Can Cell Phones In Prison Help Relieve Stress On The Families Of Criminals? (VIDEO)

Family members of criminals say that when their relatives are sentenced to prison, the entire family serves time. HuffPost Live's Marc Lamont Hill hosted a discussion to explore what resources can help these families deal with their burdens.

For Jeff Brooks, lack of communication during his 16-year prison sentence negatively affected his relationship with his son.

"There are no cell phones in California state prison that are allowed," Brooks said. "There's thousands and thousands of guys who have cell phones just simply to keep contact with their families. And they constantly get caught and they get written up. They get more time."

Some argue that cell phones give prisoners a chance to conduct crime outside, but Brooks disagrees.

"The idea that the department of corrections would want you to believe is that all these guys are all using it for criminality. When the fact of the matter is, all people are trying to do is stay connected with their families."

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Gary May Sentenced: Upper Big Branch Mine Superintendent Gets Nearly 2 Years In Prison

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A former superintendent at a West Virginia mine where 29 miners died in a 2010 explosion has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison on a federal conspiracy charge.

Gary May received the sentence of 21 months and a $20,000 fine Thursday in federal court in Beckley. May has cooperated with prosecutors in their continuing criminal investigation of the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine.

He admitted to charges that he defrauded the government through actions such as disabling a methane gas monitor and falsifying records.

A plea hearing is set next month for former longtime Massey Energy executive David Hughart, who's accused of two federal conspiracy charges. Hughart's cooperation has been viewed as a sign that authorities may be gathering evidence to target officials further up the Massey hierarchy.

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California Prison Population: Jerry Brown Challenges Inmate Cap

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Reducing California's inmate population further to meet a federal order would endanger public safety and require the state to ignore its own sentencing laws, Gov. Jerry Brown warned Tuesday as he challenged judges to reject those options.

After years of changes, the Democratic governor said California would have to grant shorter sentences to inmates convicted of violent or serious felonies to meet the court's mandate.

He also called for restoring the state's authority over its prison system, vowing to take that battle to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

The prison population cap was imposed in 2009 after federal judges blamed crowding for dismal conditions that violated inmates' constitutional rights and resulted in the death of an average of one inmate a week due to neglect or poor care.

The judges gave the state until June to reduce the population of California's 33 adult prisons by about 33,000 inmates, to a total of 110,000 inmates.

"Under protest we're offering some options for further release. But make no mistake about it: Releasing prisoners who were convicted of serious and dangerous crimes is not in the public interest," Brown said at a Capitol news conference where he called for the judges to rescind the population cap order.

California already is sending thousands of less-serious offenders to local jails instead of state prisons under a 14-month-old state law designed to reduce crowding and prison spending. But the state is still set to fall short of the court-imposed population cap.

"It's not a smart idea or a sound idea to add further to the burden of the counties," Brown said.

Brown's administration said in court documents filed overnight Monday that it could comply with the court's current population cap only if the federal court waives numerous state laws and "orders the outright early release of inmates serving prison terms for serious and violent felonies."

The plan includes granting early release credits to "second strike" inmates who have serious prior convictions, the state said. State sentencing laws would also have to be changed, and inmates who would normally serve nine months or less in state prison would have to spend their time in county jails.

The state also could lower the threshold for sending inmates to firefighting camps, expand work furlough, restitution centers and alternative custody programs, and keep more inmates in private prisons in other states.

Attorneys representing inmates' welfare said the state could adopt those changes without endangering the public, while saving money.

"Incarceration is the most expensive of all the options for taking care of people in the criminal justice system," said Michael Bien, one of the lead attorneys for inmates.

Attorneys also argued in their court filing that, while conditions have improved, inmates still are needlessly dying of neglect and mentally ill inmates go untreated.

Brown's reasoning also drew swift criticism from reform groups.

"Rather than implement the kinds of sentencing reforms that would significantly reduce the number of people needlessly behind bars in California, Gov. Brown has instead committed to business as usual," said Allen Hopper, director of criminal justice and drug policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of California.

Spending more money on prisons means less money for other needs such as public schools, he said in an email.

Brown argued that the conditions that led to the court oversight – extremely poor medical and mental health care for inmates – have been solved and prisoners now receive care exceeding constitutional levels.

Brown ended a 2006 emergency proclamation by former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that let the state send thousands of inmates to private prisons in other states. Brown's move cleared the way for them to be returned to California starting in July.

"California is a powerful state. We can run our own prisons. And by God, let those judges give us our prisons back. We'll run them right," Brown said.

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Kenneth Conley Caught: FBI Confirms Second Federal Prison Fugitive Nabbed In Chicago Suburb

Kenneth Conley, the second of two fugitives who made a daring escape from a high rise lockup in Chicago in Dec., has been caught by the FBI. Conley was found in the nearby Chicago suburb of Palos Hills, Ill. (FBI)

CHICAGO — The second of two bank robbers who escaped last month from a high-rise federal jail in downtown Chicago was captured Friday at an apartment complex across the street from a suburban police department, authorities said.

Kenneth Conley was arrested in Palos Hills, according to U.S. Marshals Service spokeswoman Belkis Cantor. She said someone called local police Friday morning thinking they recognized Conley. FBI spokeswoman Joan Hyde said the Palos Hills Police Department took him into custody.

Conley fled the Metropolitan Correctional Center last month with Joseph "Jose" Banks, apparently by smashing a hole in a wall at the bottom of a narrow cell window and squeezing through before scaling down about 20 stories using a knotted rope made out of bed sheets. Banks was arrested without incident two days later at a home on the city's North Side.

A man who answered the phone at a number listed for Conley's brother, Nicholas Conley, in Orland Hills refused to answer questions and asked that the family be left alone. A message left for Conley's mother was not immediately returned.

Jail officials did not notice for hours on the morning of the escape that Banks and Conley were gone. Surveillance video from a nearby street showed the two hopping into a cab shortly before 3 a.m. on Dec. 18. They had changed out of their orange jail-issued jumpsuits.

When the facility did discover the two men were gone around 7 a.m., what was found revealed a meticulously planned escape, including clothing and sheets shaped to resemble a body under blankets on beds, bars inside a mattress and even fake bars in the cells.

A massive manhunt involving state, federal and local law enforcement agencies was launched, as SWAT teams stormed into the home of a relative of Conley only to learn the two escapees had been there and left. The authorities searched other area homes and businesses – even a strip club where Conley once worked.

Law enforcement officials left a host of questions unanswered, including how the men could collect about 200 feet of bed sheets and what they might have used to break through the wall of the federal facility.

Conley, 38, pleaded guilty last October to robbing a Homewood Bank last year of nearly $4,000. He wore a coat and tie during the robbery and had a gun stuffed in his waistband.

Banks, 37, known as the Second-Hand Bandit because he wore used clothes during his heists, had been convicted of robbing two banks and attempting to rob two others. Authorities say he stole almost $600,000, and most of that still is missing.

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Associated Press writers Carla K. Johnson and Tammy Webber contributed to this report.

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