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

Sheriffs Offered Caribbean Cruises and Florida Retreats as Part of Jail Telecom Contracts

Smart Communications, a for-profit Florida company that sells phone, videochat, and email-like services to prisons and jails, told at least one sheriff’s department that it can live “the resort life” on a trip to Florida.

Hayden Betts

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

FBI Crime Data is Out. Here’s What You Need to Know.

Lies, damned lies, and crime statistics.

Ethan Corey

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

Who Will San Francisco Blame for Crime and Disorder Now?

Nick Wing

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

L.A. Ended a Zero-Bail COVID Rule, and Now the Jail Population is Growing

In June, a judge ended an emergency order to slow the spread of COVID-19 in LA’s jails, enraging civil-rights advocates.

Nili Blanck

Colorado Prisons Hold People in Painful Metal Shackles for Weeks, Report Says

A soon-to-be-released report reveals that metal “four-point” restraints are often used for multiple days in a row, including on one person who was held for 39 straight days. A new state bill would set stricter parameters.

Daliah Singer

Women Bear the Brunt of New York’s Prison Care Package Ban

New restrictions have made it harder to send food to incarcerated people. Advocates say the policy is doing disproportionate harm inside women's prisons, and to women on the outside who often serve as caretakers.

Molly Hagan

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

Virginia Women’s Prisons Force People to Remove Pads, Tampons During Strip Searches

Women told The Appeal they found the routine practice degrading and dehumanizing. Prisons around the country have long humiliated people for menstruating.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

A Star Witness Recanted. But Tasha Shelby is Still Imprisoned for ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’ Junk-Science.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

Brazilian Man’s Suicide Sends Shockwaves Through ‘Inhumane’ ICE Detention Center

Detainees at New Mexico’s Torrance County Detention Facility recently launched a hunger strike, motivated in part by the August death of a 23-year-old asylum seeker in custody.

Eduardo Campos Lima

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

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

Amid Fears of Crime and Mental Illness, States Move to Expand Forced Treatment

Advocates of assisted outpatient treatment say it could reduce homelessness and mass shootings. Critics call it incarceration by another name.

Caleb Brennan

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

Who Will San Francisco Blame for Crime and Disorder Now?

Nick Wing

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

“The Media Emboldens a Police State”: A conversation with movement lawyer Olayemi Olurin

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

An Unprecedented Investment in Alternatives to Policing

Nick Wing

Intergenerational Partnerships are Critical to Curb Youth Violence

Ras Stanford