No Prisoner Left Behind? Enhancing Public Transparency of Penal Institutions
Prisoners suffer life-long debilitating effects of their incarceration, making them a subordinated class of people for life. This article examines how prison conditions facilitate subordination and concludes that enhancing transparency is the first step towards equality. Anti-subordination efforts led to enhanced transparency in schools, a similar but not identical institution. This article argues that federal school transparency measures provide a rudimentary and balanced framework for enhancing prison transparency.
The Missing Link: Jail and Prison Conditions in Criminal Justice Reform
At any given moment in the United States, approximately 2.3 million people are behind bars, at least a quarter of whom have not been convicted of a crime. Louisiana was second in the nation — and the world — in incarceration rates in 2018, but it is last nationwide in other relevant rankings: health care, infant mortality, economy, education, and infrastructure. Louisiana only lost its title of “Incarceration Capital of the World” to Oklahoma following bipartisan state legislation enacted in 2017, which lowered our per capita incarceration rate. Louisiana still far outpaces the nation, incarcerating 712 people per 100,000, compared to a national average of 450 people per 100,000. 
 
The goal of this article is simple: to connect the dots between conditions in jails and prisons and broader criminal justice reform efforts. This Article looks at conditions in Louisiana jails and prisons, examines recent reforms, and draws from other states and national data to establish broader trends. It discusses recent criminal justice reform efforts, summarizes some of the key features of prison and jail conditions, with particular attention to how these conditions impact both the people incarcerated and their broader communities, and recommends several strategies to improve prisons and jails based on the relationships between their conditions and existing criminal justice reforms.
Scaffolds Containing Spirulina sp. LEB 18 Biomass: Development, Characterization and Evaluation of In Vitro Biodegradation.
Polymer nanofibers are nanomaterials that can be used as scaffolds in tissue engineering. The objective of this study was to develop, characterize and evaluate the in vitro degradation of a biomaterial consisting of nanofibers produced from biodegradable and biocompatible polymers with potential applications as a scaffold for tissue regeneration and containing Spirulina sp. LEB 18 biomass as the bioactive compound. The polymers used were poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) and polycaprolactone. The polymeric solutions exhibited sufficiently high viscosity to produce uniform nanofibers with diameters between 335 and 617 nm. The applied conditions were as follows: a voltage of 25 kV, a distance from the capillary to the collector of 120 mm, a capillary diameter of 0.80 mm, and 12% polycaprolactone and a blend of 5% polycaprolactone and 10% poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate). The biomass was incorporated into the nanofibers at a concentration of 3%, and the incorporation was confirmed using confocal microscopy. The nanofibers were characterized using differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis, which showed that the addition of biomass did not alter the thermal properties of the biomaterial. The addition of biomass improved the tensile strength and elongation of the scaffolds compared with those produced with polymers alone. A biodegradation assay showed enzymatic action toward the biomaterial, simulating the behavior of natural tissue. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that the scaffolds that were produced have the potential to be applied in the field of tissue regeneration as biomaterials with pharmacological properties.