Congress Seeks to Create New Independent Federal Prison Oversight Body
Legislation introduced this week follows a string of reports, including in The Appeal, that have revealed widespread sexual abuse and misconduct at Bureau of Prisons facilities.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Apr 27, 2023
Women Report ‘Rampant’ Sexual Abuse at Federal Prison Where Ghislaine Maxwell Is Held
Issues of mismanagement and sexual misconduct have put federal women’s prisons in the spotlight. But one scandal-plagued facility—FCI Tallahassee—has escaped serious scrutiny, even as an Appeal investigation reveals an ongoing history of sexual violence, retaliation, and other constitutional abuses that have left prisoners living in fear.
Silja J.A. Talvi Apr 25, 2023
Why The Biden Administration’s Choice To Lead The Bureau of Prisons Matters
The attorney general could pick a new head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. That person should have public health experience, formerly incarcerated activists say.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Jan 26, 2021
The Federal Death Penalty Has The Veneer Of Respectability. But It’s Just As Flawed As the States’ Killing Machines.
Attorney General Bill Barr has scheduled executions for four people on federal death row in July and August. That’s more federal executions in one month than in the entire modern history of the federal death penalty.
Ben Cohen Jul 13, 2020
As Use of Solitary Confinement Surges, Advocates Call for Releasing Prisoners
Legal, medical, and religious groups warn in a new report that the widespread use of solitary confinement in response to COVID-19 risks spreading the disease further and undoing a decade of progress.
Joshua Manson Jun 19, 2020
Federal Bureau of Prisons Locks Down Prisoners and Takes Away Communications Amid Protests
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
Some Federal Prisoners Are Getting Out As COVID-19 Spreads. Others Have No Chance.
Jeremy Hix is serving 70 months in federal prison for a sex offense—a conviction that disqualifies him for a Bureau of Prisons home confinement program, despite a health condition that puts him at risk of the coronavirus.
Joshua Vaughn May 14, 2020
Bureau of Prisons Is ‘Shifting Deck Chairs on the Titanic’ With Quarantine Plan, Critics Say
Criminal justice reform advocates question why the BOP plans to move people around rather than reduce prison populations.
Kira Lerner May 08, 2020
Coronavirus Is Ready To Explode Inside Fort Dix Federal Prison, Incarcerated People and Their Loved Ones Say
One prisoner says a man collapsed while waiting for a temperature check and was sprayed down with disinfectant as he lay on the floor. BOP denied it.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Apr 23, 2020
Closure of D.C.’s Only Men’s Halfway House Leaves Residents Scrambling For A Safe Place To Live
The Bureau of Prisons could send those without homes to alternative halfway houses far from D.C. or back to prison at the end of the month.
Kira Lerner Apr 23, 2020
Halfway House Residents Describe ‘A Scary Situation’ As Coronavirus Sweeps The U.S.
‘It is progressively getting worse, exponentially worse,’ a resident of one halfway house told The Appeal as part of a survey of facilities. ‘Something is going to happen and it’s not going to be good.’
Lauren Gill Mar 31, 2020
When Americans Are Silent Spectators
The intense interest in conditions at MCC after Jeffrey Epstein’s death was preceded by years when little was done to address restrictions so oppressive one observer described them as “diabolical.” Why do Americans allow brutality, even torture, to go unchecked?
Vaidya Gullapalli Aug 26, 2019
A No-Holds-Barred Assault on Prosecutors
Attorney General William Barr pushed back against reforms by progressive prosecutors—but perhaps his greatest vitriol was reserved for the Boston DA’s attempt to rein in police.
John Pfaff Aug 13, 2019
Spotlight: Fighting Against a New Prison—and Winning—in Eastern Kentucky
The region of eastern Kentucky, once reliant on mining and the coal industry, has, over the decades, become home to three federal prisons. Last year, the Daily Appeal wrote about the controversial proposal to build yet another federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky. That project had been pushed since 2005 by local backers and a powerful U.S. representative, […]
Vaidya Gullapalli Jul 01, 2019
Federal Prisons Official Used Prison Labor For Work On His Church
The Bureau of Prisons’ South Central regional director utilized incarcerated people from a Texas prison to work on a landscaping project at his church.
Lauren Gill Mar 12, 2019