The department reported misses more than 550 times in 2023, and a public safety director complained about a 55-round miss in 2022.

Lorenzo Johnson, a former boxer, quoted Muhammad Ali in his fight against his wrongful conviction. After reading Johnson’s writing, one of Ali’s children, Khaila, demands that Pennsylvania’s governor clear Johnson’s name.

After decades of protests over police violence, many cities have created non-police crisis response teams. These unarmed first responders typically answer 911 calls for people having mental health crises. Here’s how they work.

Alabama plans to execute Kenneth Smith next month by suffocating him with nitrogen. But the new method is untested—since I’m supposed to be in the room with Kenny when he dies, the state has warned me I might die too.

At 15, Shane Kendall, an autistic child with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and intellectual impairment, allegedly fatally shot his mother. Despite Kendall’s disabilities, prosecutors charged him, as an adult, with murder. Before he turned 19, he died at the Fulton County Jail.

Chief Ken Wallentine has repeatedly defended police behavior that judges later found violated the constitution or resulted in millions of dollars in settlements and judgments.

A representative for Arizona’s “unborn infants” says the state should enforce a Civil War-era ban on almost all abortions. Planned Parenthood says a newer, 15-week abortion ban should be the law instead. The Republican-stacked Arizona Supreme Court will decide.

Poor educational opportunities in youth prisons lead to reduced earnings and increased unemployment later in life.

A woman incarcerated in Georgia since 1992 says she has endured significant abuse, including forcefully having her head shaved, abrupt stops to her hormone therapy, and sexual assault. She has repeatedly attempted suicide and has been in solitary since 2019.

The Appeal spoke with Robert Saleem Holbrook about the long-standing solidarity among liberation movements for Black Americans and Palestine.

A new report by the Abolitionist Law Center says that, while pitched as a more humane alternative to criminal court, Allegheny County’s Mental Health Court instead humiliates people with mental illness and feeds them back into jail.

The state’s youth incarceration agency entered into a two-year contract with the Jackson Parish Jail to lock up children—some of whom have been incarcerated at Angola, the state’s most notorious prison.

Georgia prosecutors have launched a first-of-its-kind racketeering case against 61 people, ranging from visitors arrested at a music festival to bail fund organizers. The mass-arraignment on November 6 showed just how much of an insane, unconscionable mess the case really is.

Alisa Reznick’s arrest marks the second time police within the United States have detained a reporter at a pro-Palestine protest in recent months.

Advocates say the Cook County Sheriff’s Department’s house-arrest policies trap women in unsafe situations—and often force mothers to choose between their safety or their children.

Georgia police killed Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán on Jan. 18 as Terán was protesting against Cop City, the massive police training facility under construction in Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta. But, now that prosecutors have mass-charged activists in an unprecedented use of racketeering statutes, those close to the case say the state has sunk to new lows by entering Terán’s personal diary into public evidence against defendants.

A study found that in states requiring permits to purchase firearms, fatal and nonfatal police shootings were 28 percent lower.

Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne have spent decades behind bars even after a jury acquitted them of murder. Now, the Virginia Supreme Court is set to decide their fate.

States can now use federal funds to ensure that people leaving prison have access to healthcare. But states first need to apply to join the program.

“There was never a plan to peacefully disperse us,” one protest attendee told The Appeal. “The only plan was to escalate and to treat us with brutal violence.”

Fifteen members of the Los Angeles Police Department showed up to detain two Black men having an argument. The violent incident is the latest escalation against the community of unhoused people on Aetna Street in Van Nuys.

In this excerpt formerly incarcerated writer James Kilgore denounces the growing use of e-carceration technologies like ankle monitors.

The city of Milwaukee lacks a plan to replace JusticePoint’s incarceration alternatives services if it succeeds in canceling its contract.

We cannot punish our way out of gun violence. Instead, we must invest in dismantling the structures that allow this violence to thrive.

Securus Technologies says a “technical glitch” last week caused the deletion of Washington prisoners’ writings. They offered compensation of two e-stamps—a value of less than $1.

In response to systemic abuse, neglect, and secrecy inside New York prisons, state legislators Julia Salazar and Danny O’Donnell have introduced a bill to establish a state Office of the Correctional Ombudsman to investigate and report on correctional facilities.

One boy detained at Louisiana’s Jackson Parish Correctional Center said children were maced and then forced to sit outside for hours.

More than 70 million people in the U.S. have criminal convictions on their records. An expert talks with The Appeal about how they can break barriers.

Police are failing to promptly process expungements and continuing to disclose records that should be sealed, according to a lawsuit filed by the state public defender’s office.

Gavin Newsom’s “California Model” of prison reform isn’t the step away from mass incarceration that it purports to be.

Last year, 57-year-old Anthony Talotta allegedly contracted sepsis and died after a stint in the Allegheny County Jail. His family is now suing—and says his death is part of a systemic culture of medical neglect at the facility.

Lies, damned lies, and crime statistics.

Phoenix Police Department Officer Kristopher Bertz shot and killed 19-year-old Jacob Harris in 2019. Now, community members are rallying as Harris’s father Roland appeals a wrongful death lawsuit.

Police raided Ryan Cortez’s home after he participated in a protest against police harassment. On Oct. 6, a jury acquitted Cortez, but concerns over free speech remain.

An internal review by the Champaign Police Department found a “systematic” pattern of noncompliance with state law.

In multiple cases, documents obtained by The Appeal show the state told ineligible voters they could cast ballots.

In a decision last month that could impact other cases, an appellate court ruled that “the very basis of the theory has never been proven.”

In American Purgatory, Benjamin Weber links the rise of American prisons to the expansion of American power around the globe.

The Appeal was honored to recently accept the Community Engagement Award from the LION Publishers Sustainability Awards.

Within months of entering the Security Threat Group Management Unit at SCI Fayette, one man says he smeared, “Kill me, I’m ready to go,” on the cell in his own blood.