Jail

In the wake of Nia Wilson’s murder, it’s critical that calls for justice in response to anti-Black violence are not contingent upon appeals to white-approved notions of innocence and respectability.

Taking electronic monitoring to the next level.

In one Pennsylvania county, more than three times as many people on the registry were charged in 2016 with failing to follow registry requirements than were charged with a new sexual offense

News of the victory is spreading rapidly to other cities.

York County resident Aaron Hinds overdosed on heroin with a friend. The friend died, and Hinds now faces a ‘drug delivery resulting in death’ charge and a 40-year prison sentence.

In jurisdictions across the country, people incarcerated before they’ve ever been convicted of a crime are charged a daily fee just for sitting in jail—and several courts have ruled that the practice is legal.

“Jail is not a country club,” the Bristol County sheriff said. “That’s why once you’ve done time in the Bristol County House of Corrections, you won’t want to come back.”

New York’s Democratic governor has granted only a trickle of commutations, fewer than many of his Democratic and Republican predecessors.

The solution to problems like unsolved homicides, especially in communities of color, cannot be reinvestment in institutions that wage violence against them.

Kim Kardashian’s successful campaign to free a 63-year-old grandmother serving a life sentence in a drug case is a reminder that we need to go big on clemency. A 52-year-old grandfather named Euka Wadlington, also doing life in a drug case, would be a great place to start.

Years after two landmark Supreme Court rulings, prosecutors in Louisiana are still overwhelmingly seeking life sentences for children.

In the spring of 1983, Donald Mairena witnessed a shooting at New Orleans’ Latin American Club. He chased after the shooter and later told law enforcement what he’d seen. Mairena gave them his address in case they needed any more information from him. He heard nothing about the case until almost two years later, when […]

Todd Entrekin, the sheriff of the small Alabama county of Etowah, recently found himself in the national spotlight when an Alabama newspaper discovered that over the course of three years he pocketed at least $750,000budgeted for feeding the people detained in his county jail. While the inmates in his jail ate meat from a package labeled “not fit for human […]

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is quietly rolling out a pair of new policies that could restrict access to books and communications for the system’s nearly 200,000 prisoners. The first of the new policies bans all books from being sent into federal facilities from outside sources including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These retailers are […]

Marius Mason is a transgender man incarcerated at FMC Carswell, a federal women’s prison located in Fort Worth, Texas. Since at least 2014, Mason has wanted to change his legal name to his chosen name, an important step in the transition process for many transgender people. Section 45.103 of the Texas Family Code, however, prevents anyone […]

On March 14, Herman Bell learned that after 45 years behind bars, he would soon be released from prison. The 70-year-old former Black Panther was convicted in the 1971 shooting deaths of two New York police officers. Since 2004, he appeared before the state’s parole board seven times; each time, he was denied parole because of the nature of […]

Each day in his small cell in a Manhattan federal prison, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera battles severe headaches and vomiting, his lawyer says. He spends several hours with members of his defense team, reviewing 300,000 pages of discovery to prepare for his upcoming trial on charges including “leading a continuing criminal enterprise,” drug distribution, use of firearms, and […]

In January 2017, the New York City Department of Correction began implementing regulations to address pervasive sexual abuse and harassment in its jails. Rikers Island has an alarmingly high rate of sexual violence: In 2011, the Department of Justice found that 8.6 percent of women incarcerated in the women’s housing unit at Rikers had reported being sexually […]

A 16-year-old Memphis girl charged with first-degree murder in the killing of a teen boy is being held in pretrial isolation at the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville. The Shelby County District Attorney’s office charged her as an adult in the April 3, 2017 shooting death of 17-year-old Deago Brown. She was just 15 […]

Frederick Adami, a 52-year-old resident of Morrisville, Pennsylvania, died from apparent opioid withdrawal early in the morning on Sunday, January 28, while in custody at the Bucks County Correctional Facility. Adami’s cellmate, Bruce Gramiak Jr., made a phone call to his girlfriend, Melissa Weitzel, the night before Adami’s death to tell her that his cellmate […]

Crime in New York City is at historic lows. The overall number of people in the city’s jails recently dipped below 9,000 for the first time since 1982. Yet the number of people locked up for violating the terms of their parole is on the rise. That is the conclusion of Less is More in New York City, a new […]

Public defenders in Charlotte say restrictions on communication hinder their ability to help jailed clients.

On August 13th, corrections officers at Portland, Oregon’s jail found 37-year-old Dee Glassmann dead in her cell during their routine morning “wake up” call. If you’re wondering what happened, you’re not alone: Multnomah County officials won’t release any information about the circumstances of her death for up to eight more weeks, when her toxicology report will be […]

When Henry Ayo was arrested for allegedly trying to steal an air conditionerand jailed in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison last August, he was financially dependent on his wife and unable to make bail. Paying thousands of dollars to secure his pretrial release from the jail was impossible at the time, yet the judge presiding […]

Years after his brutal death, Darren Rainey remains on the minds of the people of Miami. That’s bad news for Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. In 2012, guards locked Rainey in the shower at the Dade Correctional Institute. He died after he was essentially boiled to death. Other inmates said he was screaming for […]

Anthony Huff tragically died in the Garfield County Jail in Oklahoma last year, after staff restrained him in a chair and failed to hydrate and feed him for two days, according to court documents unsealed and released to the public on July 25. But in a rare move, prosecutors in the state decided to hold the […]

Throughout his life, Nick has battled mental illness and an addiction to crack cocaine. He was convicted three times in the 1990’s for offenses that are characteristic of someone struggling with addiction, and served more than four years in a Washington State prison. But despite his fierce desire to remain sober and gainfully employed since […]

On July 17th, a judge in Chicago ruled that courts there could no longer hold people in jail on bail simply because they could not afford it. This is the latest in a series of judicial and legislative actions designed to reform the cash bail system that has come under increasing scrutiny in the wake […]

Protesters railing against extreme heat in one of St. Louis’ abuse-plagued jails were pepper-sprayed by police clad in riot gear last Friday and Saturday, as they called on city officials to shut down the dangerous facility. They say inmates at the Medium Security Institution, nicknamed the “Workhouse,” are living in cells with no air conditioning despite […]

On January 16, Markcus Brown was on his way to a job interview when he was approached by a police officer at one of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) hubs in Dayton, Ohio. Standing next to friends wearing baggy pants and sweatshirts, Brown was asked to show his identification. After declining the request, he was […]