Prisoner Transfers

The nation's most famous "country club prison," once the domain of such celebrity felons as inside trader Ivan Boesky and Watergate figure H.R. Haldeman, is shutting down. The Lompoc Federal Prison Camp is being converted into a higher security federal prison. A prison with fences and razor wire instead of small "off-limits" signs around the property. A prison where inmates have to wear khaki uniforms instead of shorts and T-shirts. A prison where inmates can't play tennis in the afternoon.

It was a rough night at the GOP debate in Las Vegas for Herman Cain -- and after the debate it got rougher still. Cain was asked about remarks he made earlier in the day during a CNN interview about whether he would consider a prisoner exchange involving suspected terrorists jailed at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and an American soldier, similar to the deal that freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit along with more than 1,000 Palestinians....

Facing anxious citizens afraid of becoming terrorist targets, federal officials confirmed Tuesday that some of the most notorious Guantanamo detainees could be sent to Illinois if the Obama administration buys a state prison. The proposed federal prison in Thomson would be the site for military tribunals for five alleged plotters in the 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole, said Alan Liotta, the Defense Department's principal director for detainee policy, at a public hearing on the plan.

The Obama administration wants to retain the ability to hold terrorism suspects from other countries at its largest prison in Afghanistan, even after it hands control of the facility to the Afghan government next year, according to U.S. officials. If Afghan officials agree, it would give the administration a place to interrogate terrorism suspects captured in countries such as Somalia or Yemen. President Obama made a high-profile pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after taking office last year.

The city will be the first in Orange County to allow misdemeanor offenders to pay extra to serve their sentences in the less-crowded city jail instead of County Jail. Under the new program, unanimously approved by the City Council on Monday, 16 qualifying misdemeanor offenders may serve their time in the city jail in exchange for a fee ranging from $65 to $100 a day. The program is expected to start this week.

Marilyn Cantrell's life changed so fast it could almost give a person whiplash. One day she's cruising in a Hollywood world: a personal secretary for actors, going to parties at the Playboy Mansion, living a life that didn't give her and her two children all that much to complain about. The next day she looks out her window and the police are coming to her door.

For years, Denver residents have accused Los Angeles of exporting its gang problem to their fair city. Now, a Denver judge has sentenced a founder of Denver's Rolling 30s Crips who was convicted of assaulting a police officer to a Los Angeles anti-gang program--over the strenuous objections of authorities who say the 26-year-old man is a dangerous "chameleon." Deputy Dist. Atty.

The hip-hop world is buzzing about the possible prison release this month of Los Angeles rap tycoon Marion "Suge" Knight. But the government has other plans. Knight, whose Death Row Records is expected to command the top position on the pop chart this week, will be transferred April 22 from Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento to an undisclosed federal facility to serve an additional three months for a probation violation, law enforcement sources said.

The flight path into the U.S. military's most isolated prison sweeps down over the teal waters of a placid bay graced by rare manatees and wild herons. But the seascape's tranquil beauty was probably veiled from 14 suspected Islamic terrorist leaders who were secretly transferred to the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base nearly two weeks ago under orders from President Bush.

The federal Bureau of Prisons has reassigned former Gov. George H. Ryan to a prison in central Wisconsin to serve his racketeering and fraud sentence, his attorneys said in Chicago. The prison in Oxford, Wis., where various politicians, mobsters and others from Chicago have served time, is considerably closer to the city than his original assignment in Duluth, Minn.

In a potential glitch in the administration's effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, President Obama on Tuesday ordered a halt to the transfer of detainees to Yemen, where the Christmas Day attack on a U.S. airliner is believed to have been planned. Obama's decision shows that the failed attack on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit is having a direct effect on a key objective of his presidency. "We will not be transferring additional detainees back to Yemen at this time," Obama told reporters at the White House.

The Obama administration faces a number of hurdles in its effort to buy Illinois' Thomson prison and use it to house suspected terrorists now at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Among them: agreeing on a sale price, renovating the facility and getting Congress to change U.S. law so that some detainees can be held on American soil even though they won't face trial. Then there's the matter of paying for it. Last week, President Obama directed Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to act "as expeditiously as possible" to acquire the mostly vacant prison in northwestern Illinois.

Facing anxious citizens afraid of becoming terrorist targets, federal officials confirmed Tuesday that some of the most notorious Guantanamo detainees could be sent to Illinois if the Obama administration buys a state prison. The proposed federal prison in Thomson would be the site for military tribunals for five alleged plotters in the 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole, said Alan Liotta, the Defense Department's principal director for detainee policy, at a public hearing on the plan.

President Obama began the year with a pledge to close the Guantanamo prison, and to restore due process and the core constitutional values that he said "made this country great." But his administration has set out a multi-pronged legal policy for the remaining Guantanamo prisoners that bears a striking similarity to that of the final year of George W. Bush's presidency. Some detainees could be held indefinitely without being charged, if they're deemed impossible to prosecute but too dangerous to release.

As the White House on Tuesday detailed its proposal to move terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a prison in rural Illinois, some lawmakers made it clear that they would try to derail President Obama's plans to shutter the controversial detention center. In addition to buying the nearly empty state prison in Thomson, Ill., to house the Guantanamo detainees, the government said, it plans to set up a courtroom in the facility for defendants who will be tried before a military commission.

Key Democratic lawmakers agreed Wednesday to allow detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be transferred to the United States for trial, removing one of several hurdles the administration must clear to meet its January deadline for closing the military prison. Left unresolved was whether the administration could also hold detainees indefinitely in this country without charging them. House and Senate Democrats who are negotiating the defense authorization bill included language that would prohibit only the "release" of detainees in the United States.

State corrections officials said Friday that rival gang members at Corcoran state prison will no longer be forced to mingle in small exercise yards, a practice that has led to a high number of fights and shootings at the troubled facility. Easing the so-called integration policy comes after criticism of the state Department of Corrections.

Avoiding a showdown with a federal judge, the Obama administration agreed Wednesday to release from Guantanamo Bay an Afghan prisoner who was captured as a teenager and held nearly seven years for allegedly throwing a grenade at U.S. soldiers. The government said it would "promptly release" Mohammed Jawad, now 23, and send him to Afghanistan -- but only after it sent a required notification to Congress explaining whether his release would pose a risk to national security.

The planned transfer of Phil Spector to a different prison has been halted, a corrections official said Friday, but different reasons were given as complications continued to surround his incarceration. Spector, 69, a legendary music producer, is serving 19 years to life for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Spector's wife, Rachelle, said she interceded with a prison official and Spector filed an inmate appeal after it was announced that he would be moved to Pleasant Valley State Prison at Coalinga with a group of other prisoners.

The Obama administration could transfer Guantanamo inmates to be tried and detained at a hybrid military-civilian prison in the United States as part of a proposal being examined by U.S. security agencies, officials said Sunday. The proposal for creating a combined detention and trial facility for Guantanamo inmates in an existing U.S. maximum-security prison is likely to be controversial.