More from The Appeal:
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has suffered from years of poor funding and political interference by the Trump administration. Fixing it could be one of the most important tasks on Biden’s criminal justice reform agenda.
Ethan Corey Feb 02, 2021
Policies that helped keep people in their homes—and keep the utilities on—reduced COVID-19 deaths and infections.
Joshua Vaughn Jan 28, 2021
The percentage of people held pretrial for six months or longer is up six percent from January of last year, according to a UCLA School of Law report.
Amy Munro Jan 21, 2021
Some lawmakers are citing the violence in Washington as a reason to pass laws that criminalize protesting, but far-right extremists aren’t the target.
Meg O'Connor Jan 19, 2021
Because traffic stops all too often escalate into deadly incidents, calls have grown to disentangle traffic enforcement from police—and a measure to do so has already passed in Berkeley, California.
Meg O'Connor Jan 13, 2021
Courts must not overrepresent the viewpoints of the most powerful at the expense of the communities they serve.
Sarah Fair George Jan 08, 2021
While bans on capital punishment progress at the state level, the federal government is racing to carry out three more executions before President Trump's term end. Ten people have been put to death since July, the first such executions since 2003.
Law enforcement agencies are creating online content, often at the expense of people they have arrested.
Hope Corrigan Dec 21, 2020
Decades of exploitation, abuse, and racism in medicine have cost many Black Americans their lives during the pandemic. Now the government can act to prevent further harm.
Ruqaiijah Yearby Dec 18, 2020
President-elect Biden has a tough road ahead in reversing the Trump administration’s damage to the immigration system. Advocates say they’ll make sure he fulfills his promises.
Liz Robbins Dec 17, 2020
Civil rights organizations and Democrats in Congress are calling on the president-elect to provide relief to millions of borrowers once he takes office.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Dec 15, 2020
The report found that spread inside correctional facilities contributed to community spread, particularly in California, Florida and Texas.
The Court’s willingness to infer discrimination against Judeo-Christian religions from poorly articulated remarks that accompanied a public health response to COVID-19 may make other laws and policies vulnerable to claims of religious discrimination as well.
Leah Litman Dec 09, 2020
The coronavirus has ripped through our prison and jail populations, infecting and killing hundreds of thousands of people most vulnerable to COVID-19.
The CDC must immediately extend its emergency eviction moratorium to give the Biden administration and Congress time to provide additional emergency rental assistance.
After decades of harm, wrought by the war on drugs, the federal government has finally listened to the American people by voting to decriminalize marijuana.
Zachary A. Siegel Dec 04, 2020
It’s the first time a full chamber of Congress has approved such a measure.
Progressive policies face a committee structure that distorts democracy and favors corporate-backed centrists.
With aggressive legal maneuvering, the incoming head of the Justice Department can reverse some of Trump’s most lasting harm and take steps toward a more humane immigration system.
The Rittenhouse case raises particularly pointed questions about what we are really talking about when we talk about bail.
Cori Bush Nov 24, 2020
A Democratic president who politely listens to progressive rhetoric while failing to act on it is one who just watches the planet burn a little more slowly.
Jay Willis Nov 12, 2020
Members of The Squad are already among the Democratic Party’s most influential voices.
Jay Willis Nov 04, 2020
Grown adults have voted their way into the current morass in this country. Now is the time for a younger generation to lead the way.
David A. Love Nov 03, 2020
If Democrats win control of the Senate, allowing this archaic tradition to survive will make everything of significance the party hopes to accomplish virtually impossible.
Jay Willis Nov 02, 2020
The party's national director tells The Appeal about candidates in New York, Washington, D.C., and New Mexico that the WFP would like to see oust the establishment.
Joshua Vaughn Oct 28, 2020
In the midst of a national debate about changing the criminal legal system, Barrett is set to take a lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Advocates see her addition as a potential setback to creating a more fair system.
Joshua Vaughn Oct 22, 2020
Efforts by elected leaders in several states are making it harder to get to the polls and fomenting misinformation about the election amid a pandemic.
Joshua Vaughn Oct 21, 2020
The group is seeing real challenges posed by the pandemic, voter suppression tactics, and threats of intimidation.
Kira Lerner Oct 20, 2020
Tenants rights groups in Brooklyn, Kansas City, New Orleans, and elsewhere are using physical blockades and direct action to keep people in their homes.
In a presidential election likely to take weeks or months to decide, the race to name a winner on Nov. 3 could do tremendous damage to the integrity of the vote-counting process.
Jay Willis Oct 14, 2020
Last week’s problems in New York were part of a widespread series of issues, both systemic and targeted, that are only now becoming fully apparent, activists say.
Eoin Higgins Oct 08, 2020
Passing the HEROES Act would provide crucial protections to some of the most vulnerable essential workers, they say.
Lauren Gill Oct 07, 2020
States like California, New York, and Arizona have relied on prisoners to continue working, with little pay and in precarious conditions, during the coronavirus pandemic.
Eliyahu Kamisher Oct 05, 2020
Although some GOP election officials have moved to allow mail-in ballots to be counted early, outdated rules in other key Republican-led states could feed President Trump’s Election Day fearmongering.
Spenser Mestel Oct 02, 2020
The ruling said the commission wasn’t diverse enough and gave little voice to communities affected by policing.
Joshua Vaughn Oct 01, 2020
If he becomes president and Democrats win the Senate, Biden should push a federal spending bill that includes money for civilian first-responder programs.
Mayors of liberal cities love to criticize the president’s incendiary law-and-order rhetoric, but do precious little to check police violence and bloated budgets in their own backyards.
Jay Willis Sep 30, 2020
Under the guise of restoring public confidence in law enforcement, President Trump’s secretive and regressive Commission on Law Enforcement is stacked with old-guard failed tough-on-crime thinking that precipitated the crisis of confidence we now face.
Rebalancing the nation’s highest court is a reasonable, proportionate response to a system that failed a long time ago.
Jay Willis Sep 25, 2020
The Trump administration mishandled COVID-19, creating conditions that left transgender people even more vulnerable to housing instability than before. Now it’s pushing for a rule change that would allow homeless shelters to discriminate against trans people.
Experts say Black and Native children are disproportionately jailed either for status offenses or for technical violations of probation or parole—and that incarcerating them has far-reaching negative consequences.
Dawn R. Wolfe Sep 04, 2020
Members of Congress have introduced a bill that would create a National Center on Anti-Racism in Health.
Between the global pandemic and a nationwide economic crisis, voting rights advocates see a ‘perfect storm of barriers’ ahead that could prevent millions of people from casting a ballot in November.
Eoin Higgins Sep 03, 2020
Tenants and progressive leaders who cried out for a national action must now grapple with two truths: This eviction moratorium will save lives, but everything about it is a page out of Trump’s re-election playbook.
Tara Raghuveer Sep 02, 2020
The president’s fearmongering over mail-in ballots is part of a long history of politicians denying members of marginalized communities, and particularly Black people, the right to vote.
Some say their roles are already too close to those of law enforcement and are organizing for a radical rethinking of the profession.
Mia Sato Aug 20, 2020
The execution of Mitchell against the will of the Navajo Nation only perpetuates the U.S.’s dreadful history of colonial violence and oppression of Indigenous peoples.
Ruth Hopkins Aug 19, 2020
President Trump and the DOJ are funding federal policing programs in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Baltimore, but advocates say they’re unnecessary, harmful, and ineffective.
Marcia Brown Aug 13, 2020
Some corporate landlords who received federal PPP loans are notorious for mistreating tenants.
If the bill is signed into law later this month, about 20 percent of the state’s prison population could see their sentences reduced to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus, including some people who have served lengthy sentences for violent crimes.
Ellison Berryhill Aug 10, 2020
Despite the growing consciousness around the need for reforms, thousands of prisoners who might also deserve clemency or early release are slipping through the cracks.
Tana Ganeva Aug 06, 2020
A lawsuit alleges Breonna Taylor died because Louisville was trying to arrest its way toward economic redevelopment. Research shows this is common.
Brenden Beck Aug 04, 2020
The presence of police in schools is emblematic of America’s carceral approach to governing.
Aaron Stagoff-Belfort Aug 03, 2020
Precautions meant to minimize the spread of COVID-19—like remote hearings by video conferencing—have drastically changed the way people experience the judicial process, leaving some at a distinct disadvantage.
Elizabeth Brico Jul 31, 2020
Though domestic violence is often cited as a reason to maintain the carceral status quo, advocates say there are more humane—and effective—alternatives.
Jessica Pishko Jul 28, 2020
Studies show that 95 percent of the nation’s prosecutors are white and that the lack of Black and brown representation in courts negatively affect outcomes for people of color.
Dawn R. Wolfe Jul 24, 2020
Qualified immunity is just one obstacle of many that incarcerated people face when seeking to hold correctional officers accountable for misconduct.
Joshua Manson Jul 23, 2020
Honken, convicted of the murders of five people, died by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. The federal government resumed executions this week for the first time since 2003.
Lauren Gill Jul 17, 2020
In a 5-4 ruling early today, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the lethal injection of Wesley Ira Purkey. Lawyers had argued that killing Purkey, who had dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease, would represent cruel and unusual punishment.
Lauren Gill Jul 16, 2020
As criminal justice reformers take steps to defund police departments and limit qualified immunity, it’s important to consider the role of universal and special duties in policing.
Eric Kennedy Jul 15, 2020
A late-night Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee, despite his claims of innocence and his attorneys’ belief that DNA testing could show he was wrongly convicted.
Lauren Gill Jul 14, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests over police brutality are strengthening the case against mass incarceration, advocates argue.
COVID-19 is disproportionately putting Black and Latinx people at higher risk of eviction, fueling a housing crisis that is already in progress.
As a ‘heat dome’ descends on much of the country and local governments scramble to provide safe refuges, concern grows over the effect of a disease that has ‘totally demolished the homeless people.’
Daniel Moritz-Rabson Jul 13, 2020
A government psychologist who used the tool to evaluate Daniel Lewis Lee—who is scheduled to die Monday in Indiana—has since disavowed it. Without it, the trial judge has written that it’s ‘very questionable’ Lee would have been sentenced to death.
Lauren Gill Jul 10, 2020
Predominantly Black neighborhoods have less access to primary care physicians and healthcare services, at a time when COVID-19 is killing Black Americans at a rate 2.3 times higher than white Americans. Now grassroots organizations are trying to compensate for failures of public health.
Akilah Wise Jul 07, 2020
Prioritizing bar examiners’ gatekeeping function during a pandemic and economic crisis means putting aspiring lawyers at risk and making it harder for nonwhite and low-income people to enter the legal profession.
This year’s presidential contest will be the first since a federal judge lifted a decades-old consent decree barring the Republican National Committee from engaging in “ballot security,” or voter intimidation at the polls.
Kira Lerner Jul 02, 2020
A survey published by the National Domestic Workers Alliance in April found that 55 percent of respondents were unable to pay April’s rent, and 84 percent were either not able to or didn’t know if they could afford food.
Lauren Gill Jul 01, 2020
The nation has an opportunity to take advantage of this transformative event and pursue an alternative to the current system.
David A. Love Jun 30, 2020
In Cook County, Illinois, suspected or confirmed fatal overdose deaths doubled over last year in the first five months of this year.
The Department of Justice is leaving researchers, policymakers, and advocates in the dark about deaths in police custody, prisons, and jails.
Ethan Corey Jun 24, 2020
For decades, the Court has been carving out generous exceptions and crafting new rules that limit the Miranda warning’s real-world impact.
Jay Willis Jun 23, 2020
Protesters and activists have categorically changed the national conversation about public safety. Now they have to figure out how to change public policy.
Ted Alcorn Jun 22, 2020
The ruling thwarts the administration’s attempt to deport nearly 700,000 immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
Liz Robbins Jun 18, 2020
The lawsuit says the Small Business Administration overstepped its authority by imposing ‘arbitrary and capricious’ restrictions on a loan program passed by Congress.
Bryce Covert Jun 17, 2020
A civil rights advocate calls the scheduled executions of four men ‘appalling’ and a return to a ‘biased, arbitrary, and error-prone’ system.
Lauren Gill Jun 16, 2020
As the country reopens, we can’t quickly forget these failures of government, which have disproportionately harmed Black, Latinx, and Native people.
David A. Love Jun 12, 2020
Farmworker and labor advocates say these workers are among the most exploited in the country.
Madeline Leung Coleman Jun 10, 2020
The country’s homeless population was already struggling to access services during the pandemic.
Some unions and labor activists are calling for the AFL-CIO to expel police unions.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Jun 08, 2020
The use of excessive force against nonwhite communities and people protesting police brutality is further eroding public confidence in policing.
Ellison Berryhill Jun 05, 2020
The killing of George Floyd demonstrates that incremental police reforms are insufficient in the absence of a comprehensive plan to transform law enforcement and its stated purpose.
David A. Love Jun 04, 2020
After protests broke out in several cities in response to George Floyd’s death, the agency ordered the first nationwide lockdown in 25 years.
Lauren Gill Jun 03, 2020
A president who openly endorses police brutality struggles with a nation rejecting it.
Cops who turn marches against police violence into parades don’t actually want substantial changes to policing.
Derecka Purnell Jun 02, 2020
More training, more equipment, and more officers will not stop police from killing Black people.
Justin Brooks Jun 01, 2020
Health officials say hand washing is key to avoiding the novel coronavirus, but millions of homeless people continue to have little or no access to hygiene stations.
Elizabeth Brico May 29, 2020
While 80 percent of state health departments are recording race as part of their COVID-19 statistics, around half are not including Natives and are simply labeling them as “other.”
Ruth Hopkins May 26, 2020
Advocates say states aren’t doing enough to close the gaps in the federal stimulus bill.
Rebecca Chowdhury May 20, 2020
The Courier Journal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on Governor Matt Bevin’s commutations sensationalizes crime at the expense of future clemency efforts.
States must fund stable housing for all formerly incarcerated people to neutralize the spread of COVID-19 and create equitable opportunities for social reintegration.
Demar F. Lewis IV May 18, 2020
We did it in San Francisco. If we are smart about how we respond to COVID-19 in the criminal legal system, then we can simultaneously tackle two crises.
Cristine Soto DeBerry May 12, 2020
Governor Kristi Noem’s threat to sue two South Dakota tribes shows the callousness of her coronavirus plan, which seems to encourage exposure and prioritize the economy over the lives of at-risk Natives.
Ruth Hopkins May 11, 2020
Criminal justice reform advocates question why the BOP plans to move people around rather than reduce prison populations.
Kira Lerner May 08, 2020
Andrea Circle Bear was confined within FMC Carswell while suffering from the novel coronavirus. ‘She was serving a 26-month sentence that ended up being a death penalty,’ one maternity specialist said.
Tana Ganeva May 06, 2020
Segregation not only increases individuals' exposure to the novel coronavirus, it also leaves them more susceptible to its effects and limits the quality of care they will receive, experts say.
Akilah Wise May 05, 2020
The federal government is not going to lead the way on addressing the economic pain caused by the shutdowns. But states have the power to do something about it now.
David A. Love May 01, 2020
Using language evoking pernicious stereotypes about immigration and crime, the Court’s conservative majority clears the way for the Trump administration to deport legal permanent residents for crimes committed long ago.
Jay Willis Apr 29, 2020
In this episode, Josie Duffy Rice and her producer, Florence Barrau-Adams, travel to Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, New York, to interview Rodney Spivey-Jones and Max Kenner about the Bard Prison Initiative and Bard College.
Prisons, one graduate writes, should be institutions of learning, not ‘wastelands’ that willfully overlook human potential.
The Supreme Court will soon decide the fate of 650,000 so-called Dreamers across the country. Lawyers say terminating protections for them during a pandemic would be 'catastrophic.'
Liz Robbins Apr 24, 2020
Intentionally disqualifying millions of American citizens from much-needed stimulus funds during this unprecedented health crisis is both unnecessary and cruel.
A trio of cases in Wisconsin and Texas illustrates how Republican judges are feigning helplessness in the face of a public health crisis while furthering their own ends.
Jay Willis Apr 22, 2020
Josie Duffy Rice and co-host Derecka Purnell are joined by Dyjuan Tatro and Wesley Caines to talk about education in prisons.
In this bonus episode, Josie Duffy Rice and her co-host Derecka Purnell talk to Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, the creators of College Behind Bars.
Ramos v. Louisiana is a long-overdue affirmation of the constitutional rights of criminal defendants—and sets the stage for dramatic Supreme Court fights in the years ahead.
Jay Willis Apr 20, 2020
Warehouse workers say time pressure leaves them unable to properly wash their hands, and have reported an increase in mandatory overtime, which creates crowded conditions.
The Small Business Administration has created barriers for people re-entering the workforce after serving time in prison.
Neither the coronavirus nor anything else is a ‘great equalizer’ because we aren’t, actually, all in this together.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò Apr 16, 2020
By letting people out now, we can avoid overwhelming our healthcare system with sick prisoners later.
Oliver Hinds Apr 15, 2020
For many people across the U.S. who need methadone treatment, sheltering in place during the coronavirus outbreak is impossible.
Josie Duffy Rice and her co-host, Derecka Purnell, talk to Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, about the school to prison pipeline.
Taking emergency measures to protect homeless people from the pandemic is simply common sense.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem Apr 14, 2020
People are dying in jails and prisons because elected officials hesitated at the worst possible moment.
Jay Willis Apr 09, 2020
They make roughly half the average national income, and they’re at risk of COVID-19 exposure as they continue to work to ensure shelves are restocked and communities fed.
Lizzie Tribone Apr 08, 2020
Experts are urging large-scale releases. But the Department of Justice often operates contrary to expertise.
In Alabama and elsewhere, canceled hearings and new procedures are complicating the parole process for people hoping to be freed.
Lauren Gill Apr 07, 2020
As infections and deaths mount, state leaders and law enforcement are turning to tough-on-crime tactics in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Lawyers, judges, and advocates for migrant children wonder what it will take to close all 69 immigration courts. ‘I hope that it won’t take a death, but I worry that it will,’ one lawyer said.
Liz Robbins Apr 03, 2020
Inconsistent rules nationwide mean some people are still registering and reporting in person despite public health directives meant to control COVID-19.
Conservative lawmakers are using emergency measures to restrict access to care.
Akilah Wise Apr 02, 2020
There are no good reasons for the president to keep vulnerable people behind bars any longer.
Jay Willis Mar 31, 2020