote from an article in the law journal by Timothy Lynch, PHD. Assistant Director of the CATO Institute's Project on Criminal Justice. It is a quote that is shared between crowded prisons and jails across America. It is a procedure which occurs every two seconds of any typical workday in America and it keeps our prisons overcrowded.
In the age of American mass incarceration, a complex legal regime governs prison conditions and presents a host of controversial questions at the intersection of constitutional liberty, statutory interpretation, administrative regulation, and public policy. This is a completely overhauled, re-titled, and much-expanded version of the leading casebook about incarceration. It addresses both pretrial and post-conviction incarceration, presenting Supreme Court and leading lower court case law, statutes, litigation materials, professional standards, academic commentary, and prisoner writing. Topics include conditions of confinement, civil liberties, particular prisoner populations and relevant legal issues (race and national origin discrimination, the particular issues/law governing treatment of incarcerated women, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities). Litigated remedies (injunctive litigation, damages, the Prison Litigation Reform Act, and criminal prosecution of prison staff), are also covered in detail, as is non-litigation oversight. The casebook is supplemented by an open-access website that offers additional resources and sources for further reading.
Prison Grievances: when to write, how to write (Captive Audiences Publishing, 2013). This entertaining and educational graphic novel teaches inmates how to think through a jail or prison problem and then write a grievance about it. Written with 5th-grade vocabulary and syntax, it engages readers with plot and character development. Grievances must conform to the stringent rules of the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act and the rules of particular jails or prison systems. This novel teachers those rules. It also warns against frivolous and malicious filings. Endorsed by Sister Helen (Dead Man Walking) and over 700 human and civil rights groups, this much-needed novel is priced just right--and needed right now.
