Police Killing of Protester Brings Grief, Urgency to Atlanta’s ‘Stop Cop City’ Movement

Organizers are calling on national support for their continued efforts to halt the construction of a police militarization facility in the Atlanta forest.

Aja Arnold

As Trust in Police Wanes, Cops are Replacing Human Witnesses With Robots

As more people criticize or refuse to cooperate with police, writers Emily Galvin-Almanza and Khalid Alexander argue most departments aren’t taking that criticism to heart—they’re replacing human sources and interactions with computer-generated evidence instead.

Emily Galvin-Almanza, Khalid Alexander

Fake Victims Lead to Real Arrests in Online Child Sex Stings

Federally funded police task forces carry out thousands of online stings each year, despite little evidence that they prevent abuse.

Steven Yoder

Adams’ Forced Hospitalization Plan Will Have Lifelong Consequences

Jerry Iannelli

Cops Are Asking to Kill People With Robots. What Could Go Wrong?

Jerry Iannelli

Halloween is Over and It Looks Like No One Got Fentanyl Candy After All

Law-enforcement spent weeks scaremongering about opioids showing up in candy this Halloween. Despite the media frenzy, no drugs seem to have actually turned up.

Jerry Iannelli

Over-Reliance on Plea Deals is Damaging the Criminal Legal System

Nneka Ewulonu

Chesa Boudin Looms Over the Race for the Oakland Area’s Next Prosecutor

Pamela Price is running a progressive campaign to change the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in California. She’s winning. But her opponent, longtime prosecutor Terry Wiley, is trying to paint her as the next Chesa Boudin to score votes.

Akintunde Ahmad

DOJ Finds Orange County Sheriff, DA Violated Civil Rights Using Illegal Jailhouse Informants

After a six-year investigation, the DOJ says Orange County law-enforcement unconstitutionally used jailhouse informants to elicit confessions and incriminating evidence from people for years.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, Jerry Iannelli

Nearly Half the People at Crowded Atlanta Jail Haven’t Been Formally Charged With a Crime, ACLU Says

Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat says the county needs more jail beds to fix the jail's crisis. But a new ACLU report says that significant numbers of people in the jail can be released.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

Almost All Abortions Are Now Banned in Arizona

A judge allowed a Civil War-era law to go back into effect today. The law requires two to five years in prison for people who provide abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person.

Meg O'Connor

Pressure Mounts Against HIV Criminalization as Prosecutions Continue

Roughly 30 states still have some form of HIV criminalization law or sentencing enhancement on the books. Advocates say it’s long past time for change.

Adam M. Rhodes

Jail Deaths Have Spiked, But Atlanta’s Diversion Program May Lose Funding

Deaths at the Fulton County Jail have quadrupled compared to last year. Despite this, county commissioners are threatening to cut funding to one of the Atlanta area’s main pre-arrest diversion initiatives.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

Internal Report Details Severely Malnourished Detainees at Atlanta-Area Jail

The facility’s medical provider described people with mental illness wasting away in a unit overrun by an outbreak of lice and scabies.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

DOJ Finds Orange County Sheriff, DA Violated Civil Rights Using Illegal Jailhouse Informants

After a six-year investigation, the DOJ says Orange County law-enforcement unconstitutionally used jailhouse informants to elicit confessions and incriminating evidence from people for years.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, Jerry Iannelli

Nearly Half the People at Crowded Atlanta Jail Haven’t Been Formally Charged With a Crime, ACLU Says

Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat says the county needs more jail beds to fix the jail's crisis. But a new ACLU report says that significant numbers of people in the jail can be released.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

DOJ Admits It Has No Idea How Many People Die in Law Enforcement Custody

Thousands of deaths in jails, prisons, and police custody have gone uncounted in recent years. Now the DOJ is calling for changes to federal law.

Ethan Corey

L.A. County’s Jail Booking Center Has Become a ‘Living Hell,’ Detainees Say in Court Filing

County officials agree that conditions have deteriorated at L.A.’s Inmate Reception Center. But they’re resisting calls for substantive change.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

To Honor MLK, Let New Yorkers in Prison Vote

Four lawmakers explain why they introduced legislation to finally end felony disenfranchisement in New York.

Julia Salazar, Zellnor Myrie, Harvey Epstein, and Latrice Walker

New Jersey Rolls Back Protections for Trans Prisoners

After a wave of tabloid coverage about pregnancies involving a trans prisoner at a women’s facility, officials gave themselves more power to deny housing placements consistent with gender identity.

Adam M. Rhodes

Louisiana Imprisons Children in a Former Death Row Unit. The Kids Say it Haunts Them.

Last year, the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice began transferring children to Angola, the state’s most notorious prison. Since then, kids say they’ve suffered through horrific conditions and routine mistreatment.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

What It Means to Spend the Holidays Behind Bars

Incarcerated writers reflect on the pain, joy, and other complicated emotions associated with getting in the so-called "holiday spirit" in prison.

Chris Blackwell, Antoine E. Davis, Jonathan Kirkpatrick, Aaron Edward Olson & Raymond Williams

How Georgia’s Sex Offender Registry Traps People in Debt and Homelessness

I was arrested in 2011 after engaging in sex work to survive and later forced to register as a sex offender. Since then, social stigma, footage laws, and crushing monthly court debts have made it difficult to get back on my own two feet and succeed after prison.

Christina Lynch

Jail Deaths Have Spiked, But Atlanta’s Diversion Program May Lose Funding

Deaths at the Fulton County Jail have quadrupled compared to last year. Despite this, county commissioners are threatening to cut funding to one of the Atlanta area’s main pre-arrest diversion initiatives.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

California Politicians are Disguising Homeless Sweeps as “Care”

Jerry Iannelli

What Tracy McCarter’s Case Reveals About the Fight to Decriminalize Survival

Prosecutors recently dropped murder charges against McCarter, a domestic violence survivor who killed her estranged husband in an act of self-defense. Her legal ordeal shows how much more we must do to show up for women.

Caryn York

NYC Advocates Fear More Police Violence, Homeless Criminalization Amid Forced Hospitalizations

New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued a directive this week that puts police at the center of renewed efforts to remove people exhibiting signs of mental illness from public spaces.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

Youth Curfews Feed Kids into the Criminal System. But Cities Keep Expanding Them.

Tara Francis Chan

Almost All Abortions Are Now Banned in Arizona

A judge allowed a Civil War-era law to go back into effect today. The law requires two to five years in prison for people who provide abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person.

Meg O'Connor

How American Public Spaces Became so Criminalized—and How We Can Win Them Back

Nneka Ewulonu

To Honor MLK, Let New Yorkers in Prison Vote

Four lawmakers explain why they introduced legislation to finally end felony disenfranchisement in New York.

Julia Salazar, Zellnor Myrie, Harvey Epstein, and Latrice Walker

Voters Didn’t Buy the ‘Crime Panic’ Narrative. Democrats Should Take Note.

Americans around the country were unmoved by tough-on-crime rhetoric, and instead voted in a string of reform-minded candidates. The results show that it’s time for Democrats to rethink their approach on public safety.

Jerry Iannelli, Nick Wing

A New Class of Candidates Seeks to Transform L.A.’s Approach to Housing, Justice

After a scandal engulfed some of L.A.’s most powerful politicians, a slate of progressive candidates is running on new approaches for tackling homelessness and mass incarceration.

Francisco Aviles Pino

How Imprisoned People Forced to Pick Cotton Got ‘Prison Slavery’ Bans on the Ballot

On Election Day, voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont will decide whether to close loopholes in their state constitutions allowing the forced labor of incarcerated people.

Bryce Covert

Chesa Boudin Looms Over the Race for the Oakland Area’s Next Prosecutor

Pamela Price is running a progressive campaign to change the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in California. She’s winning. But her opponent, longtime prosecutor Terry Wiley, is trying to paint her as the next Chesa Boudin to score votes.

Akintunde Ahmad

Backlash on the Ballot: Three Prosecutor Races to Watch in November

Anna Simonton

Some Good News and Ways to Give Back

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

Jail Deaths Have Spiked, But Atlanta’s Diversion Program May Lose Funding

Deaths at the Fulton County Jail have quadrupled compared to last year. Despite this, county commissioners are threatening to cut funding to one of the Atlanta area’s main pre-arrest diversion initiatives.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

How ‘Alternatives to Incarceration’—Like Probation—Expand Criminalization

In September, an Iowa judge sentenced Pieper Lewis, a Black teenager who was trafficked and sexually assaulted, to community supervision after she pleaded guilty to stabbing one of her abusers to death. Some hailed the sentence as compassionate. But facts about supervision say otherwise.

Mon Mohapatra

Can Closed Prisons Be Repurposed to Mend the Harm They’ve Done?

Prince Shakur

Riots Work: An interview with Alex Mingus

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

As Political Ads Fearmonger on Crime, Victims Want Alternatives

Instead of co-opting victims’ voices, political candidates and elected officials should center them.

Lenore Anderson, Aswad Thomas