prisoners' rights

Latest Articles

5 years against torture

Penal past
The Portland Phoenix ’s prison investigation, focusing on the Maine supermax, has published 75 stories over the past five years. Here are some of the key pieces, with brief updates on what, if anything, has happened since.
By LANCE TAPLEY | November 13, 2010

AG exonerates guards

Valdez prison death
Critics of the state's prison system will press for an independent investigation after expressing dismay with the attorney general's long-delayed conclusion October 28 that Maine State Prison inmate Victor Valdez died last November from "a natural death."
By LANCE TAPLEY | November 03, 2010

The reform-proof prison

Why Massachusetts' correctional system hasn't gotten any better
From the beginning of her tenure as commissioner, Department of Correction (DOC) commissioner Kathleen Dennehy clashed with union loyalists intent on maintaining the status quo.
By CHRIS FARAONE | September 08, 2010

Troubled Over Bridgewater

Old Colony Correctional Center has been plagued by suicide, overcrowding, and brutality — and things are only getting worse
On a winter evening around 11 pm, the former superintendent of Old Colony Correctional Center walked into a Rhode Island restaurant with a gun in his pocket.
By CHRIS FARAONE | September 13, 2010

A prison obituary: the tragedy of Victor Valdez

A homicide? The state police are investigating. A cover-up? Who will investigate?
Joking among themselves, a small group of guards entered Close E pod. "Lock up!" one of them suddenly commanded the prisoners: go to your cells.
By LANCE TAPLEY | July 28, 2010

How can those in the box think outside of the box?

Letters to the Portland editor, May 14, 2010
I was disgusted on multiple levels with what the article revealed about the Maine State Prison.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | May 13, 2010

Are doctors complicit in prison torture?

The Maine medical community looks at solitary confinement
In the past few years an outcry has arisen over the involvement of military and CIA medical professionals and psychologists in torture. Some critics have even suggested criminal prosecution of the medical staff involved or, at least, revocation of their professional licenses.
By LANCE TAPLEY | April 21, 2010

A ‘moral victory’ against supermax torture

Analysis
At times the legislative debate on LD 1611, the bill to limit solitary confinement of the state’s prisoners, became surreal.
By LANCE TAPLEY | April 15, 2010

Maine tortures women, too

But Riverview presents an alternative
The Maine Department of Corrections is an equal-opportunity torturer.
By LANCE TAPLEY | March 10, 2010

The cost of torture

Solitary Confinement Bill Hearing
In the end, whether mass solitary confinement continues at the Maine State Prison supermax may come down to an issue of money rather than right or wrong. And resolving that issue may come down to whether the state wants to pay more now to pay less in the long term.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 25, 2010

Seeking humane treatment

State and national efforts well under way
Some Maine people are taking moral responsibility for the way supermax inmates are treated.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 17, 2010

Screams from solitary

‘By dehumanizing prisoners, we dehumanize ourselves.’
The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 17, 2010

Anti-solitary campaign expands

Stopping Supermax Torture
As the February 17 State House public hearing approaches on the bill to restrict solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), which sparked national debate about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, has announced its support.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 03, 2010

Corrections disobeys another federal court order

Solitary Confinement
For decades, as it has with other court orders, the Maine Department of Corrections has apparently been breaching a 1973 federal court’s decree that forbids disciplinary solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison beyond 10 days for minor offenses, or 30 days for major ones.
By LANCE TAPLEY | December 16, 2009

A mysterious new inmate death

Prison Scandal Watch
Despite a scandal earlier this year over a prisoner death, state corrections officials won’t allow the Phoenix to interview a Maine State Prison inmate who has claimed in letters that prison staff abused an ailing prisoner, Victor Valdez, before Valdez died in late November.
By LANCE TAPLEY | December 10, 2009

Suspect speaks; victim’s family begins $1-million-plus lawsuit

Prison Homicide
The widow of Sheldon Weinstein, the Maine State Prison inmate who died in April several days after allegedly being beaten by inmates, has taken the first step toward filing a wrongful-death lawsuit against prison guards, Department of Corrections “policy-making personnel,” and prison medical-care providers.
By LANCE TAPLEY | November 04, 2009

State should protect inmates’ rights

Letters to the Portland Editor, October 16, 2009
As Lance Tapley points out, denying prisoners access to human-rights protections is a mistake (see "Less Than Equal," October 2).
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | October 14, 2009

Limiting Supermax solitary

Legislation Drafted
Representative James Schatz, a Blue Hill Democrat, has proposed legislation to tightly limit when prisoners can be kept in the solitary confinement of the 100-man Supermax unit of the Maine State Prison in Warren.
By LANCE TAPLEY | October 08, 2009

Injustice everywhere

Letters to the Portland Editor, October 9, 2009
Thank you for the timely interview with Harvey Silverglate.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | October 07, 2009

Dangerous slurs

Gay rights in prison
A heavily tattooed, self-described Satanist serving a life sentence for savagely murdering two people in Augusta in 1998 — his 16-year-old stepdaughter and his 87-year-old former landlady — inmate John L’Heureux, 39, is probably not the man Maine’s gay-rights groups would choose to represent their cause in the state prison, if they were inclined to choose anyone there.
By LANCE TAPLEY | October 01, 2009

Less than equal

State officials, including prejudiced human-rights commissioners, block inmate complaints
This story has a bias. It’s in favor of human rights for all people.
By LANCE TAPLEY | October 02, 2009

Time for law to end torture

Letters to the Portland Editor, September 18, 2009
In a collaborative effort between human-rights activists and incarcerated Mainers, a bill to end the use and abuse of solitary confinement has been drafted and will be submitted to legislators soon.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | September 16, 2009

Prison ‘troublemaker’ confronts racism, medical abuse

Exiled
Vacillating between grit and despair — between aggressive lawsuits and suicide attempts — Deane Brown, the prisoner who in 2005 blew the whistle on the torture of mentally ill inmates at the Maine State Prison’s solitary-confinement “Supermax” unit, is struggling against prison conditions in Maryland, where he was exiled by the Baldacci administration.
By LANCE TAPLEY | September 09, 2009