Mass Incarceration

“I was sentenced and put in prison for the choices I made. I was not sentenced to being raped and abused while in prison.” 

I had to return to jail before a resentencing hearing. It meant taking a trip back through hell.

Incarcerated people have testified before state lawmakers about legislation that would directly impact their lives, including bills to change the cost of prison communications and rein in extreme sentencing practices and the use of solitary confinement.

Free prison tablet programs rely on predatory contracts with juggernauts of prison industry, Aventiv and Global Tel Link.

In American Purgatory, Benjamin Weber links the rise of American prisons to the expansion of American power around the globe.

No system designed to make money by subjugating people intends to rid us of those harms. Abolition is a vision for the future.

We’re celebrating 4/20 by tackling some popular myths about marijuana and the criminal legal system.

After more than a year in office—and despite pushback—the San Francisco DA’s policies have kept people out of jails and prisons.

Former Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Johnson’s fiery dissents on mass incarceration and sentencing in America’s most carceral state garnered international attention. But the rise of the first Black woman on the court was characterized by one battle after another with the Deep South’s white power structure.

Many of the 230,000 women and girls in U.S. jails and prisons were abuse survivors before they entered the system. Research for The Appeal shows that at least 30 percent of those serving time on murder or manslaughter charges were protecting themselves or a loved one from physical or sexual violence.

The report found that spread inside correctional facilities contributed to community spread, particularly in California, Florida and Texas.

Legal experts say the IRS is illegally denying CARES Act payments to incarcerated people.

Mark Zuckerberg could engage in criminal legal reform by bringing Facebook’s policies in line with CZI’s mission and allow people to request that their mugshot be taken down.

Under the HEROES Act, the Community Oriented Policing Services program would receive $300 million to fund the hiring of more police. Democratic and Republican leaders alike remain committed to the ideology of increased funding, even under the guise of reform.

Both incarcerated brothers are at an increased risk of complications from COVID-19—and one has tested positive.

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.

The state is sending virus-positive people to Angola prison—but those numbers aren’t reported on the Department of Corrections website.

Towns like Homer, Louisiana, have huge prisons, a tiny populace, and few public health resources—a potentially lethal combination as COVID-19 spreads.

Doing so will save countless lives, and in the process, they may show us by example how to begin, finally, to dismantle mass incarceration for good.

The city’s DA’s office and its public defender association urged judges to adopt video meetings to speed the release of incarcerated people. But emails obtained by The Appeal show that judges took a much more limited approach to decarceration.

District attorneys in the state could decarcerate quickly by dropping unnecessary cases.

Josie Duffy Rice and guest co-host Donovan Ramsey talk with Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, about the privatization of America’s criminal legal system.

The Metropolitan Police Department has discussed reducing arrests, but it has not formally announced any policy changes.

With one term under her belt as Chicago’s top prosecutor, Foxx says she has more work to do to right a system that has been “unfair, and totally unjust.”

In November 2018, Democrats won control of the state Senate in New York. And they did so with authority. Vivian Wang of the New York Times reported after the election: “Democrats had needed to flip only one seat to erase the Republicans’ razor-thin majority. They blew past that number, unseating five incumbents and winning three open seats.” […]

“We will prioritize family integrity and family unity at every stage of the process to the extent we can do so.”

Racial disparities in incarceration rates are dropping but still remain high. Racial disparities in sentence lengths are growing.

More than 5,400 people in the state are sentenced to life without parole. This month, The Appeal went inside one prison that helps provide end-of-life care for men.

After last week’s election victories, will Virginia Democrats address gun violence in ways that don’t rely on criminalization?

With Civil Rights Corps founder Alec Karakatsanis

More than three years after heavy rains and flooding devastated the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, officials have reached an agreement to build a new facility.

His legal team had pushed for clemency, arguing that Bucklew’s previous attorneys mishandled his capital murder case.

As the presidential election approaches, reformers should focus on the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which restricts the ability of incarcerated people to protest their conditions of confinement.

Miller’s victim impact statement was centered in a recent ’60 Minutes’ segment on the Brock Turner case. But such statements do not heal victims, and Miller’s unfavorable comparison of Turner’s sentence to drug offenders only reinforces carceral logic.

Rodney Reed, set to be executed on Nov. 20, is innocent of a rape and murder, his lawyers say, and untested evidence will prove it. But prosecutors have pushed back, arguing the evidence is contaminated.

Derek Harris awaits arguments in the state Supreme Court about the sentencing, which one judge called ‘unconscionable.’

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. “Environmentalism is now equated with social justice and civil rights,” wrote professors Robert D. Bullard and Glenn S. Johnson in the Journal of Social Issues almost 20 years ago. […]

Young people convicted as adults face a ‘life sentence’ of registry restrictions, attorneys say.

Candidates offered reforms for people accused of low-level, nonviolent offenses, but more than half of U.S. prisoners have committed a violent crime.

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.