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Booking a Physical Visit

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Prisons E-visit system introduced : Pre- book appointment to visit inmates

The Prisons Department has introduced an online service for prison visits.

The online service enables relatives of inmates to block a date and time of their convenience for the visit.

Relatives of inmates have been requested to pre- book their visits via

http://www.visit.prisons.gov.lk/

The service currently only available for Angunukolapalassa prison, will be later extended to other prisons around the country as well.

The Prisons Department said those who have pre-booked their visits will be granted priority in future. (NewsWire)

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Federal Bureau of Prisons

General visiting information.

Make sure your visit will be a success by carefully following these four steps.

Discover or confirm the whereabouts of the inmate you would like to visit.

Before you can visit you must be placed on the inmate's approved visiting list.

Review all visiting rules, regulations, and procedures before your visit.

Find out when you can visit and get directions to the facility.

Locate the inmate

Sometimes an inmate may be moved to a different facility so that they can benefit from unique programs offered at that location. They might also be moved to receive treatment for a medical condition or for security concerns. Therefore, the first step in planning your visit should be to determine where the inmate is currently housed.

Please verify you are a human by entering the words you see in the textbox below.

To visit, you must be pre-approved.

You can only visit an inmate if they have placed you on their visiting list and you have been cleared by the BOP.

• An inmate is given a Visitor Information Form when he/she arrives at a new facility.
• Inmate completes their portion of the form and mails a copy to each potential visitor.
• Potential visitor completes all remaining form fields.
• Potential visitor sends the completed form back to the inmate's address (listed on the form).
• We may request more background information and possibly contact other law enforcement agencies or the NCIC
• The inmate is told when a person is not approved to visit and it is the inmate's responsibility to notify that person.

Who can an inmate add to their visiting list?

• Step-parent(s)
• Foster parent(s)
• Grandparents
• No more than 10 friends/associates
• Foreign officials
• Members of religious groups including clergy
• Members of civic groups
• Employers (former or prospective)
• Parole advisors

In certain circumstances such as when an inmate first enters prison or is transferred to a new prison, a visiting list might not exist yet. In this case, immediate family members who can be verified by the information contained in the inmate's Pre-Sentence Report, may be allowed to visit. However, if there is little or no information available about a person, visiting may be denied. You should always call the prison ahead of time to ensure your visit will be permitted.

Be Prepared

You should be familiar with all visiting rules, regulations, and procedures before your visit.

The following clothing items are generally not permitted but please consult the visiting policy for the specific facility as to what attire and items are permitted in the visiting room:

• revealing shorts
• halter tops
• bathing suits
• see-through garments of any type
• low-cut blouses or dresses
• backless tops
• hats or caps
• sleeveless garments
• skirts two inches or more above the knee
• dresses or skirts with a high-cut split in the back, front, or side
• clothing that looks like inmate clothing (khaki or green military-type clothing)

Plan your trip

• the prison location
• the prison type
• inmate visiting needs
• availability of visiting space

The inmate you plan to visit should tell you what the visiting schedule is for that prison; however, if you have any questions please contact that particular facility .

General Visiting Hours

Camp general visiting hours, fsl general visiting hours.

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Visit an incarcerated person

Service overview.

Incarcerated people can receive visitors in prison for one hour each week. Walk-ins are not permitted. You must schedule your visit at least 48 hours in advance.

If you are visiting an incarcerated person, you can bring an outfit for them to attend court in .

Philadelphia prison facilities are operated by the Philadelphia Department of Prisons (PDP) .

Who can visit an incarcerated person

Friends and family members can visit incarcerated people.

Children that are six months and older can visit with a parent or guardian. The adult must provide proof of custody or a birth certificate. Children cannot visit during school hours.

No more than one adult and one child can visit with a person at one time.

Who can’t visit an incarcerated person

You cannot visit someone in jail or prison at a PDP facility if you:

• Are on probation, parole, or conditional release including furlough and work release.
• Were incarcerated in any Philadelphia Department of Prisons facility in the last six months.
• Are believed to have a potential detrimental effect on the person you are visiting, or pose a security threat to the facility.
• Have had your visiting privileges suspended.

If you have been denied a visit because of one of the reasons above, you can request special permission from the facility’s warden.

Requirements

Visitors must follow a dress code. You may not wear:

• Plain white t-shirts.
• Clothing that closely resembles an incarcerated person’s uniform (orange jumpsuits, blue scrub tops).
• Hoodies or jackets with hoods.
• Hot pants or short-shorts. (Bermuda shorts are permissible.)
• Torn jeans.
• Revealing clothing or see-through fabric anywhere on the torso.
• Mini-skirts or dresses (must be within two inches of the knee).
• Low-rise pants or skirts that reveal undergarments.
• Clothing with offensive or provocative language.
• Clothing with writing across the seat of pants or skirt.
• Open-toe shoes.

Visitors must wear:

• Shirts with sleeves.

If you’re wearing leggings or stretch pants, your top must cover your hips when you raise your arms above your head.

Where and when

Appointments for visits are first-come, first-served. You must make your appointment between 48 hours and seven days in advance.

Saturday visits are reserved for designated facility populations. Holiday visits are only allowed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

Visitors must be at the facility at least ten minutes before the scheduled visit.

Friends and family members can collect personal effects from the cashier during the hours listed below. The cashier’s office is open 24 hours a day at release.

Visiting hours by facility

* To visit an incarcerated person at the Detention Center (DC), Alternative & Special Detention Center (ASD), or ASD MOD III, go to the Riverside Correctional Facility (RCF) visiting lobby.

In the visiting area, you can store your belongings in a locker. You must have quarters for the lockers. There is no change machine in the waiting room.

They may ask you to loosen undergarments to perform the search. You also need to go through a metal detector.

If you feel that a search was improper, ask to speak to a supervisor or contact the Office of Community Justice Outreach (CJO) at (215) 685-8909 or (215) 685-7288 .

If the person you are visiting doesn’t want to see you, you will not be allowed to visit them. The PDP will not force anyone to meet a visitor if they don’t want to.

Related content

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In-Person Visiting

It is necessary for all visitors to review this information prior to scheduling an in-person visit. .

Visitors must review the quarantine tables below to ensure the facility or housing unit of their loved one is not currently under outbreak status or housed in a COVID quarantined/isolation unit. Previously scheduled visits will be cancelled if a facility or an individual housing unit goes on outbreak/quarantine. Visitors must routinely monitor this site. They will also receive notification from ViaPath that any scheduled visits have been cancelled.  

In-Person Scheduling Procedure

All visitors are required to schedule visits using the ViaPath Scheduler. Only persons cleared and approved by the Michigan Department of Corrections will be permitted to participate in an in-person visit. Approved visitors can schedule a visit  here . Visitors are required to schedule their visit at least 48 HOURS in advance of the scheduled visit, but not more than 7 DAYS prior to the visit. 

The visits will be limited to two hours. 

A maximum of FIVE visitors may visit a prisoner at one time. 

VISITORS MAY SCHEDULE UP TO TWO SEPARATE VISITS ON THE SAME DAY WITH THE SAME PRISONER, BASED ON AVAILABILITY WHEN USING THE VIAPATH SCHEDULER.

During Your Visit

Food items sold from vending machines must immediately be removed from the manufacturer’s packaging and the food item immediately placed on a paper plate. The manufacturer’s packaging shall be disposed of prior to the visitor’s return to his/her seat. Food items must remain uncovered until consumed.

Bathroom breaks shall be permitted during visits, however, time used for the bathroom counts towards the two-hour duration of the visit.

Visitors and prisoners can take photos together. An embrace including a kiss is permitted while a picture is being taken. 

Quarantine Tables

Please keep in mind that a single housing unit may be under quarantine while the rest of the facility is not. It is critical that you review both facility-wide and housing unit quarantines prior to traveling for your scheduled visit. The listing will change often. Prisoners housed in the following facilities and/or housing units will not be allowed in-person visits at this time:

Facilities Currently Under Full Quarantine

Individual housing units currently under quarantine, additional links.

Visiting Standards - English Version

Estándares de visitas - Version Española

Visiting Application

Video Visitation Standards - English Version

Video Visitando Estándares - Version Española

Updated: 06/23/2023

Jails around Wisconsin forgo in-person visits for video calls. How is this affecting those incarcerated?

HOBART – From her dining room table on an evening in February, Stacie Bryant logged onto her tablet to see her son for the first time in nearly four weeks.

Tyler Bryant, 23, is currently serving 90 days at Oconto County Jail for violating his probation.

Holding Tyler's 15-month-old son, Milo, Stacie Bryant gave her son a smile and asked how he was doing. Tyler filled her in on his schedule, recent happenings and when he would get clippers to shave his facial hair.

"I missed seeing him," Stacie Bryant said after the video call. "He was coming over here almost every day."

Virtual visitation, for many families of people in jail, is a helpful tool for its flexibility and accessibility. But as it is becoming commonplace, more and more jails in Wisconsin are making video visits the only option, entirely eliminating traditional in-person visits.

The Post-Crescent contacted every jail in the state to gather information about their visitation policies. An analysis of the data found 46 out of the state's 72 jails — about 64% — have no option for people to do visits with friends and family in person, instead only offering contact through a video screen. And more jail administrators plan to follow this trend, with many stating that the pandemic expedited their decision to go all-virtual.

While video visitation has its benefits, formerly incarcerated people, experts and people who have visited friends and family in jail say the inability to be within physical proximity of loved ones takes a toll on mental health.

The American Bar Association's standards state that video visitation should not be a replacement for in-person visits with people confined for more than 30 days — around the average length of stay in a county jail.

But depending on court proceedings, people can be held in jail for years. In Brown County Jail, the longest stay of a recent prisoner was close to seven years — from May 2016 to February 2023, according to Brown County Jail Administrator Heidi Michel.

And unlike in prisons, most people in jail are there for a crime for which they have not been convicted.

Jennifer Verderami, a housing advocate with ESTHER , an interfaith social justice organization that is the Fox Valley affiliate of WISDOM , said it's more challenging to assess the emotions of a person through a video screen than when sitting across from them — even through a glass partition.

Her first experience with video visits was when the pandemic struck while she was incarcerated at Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center, a minimum-security women's prison in Racine County.

“There's a different quality even when there's a partition separating you, knowing there's only inches between you and your loved one," she said.

Video visits lack physical support, formerly incarcerated people say

Visitation is extremely important for the mental health of people who are incarcerated, particularly those serving lengthy sentences. According to the DOC's website , "research shows maintaining strong family ties can have a positive impact on an offender's success in completing treatment and other programs during incarceration, as well as their chances for success after they are released."

In-person contact visitation, where incarcerated people are allowed to talk to, play games with and hug their loved ones is offered in most of Wisconsin's prisons. But in county jails, where state statutes include fewer guidelines for how visitation should take place, non-contact visits are the norm, either behind a glass partition or by video.

Still, people who have been on both ends say there is a difference between a visit through a glass divider and a visit through a computer screen.

"You can sense the proximity. On a video screen, that does not exist," said Roy Rogers, who was incarcerated for 28 years until his parole in 2021.

Since his release, Rogers has become an advocate for jail and prison reform, working as a pre-entry liaison for The Community and serving on the board of directors for the Wisconsin Justice Initiative .

"With the divider behind a window thing, at least you can see the full human expression — you know, the nuances of emotion that you cannot catch through a video visit," he said.

Wanda Bertram, a communication strategist at the Prison Policy Initiative , a national nonprofit criminal justice think tank, said it's also harder for loved ones to assess the health and well-being of a prisoner through a video screen, as opposed to sitting a few feet away.

"Families have found that this really diminishes the quality of connection that they're able to get," she said.

A spokesperson for the company that owns Securus Technologies , the video visitation system used at Brown County Jail and a dozen other Wisconsin jails, said the video service "acts as a supplement for in person-visits" but is not intended to replace them.

Despite this, most jails in Wisconsin that have eliminated in-person visiting options have no plans to bring that option back, various county jail administrators said.

Meanwhile, some jails around the country have entirely eliminated the infrastructure needed for in-person jail visits after adding video visits. In Brown County, for example, Michel said the jail switched to all-virtual visits because there were no in-person visitation booths included in a jail renovation project.

Video visits can be expensive and low quality

Wisconsin jails offer video visits free to people who use the jail's on-site video kiosks. But those who choose to visit through a remote device are charged a fee.

Prices differ based on what company the jail contracts with. For example, remote visits with jails that use Securus range from $5.95 to $12.95 for a 20-minute remote visit, according to the spokesperson for Aventiv, the parent company of Securus. In Brown County Jail, visits are on the lowest end of that price range. Other telecommunications companies charge by the minute. In Outagamie County Jail, which uses ViaPath Technologies , a remote video visit costs 25 cents a minute.

Tyler Bryant served time at both Brown County Jail and Oconto County Jail. The Bryants said the two jails' visitation services were a night-and-day difference.

The first time Tyler's girlfriend used Brown County Jail's free on-site video kiosks to visit Tyler, she had issues logging on and could not find anyone around to help her.

When she came back to try again another day, she was able to get the video to work, but the quality on both ends was poor, Tyler Bryant said.

"That sucks. You can't even see the background — like, it's all pixelated," he said. "They completely blur everything out, unless you're two inches away, and then you can see like half of the face."

That was with Securus. Video visits at Oconto County Jail, which uses the company CIDNET , were much clearer, Stacie Bryant said.

Securus and CIDNET are the two most widely utilized video visitation systems in Wisconsin's jails. A handful of others systems are also common, including ViaPath, the system in place at Outagamie County Jail.

Autumn Cross, a Combined Locks resident who visited a friend in Outagamie County Jail about once a week for three months before he went to prison, said the remote video calls she did often had blurry video, delayed audio and unreliable connection.

"Video visits always have a lot of the connection issues where you can't hear them, or they can't hear you," Cross said. "It's not always guaranteed that you're going to have your video visit, because you can get disconnected and then sometimes you're not able to call back."

For Verderami, who served nearly five years in prison before her release last year, video visitation was free, due to the pandemic. But the visits were emotionally challenging, particularly those with her teenage son or her grandchildren.

"It actually got to the point where I didn't want to even do the video visits anymore because it made me so sad," she said.

Verderami said if video visits were not free and her only access to video visits was by paying, she would not have had any visits during that time.

Proponents say virtual jail visitation offers flexibility and savings for families

Many jails that only offer virtual visitation point to its benefits, like the flexibility to visit from home and increased opportunities for visits.

Outagamie County Jail switched to virtual visitation in 2020 and never went back. Jail Administrator Dave Kiesner said the jail had already been planning to transition to video visits only, but the pandemic expedited that process.

People in jail "have much more ability to see and talk to people now with this new system than they've had before," Kiesner said. "When we had in-house visits, it was just twice a week. ... It was like on a Tuesday at 10 o'clock and maybe a Saturday at 4 o'clock, and that was only time you could come visit. Now you can set up for whatever works for you at home."

Many county jails in the state also say video visits reduce the risk of contraband getting into the jail. However, it's not clear if there is data to back this up. Kiesner said Outagamie County Jail does not track contraband incidents specifically tied to visitation.

Michel, the administrator at Brown County Jail, said video visitation is beneficial for people who live too far to regularly visit with loved ones. By paying $7.50 for a 20-minute visit from home, they can save money on gas and time.

But for about a quarter of Wisconsin's jails, it doesn't need to be one or the other.

Lt. Brad McCoy of the Waushara County Sheriff's Office said that when Waushara County Jail added a video visit option in 2023, it did not eliminate its in-person option. McCoy said he does not think a video call has the same impact on a prisoner's mental health as actually seeing a loved one in-person — even behind a glass partition.

"I still see benefits in having in-person visits," he said.

And 16 other Wisconsin jails, including Madison's Dane County Jail, offer both types of visitation.

"We still like to do the in-person, because it’s in-person. It’s different than looking through a camera at someone," said Lt. Gary Vandivier of the Dane County Sheriff's Office.

Jails sometimes have incentives to eliminate in-person visiting options

The Prison Policy Initiative has published multiple studies about telecommunications-related issues in jails and prisons across the country. Betram said their research found that jails have financial motivations to eliminate in-person visitation.

For one, video visitation requires fewer staff members to supervise, a major benefit for jails with a shortage of staff.

Additionally, Bertram said that in many contracts between video providers and jails, the county receives either a lump sum payment or a percentage of the total revenue from video calls.

Both Brown County Jail and Outagamie County Jail receive a commission from telecommunications services. However, Michel said that in Brown County, none of the profit made off of video visitation goes to the county; it goes into an "inmate welfare account," which is used to fund items and programs for people in jail, like new mattresses or the county's canteen ministry program.

"This is not a product that jails and prisons have necessarily gone hunting for. It's something that the companies, which tend to already have relationships with jails and prisons by providing phone calls or other services like that, will advertise pretty aggressively," Bertram said.

Bertram said some of these contracts have in the past stipulated that county jails must eliminate or restrict the in-person visiting option. She said she has seen those stipulations less often in recent years. Neither Brown County Jail's nor Outagamie County Jail's most recent contracts give requirements for jails on in-person visits.

According to a 2015 report from the Prison Policy Initiative , Securus was the only company of those studied that explicitly required jails to stop offering an in-person visitation option. But the spokesperson for Aventiv, the parent company of Securus, told the Post-Crescent that Securus "never impose(s) any prohibition on in-person visits."

No other telecommunications companies in Wisconsin jails — including ViaPath, CIDNET, ICSolutions , Reliance Telephone or Turnkey Corrections — responded to questions about their contracts' visitation guidelines.

The transition to video visits as the norm is a fairly recent shift in Wisconsin; most county jails began implementing the new technology just in the last few years. Four in the state, however — including Milwaukee County Jail — stopped video visit services as early as 2003 and 2004.

Rogers said he believes the transition to video visitation in jails is another step of what he sees as decreasing outside contact in Wisconsin's jails and prisons in recent years.

As another example, he pointed to the Department of Correction's switch in 2021 to providing people in prison with photocopies of mail rather than the original papers — a move intended to decrease drugs sneaking into prisons.

"The smell and the scent of the envelope to come from moms or a girlfriend, they'll never be able to smell that anymore, you know? Just to see, your kid drew this picture, and you know, it's smelling like jelly, or those Jolly Ranchers that he likes, you know, and some of that got on the envelope or the letter. You'll never be able to experience that again in Wisconsin (prisons)," he said.

For people in jails and prisons, Rogers said, any connection to their support system is essential for rehabilitation and a future reintegration into society. He said he worries about a total shift to video visits in jails.

"When you're in a county jail, for the most part, if you turn out to not be found innocent of what you've been held for, the last memory you will have of touching and holding your loved one will be that moment before you were arrested," he said. "And, like, even though you're sitting in that county jail and you're innocent until you're proven guilty, you've already been deprived of your human relationship, and you have not been convicted of a crime."

Green Bay Press-Gazette reporter Danielle DuClos contributed to this report.

Kelli Arseneau can be reached at 920-213-3721 or  [email protected] . Follow her on X at  @ArseneauKelli .

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California women's prison where inmates have been subjected to sex abuse will close

LOS ANGELES — The beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons said Monday it will close a women’s prison in California  known as the “rape club”  despite attempts to reform the troubled facility after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.

Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said in a statement to the AP that the agency had “taken unprecedented steps and provided a tremendous amount of resources to address culture, recruitment and retention, aging infrastructure and — most critical — employee misconduct.”

“Despite these steps and resources, we have determined that FCI Dublin is not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility,” Peters said. “This decision is being made after ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of those unprecedented steps and additional resources.”

The announcement of Dublin’s closure represents an extraordinary acknowledgement by the Bureau of Prisons that its much-promised efforts to improve the culture and environment there have not worked. Many attempts to stem the problems at Dublin have come after the AP investigation revealed a pattern of abuse and mismanagement that crossed years, even decades.

Just 10 days before the closure announcement, a federal judge took the unprecedented step of appointing a special master to oversee the prison.

Advocates want prisoners freed

FCI Dublin, about 21 miles east of Oakland, is one of six women-only federal prisons and the only one west of the Rocky Mountains. It currently houses 605 inmates — 504 inmates in its main prison and another 101 at an adjacent minimum-security camp. That figure is down from a total of 760 prisoners in February 2022.

The women currently housed at the prison will be transferred to other facilities, Peters said, and no employees will lose their jobs.

Advocates have called for inmates to be freed from FCI Dublin, which they say is not only plagued by sexual abuse but also has hazardous mold, asbestos and inadequate health care.

Last August, eight FCI Dublin inmates sued the Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, alleging the agency had failed to root out sexual abuse. Amaris Montes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, had said inmates continued to face retaliation for reporting abuse, including being put in solitary confinement and having belongings confiscated.

Montes said she and her clients had suspected closure might be a possibility, but the suddenness of the decision so quickly after the special master appointment came as a shock. “It’s a signal that the prison knows that they are not meeting constitutional standards to keep people safe from sexual assault and sexual harassment,” Montes said Monday.

Montes said timing on the closure and transfer of inmates was still being worked out, but she hoped it would be done in a measured way.

“I think that the BOP is quick to try to transfer accountability and move accountability elsewhere as the way to remedy the issue. And that would mean, you know, moving people quickly without addressing people’s needs right now.” Many of the incarcerated women have physical and mental health issues that need to be dealt with, she said, while other inmates might be considered for release.

A former Dublin inmate who is a whistleblower in the civil lawsuit said Monday that the abruptly announced closure “just feels wrong” because it undermines the long process of getting justice for the women who endured abuse and appalling conditions.

“We’ve worked so hard to get a special master in there to clean house, so to speak,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of her status as a whistleblower in an ongoing lawsuit. The AP doesn’t name victims of sexual abuse without their consent. “And pretty much the minute after that happened, they say they’re just going to close it down.”

She said it would be inhumane to transfer hundreds of inmates to prisons across the country, away from their families. “What the women have gone through at this facility, the abuse they suffered, that was punishment,” she said. “They’re all low security. Send them home, send them to supervised relief. Let them be productive members of society.”

On Monday, two buses moved around the parking lot of FCI Dublin. Prison staff moved baggage and carts of supplies between the buildings and buses. An AP reporter did not see any inmates leaving the facility.

A history of abuse allegations — and convictions

Last month, the FBI again searched the prison and the Bureau of Prisons again shook up its leadership after a warden sent to help rehabilitate the facility was accused of retaliating against a whistleblower inmate. Days later, a federal judge overseeing lawsuits against the prison, said she would appoint a special master to oversee the facility’s operations.

An AP investigation in 2021 found a culture of abuse and cover-ups that had persisted for years at the prison. That reporting led to increased scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the Bureau of Prisons that it would fix problems and change the culture at the prison.

Since 2021, at least eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty. Two were convicted at trial, including the former warden, Ray Garcia. Another case is pending.

All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees have substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.

Inmate advocates worry that some of the safety concerns at FCI Dublin could persist at the other women’s prisons. “The problem isn’t solved by shipping these girls to new facilities,” said another former Dublin inmate and whistleblower who spoke on condition of anonymity. “These facilities still have the same issues.”

Montes said the civil litigation will continue despite the imminent closure.

“The BOP is the defendant in the case. It’s not FCI Dublin,” she said. “And so we are in the mindset that this did not end our case — that they still have a responsibility to our clients to keep them safe.”

The Associated Press

New York State Senator James Skoufis

Chairman of Committee on Investigations and Government Operations

( D ) 42nd Senate District

Prison Politics

James Skoufis

March 21, 2024

• Prison Closures
• FY2024-25 State Budget

Closing an additional five prisons without a plan for the host communities is creating worries among Democratic state lawmakers.

New York has shuttered 24 prisons over the last decade as the overall corrections population has declined. But the vacant facilities dotted across largely rural areas of New York have been mostly left to rot.

“There’s no property tax revenue coming in,” state Sen. James Skoufis told Playbook. “It’s a blight on the community. Obviously there are no jobs there.”

Skoufis is fretting over the potential closure of Otisville Correctional Facility in the Catskills; the facility is the largest municipal water customer for the nearby village. A list of potential prison closures has not been made public.

“Everyone else’s water bill in this tiny village would increase not by hundreds, but thousands of dollars annually if it closes,” Skoufis said.

A plan to close at least five prisons was included in Hochul’s budget plan. The movement to close the facilities began under her predecessor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who both saved money and won plaudits from advocates for reforming the criminal justice system.

So lawmakers are trying to figure out how to encourage development at the former prisons. A tax credit to encourage developers to build at the sites has gone unused.

In the Senate, Democratic lawmakers want to double the amount of time that elapses between when a prison is formally notified for closure and when it shuts down from 90 days to 180.

But there are also discussions over how to cushion the blow for communities. The unused tax credit for developing the former prisons is being eyed for an overhaul as are other programs meant to spur building at the sites.

“Prisons should not be a jobs program, but the reality is in a lot of localities, the prison is maybe the largest employer,” Senate Corrections Chair Julia Salazar said.

There needs to be “a more comprehensive plan beyond this to include workforce development, economic development in communities that are relying too much on prisons,” she said.

Still, Democratic lawmakers also expect a prison closure plan to be approved in some form once the budget, due April 1, is completed. It’s not clear how much money would ultimately be saved.

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Rural counties rely on prisons to provide firefighters who work for free

J. Carlee Purdum

April 18, 2024 6:33 pm.

Firefighters from the Dodge State Prison fire department during a training demonstration. The fire department regularly aids local volunteer departments and has helped fight wildfires around the Okefenokee Swamp. Grant Blankenship/GPB

If you call 911 in rural Georgia, the nearest emergency responders might come from the local prison.

In 1963, the Georgia Department of Corrections began a program to  train incarcerated people as firefighters  to support not only their prisons, but also the surrounding communities. Over time, the program has grown dramatically. Today, prison fire teams from 19 Georgia state prisons,  including a women’s prison , and six county prisons are trained in firefighting and emergency medical response.

The crews respond to motor vehicle accidents, structure fires, brush fires, hazardous materials incidents and search and rescue efforts, among other emergencies – all  without being paid a salary . Jackson County describes incarcerated firefighters  as responding to “every structural fire in Jackson County, where they serve as manpower support to every Fire Department on scene.”

Georgia is not alone in this practice. Prison systems in Alabama,  California ,  Indiana , Mississippi, New Mexico and  Wyoming , along with the  Federal Bureau of Prisons , have deployed incarcerated firefighters to respond to local emergencies.

But while these programs fill a vital service in many rural areas, they aren’t universally loved. They have been accused of both exploiting incarcerated people and taking jobs away from professional firefighters.

The era of rural decline and mass incarceration

I study connections between disasters and mass incarceration and spend a lot of time talking with prison officials, disaster response teams and inmates. My research has found that incarcerated people have become  increasingly embedded in local emergency response efforts  as EMTs and firefighters. There are two primary reasons: the vulnerability of rural communities and vulnerability of the incarcerated workers.

Many rural communities have been  struggling for years to provide adequate emergency services . As they lose population, their tax bases dwindle. Volunteer fire departments have also been harder to staff as increasing demands in the workplace and on families have left less time for volunteering.

At the same time rural communities were declining, the 1980s to early 2000s saw  an explosion in prison construction .  Tough-on-crime policies  led to an  increase in the rate of incarceration , even as research suggested incarceration had a  minimal-at-best relationship to crime rates .

Prisons  were marketed  as a way to stabilize rural communities devastated by declines in manufacturing and resource-dependent industries such as mining. They remain a staple of many fragile rural economies today.

The rise of prison emergency services

Prison fire departments initially started to train prison staff and incarcerated people  to protect prisons from fires , knowing there might be little or no outside support in their rural locations. Occasionally, prison fire brigades responded to local emergencies or disasters if the local fire department needed help. But that has changed in many communities.

Today, Georgia’s program has about 200 participants each year.  Those who qualify receive training  to become certified as firefighters and EMTs and live in the prison firehouse rather than in cells. But while some states,  including California , pay a small wage to inmate fire crews, Georgia’s  aren’t paid a salary .

Officials in rural communities told me they relied on the prisons’ services because  their own emergency crews were understaffed . Without enough personnel, not only were the communities vulnerable, but any paid or volunteer firefighters were also vulnerable because they would be responding without the support needed to safely handle emergencies.

However, while the program may provide much-needed stability to many communities, it has also faced backlash in some areas of Georgia. When Camden County considered supplementing the local fire department with incarcerated firefighters in 2011, members of the department raised fears about the safety of the community.

Officials I spoke with suggested there had been  some resentment  from more urban areas that see the program as a way to avoid paying for career firefighters and from local volunteers who feel like they’re being replaced by the incarcerated firefighters.

Missing link: Job prospects after prison

The Georgia program also raises questions about the vulnerability of incarcerated firefighters.

Incarcerated people who participate in the program  must sign a waiver  that releases the Georgia Department of Corrections from liability should they be injured while working as a firefighter. They also are  not eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits .

Those rules increase the risks for incarcerated firefighters. Several have been injured while responding to fires and other local emergencies in Georgia and other states.

At least one incarcerated firefighter has died in Georgia.  William A. Satterfield died  in 1984 responding to a fire call with the prison fire team. In May 2013, the Georgia Board of Public Safety voted to acknowledge the death and service of Satterfield in a Public Safety Memorial.  Two firefighters  from Georgia’s Dooly State Prison were injured in 2016 in a vehicle crash while responding to a fire call.

An incarcerated firefighter in Mississippi,  Michael Davenport , died while fighting a structure fire in 2006. According to court documents from a subsequent lawsuit, Davenport  did not receive full firefighter training , but there were no laws requiring such training at the time.

It is unknown how often these injuries occur or how working as a firefighter affects the health of incarcerated people after they are released.

Prison officials have told me that incarcerated men and women  benefit from the program  because it provides job training.

Yet, incarcerated firefighters face significant barriers to finding jobs in fire and emergency services upon release. Current  Georgia law does not allow  participants in the program to apply for a civilian position with a fire department until five years after their conviction date.

Several fire officials told me that they wished they could hire the incarcerated firefighters they had worked with. But if they had the funds to hire more full-time firefighters, they wouldn’t have been working with the program in the first place.

States can take steps to help

Some states have worked to create policies that support formerly incarcerated firefighters. In 2020, California passed a law that would allow incarcerated firefighters to apply to have their  criminal records expunged , making them eligible to apply for jobs as EMTs.

I believe incarcerated firefighters and fire crews in Georgia and other states would benefit from similar policies to allow them to find jobs upon release. The state and many others would also benefit from working to address the extreme vulnerability that rural fire departments are facing as they struggle to protect their communities with limited outside support.

This commentary was first published by The Conversation .

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our website. AP and Getty images may not be republished. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of any other photos and graphics.

Research Assistant Professor, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, Texas A&M University.

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Bureau of Prisons to close California women’s prison where inmates have been subjected to sex abuse

FILE - The Federal Correctional Institution stands in Dublin, Calif., Dec. 5, 2022. The federal Bureau of Prisons says it is planning to close a women’s prison in California known as the “rape club” despite attempts to reform the troubled facility after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

The Federal Correctional Institution is seen in Dublin, Calif., Monday, April 15, 2024. The beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons said Monday it will close a women’s prison in California known as the “rape club” despite attempts to reform the troubled facility after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons said Monday it will close a women’s prison in California known as the “rape club” despite attempts to reform the troubled facility after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.

Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said in a statement to the AP that the agency had “taken unprecedented steps and provided a tremendous amount of resources to address culture, recruitment and retention, aging infrastructure and — most critical — employee misconduct.”

“Despite these steps and resources, we have determined that FCI Dublin is not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility,” Peters said. “This decision is being made after ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of those unprecedented steps and additional resources.”

The announcement of Dublin’s closure represents an extraordinary acknowledgement by the Bureau of Prisons that its much-promised efforts to improve the culture and environment there have not worked. Many attempts to stem the problems at Dublin have come after the AP investigation revealed a pattern of abuse and mismanagement that crossed years, even decades.

Just 10 days before the closure announcement, a federal judge took the unprecedented step of appointing a special master to oversee the prison .

ADVOCATES WANT PRISONERS FREED

FCI Dublin, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) east of Oakland, is one of six women-only federal prisons and the only one west of the Rocky Mountains. It currently houses 605 inmates — 504 inmates in its main prison and another 101 at an adjacent minimum-security camp. That figure is down from a total of 760 prisoners in February 2022.

The women currently housed at the prison will be transferred to other facilities, Peters said, and no employees will lose their jobs.

Advocates have called for inmates to be freed from FCI Dublin, which they say is not only plagued by sexual abuse but also has hazardous mold, asbestos and inadequate health care.

Last August, eight FCI Dublin inmates sued the Bureau of Prisons , or BOP, alleging the agency had failed to root out sexual abuse. Amaris Montes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, had said inmates continued to face retaliation for reporting abuse, including being put in solitary confinement and having belongings confiscated.

Montes said she and her clients had suspected closure might be a possibility, but the suddenness of the decision so quickly after the special master appointment came as a shock. “It’s a signal that the prison knows that they are not meeting constitutional standards to keep people safe from sexual assault and sexual harassment,” Montes said Monday.

Montes said timing on the closure and transfer of inmates was still being worked out, but she hoped it would be done in a measured way.

“I think that the BOP is quick to try to transfer accountability and move accountability elsewhere as the way to remedy the issue. And that would mean, you know, moving people quickly without addressing people’s needs right now.” Many of the incarcerated women have physical and mental health issues that need to be dealt with, she said, while other inmates might be considered for release.

A former Dublin inmate who is a whistleblower in the civil lawsuit said Monday that the abruptly announced closure “just feels wrong” because it undermines the long process of getting justice for the women who endured abuse and appalling conditions.

“We’ve worked so hard to get a special master in there to clean house, so to speak,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of her status as a whistleblower in an ongoing lawsuit. The AP doesn’t name victims of sexual abuse without their consent. “And pretty much the minute after that happened, they say they’re just going to close it down.”

She said it would be inhumane to transfer hundreds of inmates to prisons across the country, away from their families. “What the women have gone through at this facility, the abuse they suffered, that was punishment,” she said. “They’re all low security. Send them home, send them to supervised relief. Let them be productive members of society.”

On Monday, two buses moved around the parking lot of FCI Dublin. Prison staff moved baggage and carts of supplies between the buildings and buses. An AP reporter did not see any inmates leaving the facility.

A HISTORY OF ABUSE ALLEGATIONS — AND CONVICTIONS

Last month, the FBI again searched the prison and the Bureau of Prisons again shook up its leadership after a warden sent to help rehabilitate the facility was accused of retaliating against a whistleblower inmate . Days later, a federal judge overseeing lawsuits against the prison, said she would appoint a special master to oversee the facility’s operations .

An AP investigation in 2021 found a culture of abuse and cover-ups that had persisted for years at the prison. That reporting led to increased scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the Bureau of Prisons that it would fix problems and change the culture at the prison.

Since 2021, at least eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty. Two were convicted at trial, including the former warden, Ray Garcia . Another case is pending.

All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees have substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.

Inmate advocates worry that some of the safety concerns at FCI Dublin could persist at the other women’s prisons. “The problem isn’t solved by shipping these girls to new facilities,” said another former Dublin inmate and whistleblower who spoke on condition of anonymity. “These facilities still have the same issues.”

Montes said the civil litigation will continue despite the imminent closure.

“The BOP is the defendant in the case. It’s not FCI Dublin,” she said. “And so we are in the mindset that this did not end our case — that they still have a responsibility to our clients to keep them safe.”

Sisak and Balsamo reported from New York. Follow Sisak at x.com/mikesisak and Balsamo at x.com/MikeBalsamo1 and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/ . Associated Press journalist Terry Chea in Dublin, California, contributed to this report.

• International

April 18, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

By Kathleen Magramo , Helen Regan , Jack Guy, Ed Upright, Aditi Sangal , Adrienne Vogt , Christina Maxouris, Tori B. Powell and Aya Elamroussi , CNN

Jailed WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich appears at Moscow court to appeal terms of detention

From CNN's Stephanie Halasz

Jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is appearing at the Moscow City Court hearing to appeal the terms of his detention.

He is asking that his pre-trial detention be under house arrest rather than in jail.

Gershkovich is standing in a glass cage, arms folded, standing up as journalists scramble in.

The US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy is standing to the right of the cage with lawyers.

Gershkovich was detained in late March and  formally charged with espionage .

The US State Department has officially designated Gershkovich  as wrongfully detained by Russia.

Wagner chief threatens former fighters who claim to have been ordered to commit atrocities

From CNN's Tim Lister

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia's Wagner private military company, has threatened retribution against two former Wagner fighters who claimed they had been ordered to commit atrocities against civilians in eastern Ukraine.

The two men appeared on a video made by Vladimir Osechkin, the founder of Gulagu.net, a human rights organization targeting corruption and torture in Russia.

Prigozhin confirmed on his Telegram channel that he had watched parts of the video.

“I can say the following: if at least one of these accusations against me is confirmed, I am ready to be held accountable according to any laws," he said.

“If none is confirmed, I will send a list of 30-40 people who are spitting at me like Osechkin ... that the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine is obligated to hand over to me for a 'fair trial,' so to speak.”

Prigozhin said the account was a "fragrant lie" and Wagner fighters "have never touched and do not touch" children.

Some context: Prigozhin was referring to video interviews with former Russian convicts Azamat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev – who were both pardoned by Russian presidential decrees last year, according to Gulagu.net.

Uldarov, who appears to have been drinking, details how he shot and killed a 5 or 6-year-old girl.

He called it: “A management decision. I wasn’t allowed to let anyone out alive, because my command was to kill anything in my way.”

CNN cannot independently verify their claims or identities in the videos but has obtained Russian penal documents showing they were released on presidential pardon in September and August 2022.

Read more here:

Two Russians claiming to be former Wagner commanders admit killing children and civilians in Ukraine | CNN

Putin asked for situation update during visit to troops in russian-occupied kherson, kremlin says.

From CNN's Tim Lister and Teele Rebane

In video released by the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s convoy can be seen passing a sign that indicates he visited Henichesk, a town in southern Kherson that has become a headquarters for Russian forces.

Putin spoke with senior commanders about the situation in the south of Ukraine while he was there on Monday.

“I do not want to distract you from your direct duties related to command and control,” Putin said. “Therefore, we are working here in a business-like manner, briefly, but concretely.”

“It is important for me to hear your opinion on how the situation is developing, to listen to you, to exchange information. I would ask you to start your report with the situation in the Kherson direction, then in the Zaporozhzhia direction," he continued, according to the Kremlin.

Some context: Russian forces occupy parts of both regions and some analysts think the front will be the focus of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the coming months.  

Airborne Forces: Putin also said that he had asked Mikhail Yuryevich Teplinsky, the head of Russia's Airborne Forces called the VDV, to "express his thoughts," adding that Teplinsky has been at the front line "for quite a long time and made a very detailed report.”

Until recently, Teplinsky was thought to have fallen out of favor with the Russian defense ministry, but UK intelligence suggested last week that he had been rehabilitated.

“Teplinsky is likely one of the few senior Russian generals widely respected by the rank-and-file... His recent turbulent career suggests intense tensions between factions within the Russian general staff about Russia’s military approach in Ukraine,” the UK Ministry of Defence said.

Teplinsky was in charge of the relatively successful withdrawal from west of the Dnipro River in November 2022 and had been " previously dismissed from the theatre in January," the UK Ministry of Defence added.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based analytical group, said that “Teplinsky remains highly unlikely to restore the VDV to its prior status as an elite force due to widespread losses to the most elite Russian units that are now being restaffed with poorly trained mobilized personnel.”

It said his reappearance “additionally suggests that the Russian military command is likely seeking to place an increased emphasis on the role of VDV elements in Russian offensive operations.”

Ukrainian commander says Russians "unsuccessful" in most areas of frontline

From Olga Voitovych in Kyiv

The commander of Ukraine’s land forces said that despite multiple assaults, Russian forces have failed to break through Ukrainian defenses along several parts of the frontline where they have concentrated forces. 

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on the Land Forces Telegram channel Tuesday: “The enemy is conducting offensive actions in several directions simultaneously. But the enemy's actions are unsuccessful on most of them.”

Syrskyi said that in the Kupiansk direction, the northern part of the frontline in Kharkiv region “the enemy attempted to conduct offensive actions, but thanks to the accurate fire of our artillery, fled before even reaching the line of attack."

He also said Russia's actions were unsuccessful in the Lyman direction, near the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk.

“Nevertheless, the Bakhmut direction remains the epicenter of the fighting. This is where the enemy is concentrating most of its efforts and does not abandon the goal of taking control of the city at any cost. Currently, the enemy is increasing the activity of heavy artillery and the number of air strikes, turning the city into ruins,” Syrskyi said “Our soldiers inflict significant losses on the enemy and significantly slow down its offensive. The battle for Bakhmut continues. The situation is currently under control."

While Syrskyi’s claims cannot be independently confirmed, there’s no evidence to suggest that Russian forces have made any substantive gains in Luhansk, Kharkiv or Donetsk regions in recent weeks.

Bakhmut: Separately, the Border Guard Service of Ukraine acknowledged that “the battle for Bakhmut has moved to the central part of the city," adding that in some areas, Ukrainian defenders are separated by a few meters from Russian occupiers.

It also said that Russian forces appeared to have plenty of munitions, deviating from a "shell hunger," or lack of ammo supplies , preciously reported by the Russian private military group Wagner.

Blinken reiterates calls for the release of detained Wall Street Journal reporter

From CNN's Alex Stambaugh 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday reiterated calls for the release of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich .

On Monday, US Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy  visited  Gershkovich in prison, the US embassy said on  Twitter .

Blinken told reporters in the Japanese town of Karuizawa, where G7 foreign ministers have gathered for talks, that "based on what Ambassador Tracy has said, that he is in good health and good spirits considering the circumstances."

"Severe consequences" if Russia uses chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, G7 foreign ministers say

From CNN's Alex Stambaugh

G7 foreign ministers said Russia would be met with "severe consequences" for any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and that those supporting Russia in Ukraine would face "severe costs."

"Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and its threat to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus are unacceptable. Any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences," a communique issued Tuesday by the ministers said.

"We remain committed to intensifying sanctions against Russia, coordinating and fully enforcing them," it said. "We reiterate our call on third parties to cease assistance to Russia’s war, or face severe costs."

The group also strongly condemned Russia's "widespread use of information manipulation and disinformation" to gain support for its war against Ukraine.

It also said the group of ministers support "exploring the creation" of an international tribunal based in Ukraine's judicial system to prosecute crimes of aggression against Ukraine. 

The communique comes as G7 foreign ministers wrap up three days of talks on Tuesday in the central Japanese town of Karuizawa in Nagano prefecture. 

What to know about Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was jailed for 25 years after publicly criticizing the Ukraine war

Vladimir Kara-Murza , a prominent Russian human rights advocate and Kremlin critic, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after publicly condemning Moscow’s war in Ukraine, in a decision that was condemned as politically motivated and draconian by the international community.

Kara-Murza will appeal the sentence, his lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, told CNN on Monday.

Here's what you need to know:

• On trial for treason: Kara-Murza was initially detained one year ago, hours after  an interview with CNN  in which he criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “regime of murderers.” He was on trial for criminal offenses that included treason, spreading fake news about the Russian army, and facilitating activities of an undesirable organization. Kara-Murza has long been critical of Putin and has survived two poisonings.
• Sentence: The Moscow City Court on Monday sentenced Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison in the case of treason, discrediting the army and participating in the activities of an undesirable organization. He was also sentenced to restriction of movement for six months after his release, banned from working in journalism for seven years after release and ordered to pay a fine of 400,000 roubles (roughly $5,000). 

"I am in jail for my political views. For speaking up against the war in Ukraine. For years of fighting against Putin's dictatorship," he said in his closing statement to the court on April 10. "Not only do I not repent for any of this – I am proud of it."

• Praised for "courage": His wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, praise him for his "courage, consistency and honesty in your many years of work," in a statement after the sentencing. She told the London-based radio station LBC that neither she nor their children have spoken with him since last April, and added their children are “terrified” about their father’s wellbeing.
• "Shameless and simply fascist": Is how fellow jailed Russian opposition figure  Alexey Navalny  described the prison sentence handed to Kara-Murza, according to an audio statement shared by his team.
• Deteriorating health: Maria Eismont, a lawyer for Kara-Murza, warned of his deteriorating health, in comments outside court following his sentencing. Eismont said Kara-Murza was diagnosed with polyneuropathy – a condition that develops when nerves in the body's extremities are damaged – when he was taken for an examination to a civilian hospital in Moscow at the end of March. 
• Global condemnation: The  United States ,  United Kingdom  and  Germany  have all condemned the sentencing, among other countries. UK officials are also investigating the possibility of sanctioning everyone involved in Kara-Murza's trial, Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said.

Putin visits troops at military headquarters in Russian-occupied Ukraine

From CNN’s Angus Watson and Josh Pennington

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited troops at a military base in Ukraine's southern Kherson region which is partly held by Russia, state media TASS reported Tuesday.

The Kremlin confirmed later Tuesday that the visit took place on Monday.

During the visit, Putin spoke with commanders from the airborne forces of Russia’s “Dnieper” army unit, while also meeting with other senior officers, according to TASS. 

One of the purposes of the visit was to get a “report” from commanders on the situation in both the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia directions, TASS added. 

It's morning in Kyiv. Here's what you need to know

From CNN staff

Heavy fighting is ongoing in and around the contentious eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, said the Ukrainian military’s General Staff.

Moscow is interested in ending the conflict in Ukraine  "as soon as possible ," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after meeting with Brazil's foreign minister.

Here's what else to know:

• Wagner commanders: Two Russian men who claim to be former Wagner Group commanders have told a human rights activist that they killed children and civilians during their time in Ukraine. The claims were made in video interviews with Gulagu.net, the founder of a human rights organization targeting corruption and torture in Russia.
• Attacks in Bakhmut:  The Russian Ministry of Defense has said that "assault detachments" have  captured two districts  in the center and northwest of the embattled city of Bakhmut. It comes after the Ukrainian military said Russia launched " unsuccessful attacks " against the Bakhmut suburbs. The move suggests an attempt by Moscow to encircle Ukrainian soldiers within Bakhmut.
• Kremlin critic gets 25-year sentence:  Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent British-Russian human rights advocate and Kremlin critic, was sentenced to  25 years  in prison by the Moscow City Court on Monday after publicly condemning Russia's war in Ukraine. The  United States ,  United Kingdom  and  Germany  have all condemned the sentencing, among other countries. Kara-Murza said he is  "proud"  and stands "by every word I have spoken."
• Detained American:  US Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy  visited  detained Wall Street Journal reporter  Evan Gershkovich on  Monday, the US embassy said on  Twitter . After the visit, the White House said it wants more  frequent and routine  access to the journalist.
• Ukrainian grain:  Ukraine has accused Moscow of threatening the  United Nations-brokered Grain Initiative , saying ship inspections in Turkish territorial waters have been blocked for the second time on Monday, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure. Russia has maintained its position and said prospects for extending the grain deal have not been improving.
• Russian oil:  Moscow's  oil exports  have bounced back to levels last seen before it invaded Ukraine, despite a barrage of  Western sanctions . According to the International Energy Agency, Russian exports of crude oil and oil products rose in March to  their highest level  since April 2020.
• Meetings with Brazilian officials:  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet with Brazilian President  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva . Lavrov said Russia is "interested" in  ending the conflict in Ukraine  "as soon as possible" following a meeting earlier Monday with his Brazilian counterpart. Brazil's president said over the weekend that he discussed creating a group of countries willing to mediate talks between Russia and Ukraine with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

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Unprecedented wave of narco-violence stuns Argentina city, testing president's tough-on-crime agenda

ROSARIO, Argentina — The order to kill came from inside a federal prison near Argentina’s capital. Unwitting authorities patched a call from drug traffickers tied to one of the country’s most notorious gangs to collaborators on the outside. Hiring a 15-year-old hit man, they sealed the fate of a young father they didn’t even know.

At a service station on March 9 in Rosario, the picturesque hometown of soccer star Lionel Messi, 25-year-old employee Bruno Bussanich was whistling to himself and checking the day’s earnings just before he was shot three times from less than a foot away, surveillance footage shows. The assailant fled without taking a peso.

It was the fourth gang-related fatal shooting in Rosario in almost as many days. Authorities called it an unprecedented rampage in Argentina, which had never witnessed the extremes of drug cartel violence afflicting some other Latin American countries.

A handwritten letter was found near Bussanich’s body, addressed to officials who want to curb the power drug kingpins wield from behind bars. “We don’t want to negotiate anything. We want our rights,” it says. “We will kill more innocent people.”

Shaken residents interviewed by The Associated Press across Rosario described a sense of dread taking hold.

“Every time I go to work, I say goodbye to my father as if it were the last time,” said 21-year-old Celeste Núñez, who also works at a gas station.

The string of killings offer an early test to the security agenda of populist President Javier Milei, who has tethered his political success to saving Argentina’s tanking economy and eradicating narco-trafficking violence.

Since taking office Dec. 10, the right-wing leader has promised to prosecute gang members as terrorists and change the law to allow the army into crime-ridden streets for the first time since Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship ended in 1983.

His law-and-order message has empowered the hardline governor of Santa Fe province, which includes Rosario, to clamp down on incarcerated criminal gangs that authorities say orchestrated 80% of shootings last year. Under the orders of Governor Maximiliano Pullaro, police have ramped up prison raids, seized thousands of smuggled cellphones and restricted visits.

“We are facing a group of narco-terrorists desperate to maintain power and impunity,” Milei said after Bussanich was killed, announcing the deployment of federal forces in Rosario. “We will lock them up, isolate them, take back the streets.”

Milei won 56% of the vote in Rosario, where residents praise his focus on a problem largely neglected by his predecessors. But some worry the government’s combative approach traps them in the line of fire.

Gangs started their deadly retaliations just hours after Pullaro’s security minister shared photos showing Argentine prisoners crammed together on the floor, heads pressed against each other’s bare backs — a scene reminiscent of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s harsh anti-gang crackdown.

“It’s a war between the state and the drug traffickers,” said Ezequiel, a 30-year-old employee at the gas station where Bussanich was killed. Ezequiel, who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals, said his mother has since begged him to quit. “We’re the ones paying the price.”

Even Milei’s supporters have mixed feelings about the crackdown, including Germán Bussanich, the father of the slain gas station worker.

“They’re putting on a show and we’re facing the consequences,” Bussanich told reporters.

A leafy city 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires, Rosario is where revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born, Messi first kicked a soccer ball and the Argentine flag was first raised in 1812. But it most recently won notoriety because its homicide numbers are five times the national average.

Tucked into a bend in the Paraná River, Rosario’s port morphed into Argentina’s drug trafficking hub as regional crackdowns pushed the narcotics trade south and criminals started squirreling away cocaine in shipping containers spirited down the river to markets abroad. Although Rosario never suffered the car bombs and police assassinations gripping Mexico , Colombia and most recently Ecuador , the splintering of street gangs has fueled bloodshed.

“It’s not close to the violence in Mexico because we still have the deterrence capacity of the government in Argentina,” said Marcelo Bergman, a social scientist at the National University of Tres de Febrero in Argentina. “But we need to keep an eye on Rosario because the major threats come not so much from big cartels but when these groups proliferate and diversify.”

Drug traffickers keep a tight grip over Rosario’s poor neighborhoods full of young men vulnerable to recruitment. One of them was Víctor Emanuel, a 17-year-old killed two years ago by rival gangsters in an area where street murals pay tribute to slain criminal leaders. No one was arrested.

“My neighbors know who’s responsible,” his mother, Gerónima Benítez, told the AP, her eyes shiny with tears. “I looked for help everywhere, I knocked on the doors of the judiciary, the government. No one answered.”

A fearful existence is all Benítez has ever known. But now, for the first time in Argentina, warring drug traffickers are banding together and terrorizing parts of the city previously considered safe.

Imprisoned gang leaders in Latin America have long run criminal enterprises remotely with the help of corrupt guards. But according to an indictment unveiled last week , incarcerated gang bosses in Argentina have been passing instructions on how to kill random civilians via family visits and video calls.

Court documents say the bosses paid underage hit men up to $450 to target four of the recent victims in Argentina’s third-largest city. The killing of Bussanich, two taxi drivers and a bus driver in less than a week in March, federal prosecutors say, “shattered the peace of an entire society.”

Street emptied. Schools closed. Bus drivers picketed. People were too terrified to leave their homes.

“This violence is on another level,” 20-year-old Rodrigo Dominguez said from an intersection where a dangling banner demanded justice for another bus driver slain there weeks earlier. “You can’t go outside.”

Panic was still palpable in Rosario last week, as police swarmed the streets and normally bustling bars closed early for lack of customers. A diner managed by Messi’s family, a draw for fans, reported quiet nights and less profit. Women in one neighborhood said they carry 22‐caliber pistols. Analía Manso, 37, said she was too scared to send her children to school.

Pope Francis last month said he was praying for his countrymen in Rosario.

Assaults and public threats continue. This month, a sign appeared on a highway overpass warning Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich that gangs would extend their offensive to Buenos Aires if the government doesn’t back down.

Authorities have sought to reassure the public by sending hundreds of federal agents into Rosario. The AP spent a night with police last week as officers patrolled neighborhoods logging suspicious activity and setting up checkpoints.

Georgina Wilke, a 45-year-old Rosario officer in the explosives squad, said she welcomes federal intervention, including the military, to get crime under control. “We’ve been hit very hard,” Wilke said.

Omar Pereira, the provincial secretary of public security, promised the efforts represent a shift from failed tactics of the past.

“There were always pacts, implicit or explicit, between the state and criminals,” Pereira said, describing how authorities long looked the other way. “What’s the idea of this government? There is no pact.”

But experts are skeptical a tough-on-crime approach will stop drug traffickers from buying control over Argentina’s police and prisons.

“Unless the government fixes its problems with corruption, the crackdown on prisons is unlikely to have any long-term effect,” said Christopher Newton, an investigator at Colombia-based research organization InSight Crime.

For years, Rosario’s 1.3 million residents have watched warily as presidents and their promises come and go while the violence endures.

“It’s like a cancer that grows and grows,” said Benítez from her home, its windows protected by wrought-iron bars.

“We, on the outside, live in prison,” she said. “Those inside have everything.”