Illinois Governor JB Pritzker tried to use the state’s parole board to safely free more people from prison. But after Republican backlash, the board’s work has essentially been frozen.
Five women in Mississippi have been incarcerated longer than any others in the state. Each has been denied parole a multitude of times. Here, one of the women shares their stories.
A group of nearly 20 federal lawmakers sent letters to two companies this week calling out abusive industry practices and requesting additional information about their profits, policies, and contracts with local governments.
The governor’s broken promises have perpetuated an unacceptable status quo that denies incarcerated individuals a fair and transparent process for parole decisions.
A new book uses parole to chronicle how the criminal legal system prioritizes punishment over actually rehabilitating people or making society safer.
The severe restrictions I face while on supervision effectively serve as a ban on stable housing. The terms of this arrangement have left me technically homeless, forced to live in a motel.
Politicians often vilify so-called violent criminals. But the “violent felon” label can mean someone committed anything from a murder to a purse-snatching or verbal threat—and doesn’t line up with what science tells us about violence.
Gloria Williams, who became known as “Mama Glo” behind bars, was released Tuesday, more than two years after the state parole board first recommended that her sentence be commuted.
Justices in the state’s highest court are weighing whether it is unconstitutional to sentence people convicted of murder and aged 18 to 20 to life without parole.
Leaving prison often hinges on completing rehabilitative programming. The pandemic caused many of these required courses to be put on hold.
Even with the recent creation of the Juvenile Sentence Review Board, the governor’s process for granting clemency remains unclear.
Survivors’ needs and opinions vary—and many have not found justice when they turn to the criminal legal system.
Despite calls to reduce incarcerated populations, the number of people being detained for minor parole violations has been rising.
Proposition 17 would allow people with felony convictions to cast ballots while they are on parole.
Through a series of maneuvers, state legislators narrowed the ambitious scope of Senate Bill 14.
Experts say Black and Native children are disproportionately jailed either for status offenses or for technical violations of probation or parole—and that incarcerating them has far-reaching negative consequences.
Taewon Wilson and Candace Chavez-Wilson are part of a growing movement to end life without possibility of parole and other harsh sentences.
Attorneys argued for decades that Bobby Moore was intellectually disabled when he was sentenced to death in 1980. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling led to a change in his sentence last year and cleared the way for his release.
Harris, now 72 and blind, had been serving a life sentence for the shooting death of her husband, a man she said had abused her for years. Last month, the Arkansas Parole Board agreed to free her.
Harris, now 72 and blind, was sentenced to life in prison in 1985. Since she first started petitioning for executive clemency in 1998, the state’s parole board recommended her for release five times.
The state has recommended the release of 10 women at a coronavirus-ravaged prison—but Governor John Bel Edwards still hasn’t signed the paperwork.
States must fund stable housing for all formerly incarcerated people to neutralize the spread of COVID-19 and create equitable opportunities for social reintegration.
Twenty-eight people were to attend weeks-long drug treatment programs after violating parole. The COVID-19 pandemic nearly trapped them in jail indefinitely.
In Alabama and elsewhere, canceled hearings and new procedures are complicating the parole process for people hoping to be freed.
Many programs for people on parole, probation, or supervision take place in group settings—the exact opposite of what public health officials are recommending in order to stop the spread of COVID-19.
When the dust settles on this pandemic, we need to be clear on what was an emergency response and what is a desirable permanent change.
Advocates have called on Governor Tom Wolf and state Department of Corrections officials to release elderly and infirm people from state prisons. But the law is limiting how quickly they can move.
Josie Duffy Rice and guest host Donovan X. Ramsey talk with LaTonya Tate, executive director and founder of the Alabama Justice Initiative, about probation and parole.
Unlike other states, Arizona offers minimal early release credits for the prisoners it sends to fight its wildfires.
Many liberals support reform in theory. But when unpopular decisions need to be made, it’s back to the 1990s “Tough on Crime” playbook.
Tia Hamilton’s State v. Us focuses closely on the criminal legal system, especially as it applies to people of color, who are statistically overrepresented in the carceral system.
Recent reporting is a reminder of the crisis of elderly and ailing people in US prisons.
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.
Efforts are underway to address life without parole sentences and free people who have been in prison for decades.
The state’s parole board has recommended that Willie Mae Harris, convicted of killing her husband in 1985, be freed five times. Now 72 and completely blind, her fate lies with Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
After a two-month moratorium, the state parole board reconvened last week, granting parole to 10 out of 87 people.
Richard Rivera served more than 38 years in prison after killing an off-duty NYPD officer during a botched armed robbery. He was released in July after being denied parole five times.
The parole board failed to comply with a new law about notifying victims, the board’s director said.
At 16, Larry Rosser was imprisoned for killing a woman who sexually and physically abused him. He served 22 years in the California prison system before being released in 2017, after parole commissioners became convinced he was a rehabilitated victim.
Richard Kinder thought he would die in an Alabama prison until the Supreme Court ruled mandatory juvenile life without parole unconstitutional. But last year, despite a judge concluding there was “uncontradicted evidence” that Kinder had worked to rehabilitate himself, the state parole board refused him release.