Late last year, the U.S. Department of Justice warned the state of Tennessee that its “aggravated prostitution” statute—which makes it a felony to engage in sex work while HIV positive—violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Activists hope the measure shows how the government can use the ADA to fight ableism around the nation.
A judge sentenced 17-year-old Celeste Burgess to 90 days in jail after she ended her pregnancy at 29 weeks. Further criminalization of abortion and dwindling reproductive healthcare options will only make cases like these more common, experts say.
Legal experts who spoke with The Appeal warned the criminal justice system will continue to target pregnant people in the coming years.
Lawmakers in seven states proposed bills to make abortion murder punishable by death. Cops arrested three women for their pregnancy outcomes.
As the saying goes, the first Pride was a riot. The only way queer people have won anything is by fighting—in the courts and in the streets.
A leader in the LGBTQ community weighs in on the attempts by elected officials to legislate gay and trans people out of existence.
Online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay make billions from shoplifted products. Why are police and lawmakers focusing on small-time thieves?
Jenkins won’t charge the security guard who shot Banko Brown to death. That’s precisely why San Franciscans elected her in the first place.
As Phoenix begins to displace around 700 people from an encampment near downtown, the ACLU of Arizona is asking a judge to find the city in contempt of a court order prohibiting it from violating the rights of the unhoused.
Countless forms of detention and foster care facilities are profiting from warehousing the humans treated as remnants.
Newsom’s measure—called “CARE Court”—paves the way for family members, state officials, and first responders to force more unhoused people into court-ordered treatment programs for a period of up to two years.
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.
On September 23, 2020, a Black man died for the alleged crime of crossing the street the wrong way. His death was due in large part to America’s long history of criminalizing public spaces and our existence in them.
States will have a hard time stopping medication abortion. Abortion pills are safer than Tylenol and have been approved by the FDA since 2000.
When I was 19, I worked in an emotional support classroom in a North Philadelphia elementary school. I saw children as young as five get treated like prisoners.
The law granted embryos and fetuses the same rights as a person. Civil rights groups sought an injunction out of concern the law could criminalize people who provide or obtain abortions.
Most abortion bans criminalize providers by making it a felony to perform an abortion. But experts say people who obtain abortions can and will be criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes — they already have been even while Roe was still in place.
Model state legislation proposed by a leading anti-choice group would impose felony charges for a broad new set of activities related to abortion.
New laws imposing criminal penalties for trans healthcare follow a long legislative history of explicitly targeting queer people in the United States.
Reporters entertained the notion that a toddler deserved prison time with headlines like ‘No Charges for 5-Year-Old in Pembroke Pines School Attack’
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.
Compare this with New York where additional transit police will cost $50 million a year but a subsidized fare program cannot be fully funded.
After last week’s election victories, will Virginia Democrats address gun violence in ways that don’t rely on criminalization?
The legislation is part of a wave of bills across the country meant to criminalize mistakes in the name of voter fraud.
Advocates say laws that land people with HIV on the sex offender registry are outdated and dangerous.