Accountability

As former residents of a California prison, we celebrated its closure but abhorred the punitive transfer process.

Katie Smith, whose murder conviction was based on what’s increasingly seen as junk science, is fighting for her freedom.

A Kansas activist discovered that police tracked him with Flock-style cameras after he wrote an op-ed criticizing them.

The Appeal’s investigation found contracts in nearly every state and the District of Columbia. Find out if your local businesses are working with ICE.

A Georgia judge ordered a new trial for Danyel Smith, who was convicted of a crime that may have never occurred.

Lawyers are appealing to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which had urged the release of Leonard Peltier.

The Washington State Supreme Court will rule on whether Amber Kim, who is trans, can return to a women’s prison.

Public defenders say judges routinely fail to consider whether defendants can afford bail, leaving poor and homeless people jailed on low-level charges. Other counties have already faced civil rights lawsuits.

Todd Sidesinger was taken to Pennsylvania’s York County Prison for unpaid fees. His family says the jail’s medical neglect led to his death just two days later.

People are losing purchased music and games, as well as emails and photographs from loved ones, without compensation.

Even state-level legal protections for trans people have not always extended to those behind bars.

Human rights experts condemn the increasing use of weapons like tear gas, pepper balls, and rubber bullets.

At Louisiana’s Angola prison, incarcerated workers are forced to pick crops in dangerous heat. A federal judge ruled last month that a recent Fifth Circuit decision took away his power to help them.

Over 200,000 incarcerated people face deadly summer heat in California and Texas.

Twenty-two states have laws requiring prisons to provide free menstrual products, but not all of them do.

Experts say “investigative hypnosis” creates an unacceptably high risk of false testimony, but Texas courts have refused to hear Flores’s case. Now his life is in the Supreme Court’s hands.

Find out if your representatives have taken cash from Palantir, the private prison industry, and other companies fueling ICE’s mass deportation efforts.

Private prison executive suggests federal government may buy detention facilities to circumvent state laws.

Maria Montalvo was convicted of murder in 1996 after her children’s deaths in a fire, based on testimony from arson experts. In a petition for a new trial, her attorneys argue that the conviction rests on ‘outdated beliefs and junk science.’

Activists say ending local and state cooperation with ICE is a key way to obstruct Trump’s mass deportation machine.

In a ruling earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton blasted the federal prison agency for a pattern of medical neglect after officials ignored his order to schedule an appointment with a specialist for a woman at high risk of breast cancer.

Last week, Pennsylvania’s highest court ruled that automatic sentences of life without parole for people charged under the felony murder doctrine constitute “cruel punishments” under the state constitution.

ICE raids and cutbacks to personal care services are leaving seniors and disabled adults scrambling for in-home aid.

A lawsuit filed by Disability Rights Pennsylvania says that the state’s prison system restricts access to insulin pumps and glucose monitors, putting people with Type 1 diabetes at risk of death or serious injuries.

The infringement of Muslims’ religious rights has intensified in ICE jails under Trump 2.0, civil rights advocates say.

Incarcerated people in West Virginia filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the largest prison food provider in the country fails to offer adequate meals in the cafeteria while charging high prices for fresh produce and snacks in the commissary.

California’s incarcerated population has aged rapidly over the past 30 years. A new report recommends creating new pathways for senior citizens to seek release.

A new lawsuit in York County, Pennsylvania, highlights a pattern of allegations of medical neglect by for-profit correctional healthcare company PrimeCare.

People across the political spectrum are realizing these federal detention warehouses will harm their communities.

Investors on CoreCivic and GEO Group’s quarterly earnings calls expressed frustration that ICE’s record immigration detention numbers aren’t high enough.

Find out if your representatives have taken cash from the companies fueling ICE’s mass deportation efforts.

Families are asking questions about their loved ones’ deaths in custody. The state isn’t answering them.

Immigrant rights activists and elected officials are calling to shut down Camp East Montana.

Subjects of The Alabama Solution have led protests for years, using cell phones to expose brutality and forced labor.

Everett Palmer, Jr.’s 2018 death in a York County restraint chair prompted a $1.5 million legal settlement, but the jail used restraint chairs more than 1,000 times in the years after his death.

A 2021 incident in a Missouri prison illustrates the barriers Muslims face practicing their religion behind bars.

At least 32 people died in ICE jails in 2025, and six more have already died in ICE custody this year.

As Phoenix PD rushed to fill open positions, the department may have overlooked red flags in recruits’ backgrounds.

The change has brought hope to those who fear dying in prison, while others worry it won’t save them from such a fate.