Cordero Riley was badly beaten at Georgia’s Clayton County Jail due to longstanding issues with malfunctioning cell locks, a lawsuit alleges. Afterward, he says medical staff ignored his pleas for care.
Eighteen people died at the jail last year, and half of the deaths featured examples of inadequate supervision and medical care, an Injustice Watch investigation found. Sheriff Tom Dart blames detainees overdosing on drug-laced paper and says he’s addressed the problem, but experts say there’s a renewed need for oversight.
A suit filed this week accuses Broome County Jail staff of using threats of punishment to “create a culture of fear” that forces pretrial detainees to submit to unpaid labor.
The phrase “toxic masculinity” is ubiquitous these days, but there are few places where it’s more all-consuming than in a men’s prison
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.
Opponents of bail reform blame pretrial release for increased crime, despite a lack of evidence. Lost in the debate—the proven harms of jail.
But if he loses his appeal and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declines to grant him clemency, he will likely be sent back to prison.
Thank you for all of your support. Your contributions have enabled us to turn The Appeal into a worker-led newsroom dedicated to exposing the harms of the criminal legal system — and to begin publishing again! Check out some of our recent pieces: We uncovered a robbery task force at DC’s Metropolitan Police Department that […]
Blind in one eye and at risk of losing vision in the other, 58-year-old Reginald Randolph is now on the verge of being sent to state prison to serve out a maximum of four years in state prison.
Tishaura Jones wants to decriminalize offenses and transfer people out of the Workhouse. Cara Spencer wants to end the contract to house federal detainees.
A common sense cost-benefit analysis of pretrial detention.
Getting convicted of a “minor offense” inflicts serious, long-term harm. The state can and must divert more people to counseling, group meetings, or other interventions.
Sterling Higgins died in a Tennessee jail in 2019 after officers pinned him to the floor. Two new medical experts’ reports describe the incident as homicide.
In many of America’s major cities, the early efforts to reduce incarceration during the pandemic have been reversed.
The move is part of a broader criminal justice reform bill that also ends prison gerrymandering, and mandates body cameras for all police departments.
President Trump has appointed a quarter of active federal appellate judges, and they have decisively hampered legal efforts to force prisons and jails to address the coronavirus.
Legal experts say the IRS is illegally denying CARES Act payments to incarcerated people.
‘As long as there’s a jail, there’s going to be police trying to put our poor folks in it,’ one activist said.
Despite early warnings, jails and prisons have seen a rapid spread of the virus—a humanitarian disaster that puts all of our communities, and lives, at risk. Every day, The Appeal examines the scale of the crisis, numbers of infected and dead, around the nation.
Despite early warnings, jails and prisons have seen a rapid spread of the virus—a humanitarian disaster that puts all of our communities, and lives, at risk. Every day, The Appeal examines the scale of the crisis, numbers of infected and dead, around the nation.
‘I would go to the hospital very often and they wouldn’t do anything for me.’
Peter Lucas was jailed overnight at a time when prosecutors across the country are actively working to reduce the number of people behind bars to stem the spread of COVID-19.
His attorney says the Suffolk County DA’s office tried to send “an innocent man to his death.”
Telecommunications companies that serve prisons and jails, like Securus Technologies and Global Tel Link, are offering a limited number of free calls, but families say it’s not enough.
Around one-third of counties in the United States use the tools when making release decisions, but few monitor whether they work as intended.
A case before the Kentucky Supreme Court involves a challenge to the practice of charging people for the time they are held in jail even if they are ultimately not convicted of the charges against them.
A wave of sensationalist press is not just coming from New York City, but also from county sheriff and city police departments frustrated by bail reform that they claim is ‘too broad.’
The death of 27-year-old India Cummings in 2016 garnered national media attention and a renewed push by local activists over conditions of confinement in the New York county’s jails. But the deaths haven’t stopped.
In a federal lawsuit, Hardel Sherrell’s mother accuses the staff at a Minnesota jail of allowing her son to die.
Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. This week, White House counsel informed House Democrats that the White House will not cooperate with their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. The letter states, in part, “You […]
In some Alabama counties, a new investigation shows, sheriffs release people in jail who are experiencing medical emergencies to avoid liability for hospital bills.
The Brooklyn Community Bail Fund said it doesn’t want to ‘prop up an unjust system.’
Young people convicted as adults face a ‘life sentence’ of registry restrictions, attorneys say.
Nearly half of all arrests in the state are drug or alcohol related, compared to just 29 percent nationally.
In 2017, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala prosecuted more than 1,700 low-level drug possession cases. More than $2 million in court-imposed debt was levied on people who were charged in these cases.
Candidates offered reforms for people accused of low-level, nonviolent offenses, but more than half of U.S. prisoners have committed a violent crime.
A Pittsburgh public radio piece lacked critical reporting about the many problems with jailing children in adult facilities.
Henri Lyles is challenging his life sentence under a statute that penalizes people for prior convictions. A favorable decision by the state Supreme Court would mean that he and a dozen people sentenced to life could one day be freed.
In a rare move, a federal court vacated Anastazia Schmid’s murder conviction, saying she’d received ineffective assistance of counsel and had been mentally unfit to stand trial. But Schmid, who’d spent 18 years in prison, remained locked up for three months more.
Jose ‘Lil Joe’ Chapa says one way to make Beauregard Parish ‘great again’ is to stop construction of a new jail and divert resources to services that keep people out of lockup altogether.