Summary
Girardi discusses the difficulties of journalists to gather information in state prisons. Despite the statistics on mentally ill prisoners receiving insufficient treatment, state correction services and criminal justice boards nationwide have been tightening media restrictions and attempting to evade independent scrutiny.
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Extract
Locked Out
After receiving tips from various advocacy groups concerned about the treatment of inmates in New York state prisons, Albany Times-Union reporter Paul Grondahl decided in 2000 to find out what was really going on inside some of the state's penitentiaries.
What he discovered was that the New York Department of Correctional Services "threw up every obstacle imaginable" to prevent him from interviewing prisoners or gaining access to "The Box," a 23-hour confinement facility that prison watchdog groups claim constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.Grondahl was prohibited from interviewing inmates incarcerated in The Box, was told that inmates would lie to him or exaggerate conditions, and had mail correspondence with inmates confiscated.Through enterp...See the full content of this document
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