Report explaining how the Prison Litigation Reform Act has made civil rights cases from incarcerated people harder to bring, harder to win, and harder to settle.
Slamming the Courthouse Door: 25 years of evidence for repealing the Prison Litigation Reform Act
The title of this post is the title of this notable new report from the Prison Policy Initiative authored by Andrea Fenster and Margo Schlanger. Here is how it gets started:
Twenty-five years ago today, in 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The “PLRA,” as it is often called, makes it much harder for incarcerated people to file and win federal civil rights lawsuits. For two-and-a-half decades, the legislation has created a double standard that limits incarcerated people’s access to the courts at all stages: it requires courts to dismiss civil rights cases from incarcerated people for minor technical reasons before even reaching the case merits, requires incarcerated people to pay filing fees that low-income people on the outside are exempt from, makes it hard to find representation by sharply capping attorney fees, creates high barriers to
After a two-year review, the Iowa Utilities Board is forcing companies that provide phone service for county jail inmates to lower rates from as high as $1 a minute to a quarter or less.
Once all the new tariffs are approved, the savings to Iowa families with jailed loved ones is expected to be more than $1 million a year, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a national nonprofit advocacy group that has been working in Iowa and other states to lower jail phone costs.
“I am sure the inmates and the families will be very happy with this change,” said Bremer County Sheriff Dan Pickett. “They will be able to talk to their families longer and make more calls to talk to them.”