For millions of families, this time of year is yet another reminder of all that is missed when a loved one is incarcerated

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.

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

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.

gorodenkoff / iStock by Getty Images Over-Reliance on Plea Deals is Damaging the Criminal Legal System by Nneka Ewulonu It’s easy for the average American to envision a courtroom trial. Shows like “Law and Order” inundate us with fictional depictions of trials—from the thud of a gavel to the inquisitive eyes of a jury—with an […]

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.

New York law can leave people who are involuntarily committed financially liable for their hospital bills and ambulance ride

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.

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.

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.

Some recent redevelopment projects show how the work of reforming and dismantling the prison system can move us towards a society centered around restorative justice and social wellness.

Multiple major cities including San Francisco and Oakland this year have considered obtaining armed police robots that can kill people.

Youth curfews don’t work. Over 11,500 kids were arrested in 2019 for curfew violations or loitering, per FBI data. Nearly 30% were Black.

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.

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

Police gave Alex Mingus an award for saving a shooting victim’s life. Mingus showed up wearing a shirt that said “Smash white supremacy”.

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.

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.

Midterm election results show the bad-faith “crime wave” narrative failed to con a critical mass of voters, who instead want a less draconian police state.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

One year of worker-led publishing! But our at The Appeal work is just beginning. Thanks to NewsMatch, your donation will be tripled.

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.

Olayemi Olurin spoke with The Appeal about abolition, living in a police state, Rikers Island, and the media.

The Appeal, a worker-led nonprofit newsroom that exposes the harms of the criminal legal system, announced its new Board of Directors today.

The medical examiner who helped put Tasha Shelby in prison has since said her son’s death was not a homicide.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The politics of criminal justice is overwhelmingly local, and elected prosecutors have some of the most direct power over how justice is dispatched.

The Appeal was proud to receive an honorable mention for Best Non-Traditional News Source from the American Journalism Online Awards.

New York’s landmark solitary confinement reform law created a new, “rehabilitative” type of isolation unit. State prisons aren’t on board with the changes.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon be hearing a case that will impact whether Texas executes Rodney Reed for capital murder— though another man has confessed to the crime.

The intense focus on increased law enforcement spending in recent years has overshadowed a historic funding boost for community violence intervention.

Data obtained by The Appeal show nearly 2,000 people in Mississippi and Louisiana are serving long—and sometimes life—sentences after they were labeled “habitual offenders.” But most are behind bars for small crimes like drug possession.

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.