Here's the latest on the ongoing prison overcrowded crisis.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the federal government wants a new facility in the area to hold the ever-growing influx of illegal immigrants in need of incarceration.

The government closed a detention center on Terminal Island in October 2007, saying the San Pedro facility needed repairs including work on a hot water boiler and a fire-suppression system. More than 400 detainees were transferred to other facilities in California, Texas, Arizona and Washington, frustrating attorneys fighting their cases in immigration court.

Though the government had said the San Pedro detention center would be closed temporarily, Kice said that the necessary repairs are on hold indefinitely.

"Given the expenses involved, ICE has elected not to proceed with any construction until a final decision has been made about the future of the facility," she said.

The full story can be found here.

Apparently, you can't starve the prisoners so you can pocket their food money: Ala. sheriff locked up over measly jail meals

It's a problem. California citizens and lawmakers want strict punishments to deter crime, but then what's a state to do with all the scofflaws serving long-term prison sentences.

A three-judge federal panel is set to take on the issue this week.

She must've really missed her man. This is from City News Service yesterday:

 LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A 27-year-old woman was arrested today for allegedly using counterfeit documents and forging the names of two federal judges in an attempt to free her husband, who is serving two life sentences for murder and other crimes.

Danielle Denise Jones was arrested at her home in Los Angeles this morning after authorities learned documents ordering husband Jason Earl Jones' immediate release from prison were forged and likely mailed by someone outside the prison, according to Laura Eimiller of the FBI.

Jones, a supervisor transportation security officer with the Transportation Security Administration, apparently mailed the documents to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Legal Processing Unit and the U.S. Marshals Service, Eimiller said.

 

Robert Soloway, who will spend four years in prison beginning Sept. 22 for the barrage of spam e-mails he sent, opened up for an interview that was published last week by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula High School graduate, who got filthy rich at a young age from his business, told the newspaper: "Here's my dysfunction," Soloway said recently. "It was that notoriety. People knew me. No one clapped for me at my high school graduation. Maybe it's not how I want to be famous, but (my thinking was) 'At least people know who I am.' "

Previously:

Spam King sentenced

Sentencing hearing underway for Spam King

A group called All of Us Or None plan to go to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to talk to families and friends visiting inmates about the voting rights of people with past convictions and to register eligible voters waiting in line.

From their release: 

Formerly Incarcerated People Reclaim the Right to Vote

Los Angeles, CA-On Saturday, August 16, 2008, members of the grassroots group All of Us or None will educate families and friends visiting the Twin Towers Correctional Facility about the voting rights of people with past convictions and register eligible voters in the visiting lines. "There is a lot of misinformation out there," says Lisa Leon, a Community Organizer with All of Us or None and a formerly incarcerated woman herself. "Many people who are on probation, off parole, or currently imprisoned in county jails do not know that they have the right to vote. This Voting Rights Awareness Day, taking place in 7 counties across California, is part of a larger campaign to educate the community and reclaim our civil rights," says Leon.

 

Recordings raise questions about inmates' rights

By ALLISON HOFFMAN Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO (AP) - The last thing defense attorney Jim McMahon expected to hear on a recording of phone calls from the county jail was his own voice discussing trial strategy with a client who had been jailed on a probation violation.

The intercepted call had been recorded by an automatic-taping system and stored on a server accessible to prosecutors, who downloaded the conversation and shared it with McMahon.

"We weren't talking about cursory stuff, what kind of clothes to wear. We were talking trial strategy," McMahon said. "There's no question that these calls are privileged, and we rely on that because the criminal justice system would come to a screeching halt if we had to drive to the jail every time we had to talk to our clients."

(Click on the headline to see the whole story.)

This guy is God. Seriously.

He's also Lucky. And a bit unlucky.

His name is God Lucky Howard, 39. He got arrested in Tampa for dealing cocaine.

Here's the full story by the Tampa Tribune's Howard Altman (no relation).

And then there's this one:

In Alton, Texas, an inmate tried to escape from the city's jail by crawling through the air ducts, but crashed through the ceiling -- into the police chief's office!

Oops. Here's the rest from AP:

Police say 17-year-old Jesus Albert Suarez Chavez and 22-year-old Roman Orozco Martinez tried to escape through air conditioning ducts of the Alton city jail around 3 a.m. Saturday, but had been spotted by a dispatcher monitoring security video.

One of the inmates fell through the ceiling into the office of Police Chief Baldemar Flores, who wasn't there at the time. The second inmate was trying to get into the vent.

Flores said he didn't know which inmate fell through the ceiling, only that the vents were very small.

Chavez and Martinez are charged with burglary of a vehicle, evading arrest, resisting arrest, assault on a public servant and making a terrorist threat. They are now being held in the Hidalgo County Jail.

The District Attorney's Office put this release out today about that Long Beach mom who took her kids along while she sold heroin.


Mother suspected of taking kids on drug deals charged

LONG BEACH - A Long Beach mother suspected of taking some of her eight children along when she sold heroin was charged today with multiple counts of child abuse and selling a controlled substance, the District Attorney's office announced.

Enedina Cardona, 36 (dob 5-14-72), is scheduled to be arraigned after 1:30 p.m. at Long Beach Superior Court, Dept. J. She is charged in case NA078544 with three counts of selling a controlled substance and one count of possession for sale of a controlled substance -- all felonies. In addition, she is charged with 12 misdemeanor counts of child abuse. Prosecutors are asking that bail be set at $120,000.

Cardona is charged with selling heroin on three occasions, May 19, 27 and 28. On May 19, she allegedly had three children -- her 3- and 6-year-old sons and her 13-year-old daughter -- in her car when she sold drugs to undercover police. On May 27 and May 28, she again allegedly had the two youngest boys in the car during a drug transaction. Her eight children range in age from 3 to 16.

The case has been assigned to Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Hight to prosecute.

Photo by the Press-Telegram.