Want to help write sorely needed letters to Deaf inmates in prisons throughout America? Here’s your chance to help alleviate someone’s insufferable solitude. Hello Fellow HEARD Supporters: Its that time again, writing time. HEARD Board members and volunteers we will be gathering for a few hours to write to some of our Deaf inmates that
This story originally appeared in the Huffington Post, and was brought to my attention by HEARD. The article contains a video which is not captioned, but you can read the story as well. In a move blasted by rights groups, a 3-year-old-deaf boy has been told by his Nebraska school district to change the way
This article originally appeared in Truthout. The only supermax facility in Illinois, meaning it is the only prison built to keep the majority of its prisoners in isolation, Tamms prison was consigned for closure by the state’s governor in July. But the battle between former prisoners, the families of those hurt by conditions at Tamms,
We wanted to let you all know a group of RIT students is working on an independent study project that focuses on Deaf Defendant/Prisoner Rights at the county jail and local prisons. This project is being led by Attorney-Professors Michael Stein & Jennifer Gravitz. The group will focus on finding and documenting info on
This story was covered by CBS News, and brought to my attention by Marsha Graham. Held captive by a neighbor, he was beaten, starved and forced to sign over his Social Security checks. The checks were valued at about 600 dollars a month. “He was physically abused. No scars, but the body was being beaten,”
In this morning’s Houston Chronicle (Friday, Sept 7, 2012, B8), the editor describes an innovative and humane program that has been implemented by the Harris County Jail. The editor reports that the Harris County Jail has become a “de facto mental hospital” as “almost 25% of its inmates, many of them non-violent, suffer from mental
The law firm Fox & Robertson has published information on the Ulibarri v. City and County of Denver. This class action lawsuit challenges accommodations for deaf and diabetic inmates in the custody of the Denver Police Department and the Denver County Jail. http://www.foxrob.com/current-cases/ulibarri-v-city-and-county-of-denver/ On the website are documents which may be of interest to other
The principal at Horace Mann school thinks that it would be crueler to deny his students the pleasure of a Taylor Swift visit. According to the Boston Herald: Ford said that if Swift’s peeps put the kibosh on the concert, it would be “extremely short-sighted.” “We would have the concert beautifully translated into American Sign
Apparently, a group of hackers hijacked a contest that would end up sending country music star Taylor Swift to a Massachusetts school for the Deaf. This story comes from the New York Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/taylor-swift-sing-massachusetts-school-deaf-thanks-online-ballot-stuffing-internet-pranksters-article-1.1148163 It’s unclear if the prankster protesters were rigging the vote with charitable aims in mind for the school – or
This was brought to my attention by Marsha Graham, AKA AnotherBoomerBlog, from a story that originally appeared in Yahoo News. http://news.yahoo.com/pre-trial-slave-sues-jail-11-million-vermont-001819719.html?code=AQCkMsL_3WToz7P6p5YVZmEAFJNscoy1erUwdO07xSXl-5Dp2vyxZWoKVBNhcQCV_LgtZDO0d_2lVbwAsu1Ll4M7aTxA_kZSyXHHWCWaHb4Mo6vXTqET7kXohjavpLDtHw5Y_43yc_0aVFY2PKfVO9b1JC4xRQXs_IxcvYklCtTlO3Jg84VVyZNXcuWfVA7e50U#_=_ Apparently, Finbar McGarry was being held in a county jail, awaiting trial. He had not yet been found guilty, but merely was unable to afford bail. So, like so many in his tax bracket,
