Virginia Women’s Prisons Force People to Remove Pads, Tampons During Strip Searches Women told The Appeal they found the routine practice degrading and dehumanizing. Prisons around the country have long humiliated people for menstruating. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Trans Man Forced to Undergo Genital Exam at New York Prison: Lawsuit Prison officials allegedly used solitary confinement to get the plaintiff to submit to an invasive examination prohibited under federal law. Chris Gelardi
Report Details ‘Cruel’ and ‘Unconscionable’ Treatment of Patients in Illinois Prisons A federal monitor says substandard healthcare persists—with horrific consequences—more than a decade after a lawsuit was supposed to compel changes. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Why Elderly Incarcerated People Struggle to Find Care After Prison Thousands of elderly people are released from U.S. prisons each year, and advocates say states urgently need to scale up their capacity to provide them with compassionate care. Hope Corrigan
‘Reborn Into A Strange New World’: A Trans Woman Prepares For Release After 18 Years In Men’s Prison An incarcerated writer reflects on what her "going home" story will look like when home no longer exists. Jessica Phoenix Sylvia
‘It’s an Emergency’: Tens of Thousands of Incarcerated People are Sexually Assaulted Each Year Cynthia Alvarado was raped in jail before she was sentenced to life in prison for a murder she did not commit. Now that her sentence has been overturned, Alvarado is fighting for women like her. Val Kiebala
Illinois Advocates Call for Action After Prison Officials Mislead on Contaminated Water Legionella bacteria was found in five Illinois prisons in March. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Let’s Bring Back ‘Prison Warehousing’ Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, “prison warehousing”—which used to be a derogatory term—would look like an upgrade. At least warehouses care about the value of the goods they store. Nick Hacheney, Tomas Keen
‘It’s a Money Grab’: Billions in COVID Relief Going to Fund Police and Prisons Less than two years after racial justice protests sparked calls to “defund the police,” states and jurisdictions are using pandemic aid to pad already bloated law enforcement budgets. Brian Dolinar
Illinois Prison Water Contaminated with Bacteria That Causes Legionnaires’ Disease Corrections officials confirmed finding legionella at five facilities over the past 12 months. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
The Pandemic Isn’t Over Inside Prisons—and It Might Never Be A cycle of hopelessness is taking its toll in prisons across the country, amid continued restrictions on the things that make life more bearable. Christopher Blackwell
How Corporations Turned Prison Tablets Into A Predatory Scheme After giving tablets to incarcerated people, prison telecoms giants are charging prisoners and their families exorbitant prices on everything from emails to movies. Tommaso Bardelli, Ruqaiyah Zarook, Derick McCarthy
When It Comes to Reporting Deaths of Incarcerated People, Most States Break the Law Our team at the University of North Carolina analyzed death-in-custody reporting policies at every state and federal carceral entity. Data collection is a mess—and many states don’t follow the law at all. M. Forrest Behne, Craig Waleed, Meghan Peterson, and Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein
“It’s like a slow war, like a slow burn. Like a slow, quiet form of torture.” Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
How Prison Writers Struggle to Be Heard Sky-high email and phone costs, fear of retaliation by prison staff, and isolation create roadblocks for incarcerated people to share their experience and join a growing national conversation on reforming the criminal legal system. Christopher Blackwell, Nick Hacheney
The Successes and Shortcomings of Larry Krasner’s Trailblazing First Term Philadelphia’s top prosecutor has made good on promises to reduce incarceration in the city. His re-election bid will be a litmus test for the progressive prosecutor movement he helped start. Joshua Vaughn
California Governor Commutes Sentence of Abuse Survivor, Grants Clemency to Several Others Advocates have been urging Governor Gavin Newsom to make greater use of his clemency power, especially for older prisoners who are more vulnerable to COVID-19. Meg O'Connor, Joshua Vaughn
Trump Turned the Justice System Into a Black Box. Biden Could Fix It The Bureau of Justice Statistics has suffered from years of poor funding and political interference by the Trump administration. Fixing it could be one of the most important tasks on Biden’s criminal justice reform agenda. Ethan Corey
Man Recommended For Prison Release Dies Waiting For Pennsylvania Governor’s Sign-Off The Board of Pardons unanimously recommended Bruce Norris for a commutation in December, but Tom Wolf had yet to approve it. Joshua Vaughn
Why The Biden Administration’s Choice To Lead The Bureau of Prisons Matters The attorney general could pick a new head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. That person should have public health experience, formerly incarcerated activists say. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
People in Prisons and Jails Should Get COVID-19 Vaccines As Early as Possible The coronavirus has ripped through our prison and jail populations, infecting and killing hundreds of thousands of people most vulnerable to COVID-19. Brendon Woods
Shifting Incarceration Costs to Counties Could Mean Fewer People in Prisons and Jails, Study Suggests A new study suggests that if counties—rather than states—bear the cost of incarceration, they may be less likely to incarcerate people. Joshua Vaughn
Facing Life Pennsylvania’s prisons have the second-highest number of people in the country serving life without the possibility of parole. Nine people who were released after being sentenced to die behind bars share their stories. Joshua Vaughn
Families Urge Cuomo to Release Loved Ones from Prison During COVID-19 Pandemic In addition to the releases he has already ordered, the New York governor can grant commutations to free more incarcerated people to protect them from the disease. He has issued only three since the pandemic began. Alana Sivin, Joshua Vaughn
Andrew Cuomo Promised Criminal Justice Reforms, But New York Is Still Waiting The governor has rolled back bail reform, not released enough prisoners during the pandemic, and failed to rein in police abuses, advocates and prisoners say. Rebecca McCray
Michigan Lifers Are Organizing Their Families to Vote The Adolescent Redemption Project, a new group organized by Michigan prisoners sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, is advocating for progressive prosecutors. Marcia Brown
Prison Labor Is on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic States like California, New York, and Arizona have relied on prisoners to continue working, with little pay and in precarious conditions, during the coronavirus pandemic. Eliyahu Kamisher
The Pervasive Violence of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Several recent killings have put the spotlight on the largest sheriff’s department in the U.S., but many of the LASD’s abuses go unseen, advocates say. Piper French
Prisons Are the Public Health Crisis Connecticut Won’t Acknowledge According to people incarcerated and their loved ones, state officials are ignoring the spread of COVID-19 at New Haven Correctional Center. Connecticut Bail Fund Hotline Volunteers
Impunity for Law Enforcement Must End. That Includes Officers in Jails and Prisons. Qualified immunity is just one obstacle of many that incarcerated people face when seeking to hold correctional officers accountable for misconduct. Joshua Manson
New York City’s Public Housing Rules Could Force Many Released Prisoners Into Homelessness As thousands of people are freed from local jails, a group of nonprofits and activist organizations says the city's housing authority must revamp its policies that banish the formerly incarcerated. Jerry Iannelli
How Prison Abolitionists Are Meeting The Moment The COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests over police brutality are strengthening the case against mass incarceration, advocates argue. Emily Nonko
As Use of Solitary Confinement Surges, Advocates Call for Releasing Prisoners Legal, medical, and religious groups warn in a new report that the widespread use of solitary confinement in response to COVID-19 risks spreading the disease further and undoing a decade of progress. Joshua Manson
After 17 Years, Bureau Of Prisons Set To Resume Federal Executions A civil rights advocate calls the scheduled executions of four men ‘appalling’ and a return to a ‘biased, arbitrary, and error-prone’ system. Lauren Gill
Governors’ Coronavirus Decisions Put People of Color In Harm’s Way As the country reopens, we can’t quickly forget these failures of government, which have disproportionately harmed Black, Latinx, and Native people. David A. Love
For Children, A Parent In Prison During The Pandemic Heightens Anxiety “My dad, he’s part of the vulnerable population. If I think about it, it becomes really, really, really scary. So to be completely honest, I’m trying not to think about it.” Amos Barshad
Less Than Half a Percent of Pennsylvania Prisoners Have Been Granted Emergency Release During the Pandemic Advocates had hoped Governor Tom Wolf would use his executive reprieve power to release thousands of people from prisons in the face of COVID-19. Joshua Vaughn
Still in Solitary Five years after statewide hunger strikes and a landmark settlement, men incarcerated in a California prison say they’re still isolated for up to 22 hours a day. Joshua Manson
Isolation, Death, And Grief at a New York Women’s Prison Coronavirus infections climb at the state’s only maximum-security facility for women, and those held there fear for their safety. Lyra Walsh Fuchs
After More Than 25 Years Behind Bars, He’s At High Risk For Coronavirus. Now He’s Going Home John Wesley Parratt Jr. was scheduled to appear before the parole board in July. After the novel coronavirus arrived in San Quentin State Prison, he feared for his health. Juan Moreno Haines
The Other Infectious Disease Ravaging America’s Jails And Prisons Hepatitis C has ripped through prisons and jails, despite more effective treatments for the disease. It is a comorbidity to COVID-19, and the pandemic threatens to cut already weak state funding for prisons to treat those with the disease. Samuel Weiss
Mississippi Has Tested Fewer Than 1% of State Prisoners and Staff For COVID-19 Governor Tate Reeves has touted the state’s testing efforts as ‘aggressive,’ but testing rates in the state’s prisons, where the coronavirus has already claimed at least one life, remain low. Ko Bragg
Advocates Push New York Governor for More Releases From Jails and Prisons The governor’s requirements for release are too narrow in light of the threat from COVID-19, they say. Bryce Covert
Pregnant Woman in Pennsylvania Jail Denied Release An Erie County judge said the pregnant 20-year-old would be ‘safer’ in jail from the COVID-19 outbreak. Victoria Law
A Vermont Judge Had Plans to Slow the Spread of COVID-19 in Prisons. Lawmakers Scrapped Them. Political concerns are slowing efforts to depopulate prisons in the state, advocates say. Adam Willems
College Programs In Prison Show The Value Of Educating Every American Prisons, one graduate writes, should be institutions of learning, not ‘wastelands’ that willfully overlook human potential. Rodney Spivey-Jones
As the Coronavirus Spreads, Prisoners Are Rising Up For Their Health Faced with inaction on the part of state and corrections officials, incarcerated people in jails, prisons, and detention centers are protesting their treatment during the COVID-19 outbreak. Dan Berger, Ryan Fatica, Duncan Tarr
Formerly Incarcerated Americans Were Excluded From Federal COVID-19 Relief The Small Business Administration has created barriers for people re-entering the workforce after serving time in prison. Alex Sherman
‘That Man Can’t Breathe’ A sheriff’s deputy in Louisiana is caught on video choking a man after he says he asked for COVID-19 treatment. Jerry Iannelli
‘The Situation Here Is Dire’: How An Upstate New York Prison Failed to Contain a COVID-19 Outbreak FCI Ray Brook was slow to respond to the spread of coronavirus among correctional officers. Now the outbreak has reached prisoners. Harry August, Alex Garnick
Man With Innocence Claim Is First to Die of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania Prisons The Pennsylvania Innocence Project was seeking the exoneration of Rudolph Sutton when he died on April 8 from complications related to COVID-19. Joshua Vaughn
Pennsylvania Governor Could Release Hundreds of Prisoners As COVID-19 Spreads Tom Wolf said Friday he will use his reprieve power, a form of clemency, to reduce the state prison population. Joshua Vaughn
Every Public Official With The Power To Decarcerate Must Exercise That Power Now 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. Sharon Dolovich
The COVID-19 Prison Disaster Is No Longer Hypothetical People are dying in jails and prisons because elected officials hesitated at the worst possible moment. Jay Willis
Amid COVID-19 Panic, Pennsylvania Republicans Warn Governor Against Taking Executive Action to Release Prisoners They tell Tom Wolf that taking any unilateral actions to reduce the state’s prison population would endanger public safety. Joshua Vaughn
Prisoners in Illinois Describe Dire Conditions Amid Coronavirus Outbreak It took a prisoner’s death ‘just for them to pass out a single extra bar of soap,’ one incarcerated man said. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
New York Retreats on Bail Reform Amid Coronavirus Outbreak The state, which accounts for roughly one-third of all positive COVID-19 cases in the country, is facing a rapid spread of the disease in its jail and prison systems. Bryce Covert
Pennsylvania Lawmakers To Introduce Prisoner Furlough Bill During COVID-19 Pandemic The emergency program seeks to release a select group of prisoners but does not go far enough to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in prisons, experts and Democratic lawmakers say. Joshua Vaughn
The Pandemic Exposes The Shared Fates Of The Jailed And The Jailer Incarcerated people, corrections officers, and their families and communities are bound together by the threat of a deadly and fast-moving disease. The sooner we recognize this, and take decisive action, the more lives we will save. Cyrus Ahalt
Closing California Courts Won’t Prevent A COVID-19 Crisis in Jails Los Angeles County judges must move quickly to release a broad group of people in custody. Alicia Virani
The Voices Warning Trump About COVID-19 In Prisons Are Growing Louder. Will He Listen? There are no good reasons for the president to keep vulnerable people behind bars any longer. Jay Willis
A Public Health Doctor And Head Of Corrections Agree: We Must Immediately Release People From Jails And Prisons Decisive action by governors and the President now can save lives -- of incarcerated people, correctional and medical personnel, and nearby community members. Business as usual will not. Brie Williams, Leann Bertsch
Why Coronavirus in Jails Should Concern All of Us New research shows that jails contribute to infectious disease deaths in the greater community. Sandhya Kajeepeta, Seth J. Prins
A Tweet Raises Questions About Immigrant Safety During Coronavirus Pandemic As COVID-19 spreads, ICE detained a Central American immigrant in a hospital, causing confusion and raising concerns. Lexi McMenamin
What Sheriffs Can Do To Slow the Coronavirus Outbreak Sheriffs wield enormous power, and they can direct it in ways that will help contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect incarcerated people. Jessica Pishko
This Tool Can Track Changes to Incarcerated Populations Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic At a time when it’s vital to reduce jail and prison populations to prevent outbreaks, this data can help advocates identify areas where that is or is not happening. Oliver Hinds
Prosecutors Across U.S. Call for Action to Mitigate Spread of Coronavirus in Jails and Prisons In a joint statement, they emphasized the need to reduce the number of people currently incarcerated in order to contain the deadly COVID-19 virus. Jessica Pishko
New York Department of Corrections Investigator Dies From COVID-19 The individual had no contact with people in custody for at least the past month, according to the DOC. Kira Lerner
Pressure Builds on New York Governor To Address Coronavirus Impact on Prisoners Andrew Cuomo, who recently announced the state would employ prisoners to make hand sanitizer, must prepare for the particular vulnerabilities of the state’s prison population to COVID-19, advocates say. Bryce Covert
Indiana Advocates Call on Governor to Release Elderly And Infirm Prisoners As Coronavirus Spreads More than 100 people signed an open letter to Eric Holcomb requesting that he begin releasing people most likely to be seriously harmed or killed by the coronavirus. Joshua Vaughn
Louisiana Continues to Imprison People Past Their Release Dates A Department of Corrections official knew the extrajudicial practice was going on but little has been done to correct it. Victoria Law
The Appeal Podcast: Substandard Healthcare in American Prisons With Taylor Elizabeth Eldridge, a Type Investigations Ida B. Wells Fellow and Appeal contributor. Adam H. Johnson
How Dubious Science Helped Put A New Jersey Woman In Prison For Killing A Baby In Her Care The state said Michelle Heale shook the baby to death, but some experts say her conviction was based on debunked science. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Inspired By Her Own Experiences, Baltimore Woman Publishes Magazine Giving Voice To The Incarcerated 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. Elizabeth Brico
The Appeal Podcast: The Regressive Pseudoscience of Our ‘War on Opioid Addiction’ With Appeal contributor Zachary Siegel, a journalism fellow at Northeastern University Law School’s Health in Justice Action Lab, and Lev Facher of STAT News. Adam H. Johnson
‘It’s Just Heartbreaking’: Families Search for Answers as Death Rate Rises in Mississippi Prisons Prison deaths in Mississippi have climbed nearly 40 percent in recent years, from 62 in fiscal year 2014 to a high of 85 in fiscal year 2018. Lauren Gill
Sense of ‘hopelessness’ rises among Alabama prisoners as new rules, leadership changes, limit opportunities for parole After a two-month moratorium, the state parole board reconvened last week, granting parole to 10 out of 87 people. Lauren Gill
Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Releases Criminal Justice Reform Plan The South Bend, Indiana, mayor says his plan—which includes cutting the incarcerated population by half—will "rebalance" a system that is "unfair and racist in many ways." Aaron Morrison
New Orleans Advocates Oppose Jail Expansion Plan Ahead of Public Hearing Increasing the city’s jail capacity will lead to higher incarceration rates, advocates say. Lauren Gill
In Third Debate, Democratic Presidential Candidates Condemn Mass Incarceration Without Naming Its Main Driver Candidates offered reforms for people accused of low-level, nonviolent offenses, but more than half of U.S. prisoners have committed a violent crime. Aaron Morrison
Hundreds of Alabama Prisoners See Opportunity For Freedom Delayed After Parole Hearings Canceled The parole board failed to comply with a new law about notifying victims, the board’s director said. Lauren Gill
Alabama’s Prisons Are the Most Crowded—If You Look at the Right Data The Bureau of Justice Statistics relies in part on states to self-report prison capacity numbers, which can result in a misleading snapshot of overcrowding in the U.S. Corin Faife
Sensationalist Tale of an Elderly Killer Feeds False Narrative The New York Times’s coverage of the one-off case of a 77-year-old man omits key facts about how older adults are treated by our punitive legal system. Adam H. Johnson
New York Prisons Offer ‘Tough Love’ Boot Camp Programs. But Prisoners Say They’re ‘Torture’ And ‘Hell.’ Prisoners can shave time off their sentences by participating in shock incarceration programs. More than a dozen former shock prisoners say that comes at a steep cost. Keri Blakinger
