Pregnancy-Related Arrests Spiked During Last 16 Years, Report Finds
Legal experts who spoke with The Appeal warned the criminal justice system will continue to target pregnant people in the coming years.
Meg O'Connor Sep 19, 2023
More in Criminalization
The Right’s New Solution To Mass Shootings: Ban Trans People, Not Guns
The blame game against trans people is just one of the many diversionary tactics the right has used in our intractable gun violence debate.
Adam M. Rhodes Jul 19, 2023
Cops and Republicans Are Criminalizing Pregnant People Without Roe
Lawmakers in seven states proposed bills to make abortion murder punishable by death. Cops arrested three women for their pregnancy outcomes.
Meg O'Connor Jun 21, 2023
The First Pride Was a Riot. Maybe It’s Time to Return to Those Radical Roots.
As the saying goes, the first Pride was a riot. The only way queer people have won anything is by fighting—in the courts and in the streets.
Adam M. Rhodes Jun 14, 2023
‘They Are Attempting to Criminalize Every Part of Our Identity’
A leader in the LGBTQ community weighs in on the attempts by elected officials to legislate gay and trans people out of existence.
Meg O'Connor Jun 07, 2023
Atlanta Police Target Bail Fund Organizers in Latest Crackdown on ‘Stop Cop City’ Movement
Three organizers were charged with “money laundering” and “charity fraud” in a direct attack on mutual aid and civil rights protests.
Aja Arnold Jun 02, 2023
To Cut Down on Shoplifting, Let’s Arrest Some CEOs
Online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay make billions from shoplifted products. Why are police and lawmakers focusing on small-time thieves?
Ethan Corey May 31, 2023
Drug War Tactics Won’t Stop Xylazine Deaths
Instead, harm reduction advocates are calling for strategy to create a safer supply of currently criminalized drugs.
Clare Boyle May 25, 2023
Phoenix Is Clearing Its Largest Homeless Encampment. The ACLU Says It’s Breaking the Law.
As Phoenix begins to displace around 700 people from an encampment near downtown, the ACLU of Arizona is asking a judge to find the city in contempt of a court order prohibiting it from violating the rights of the unhoused.
Meg O'Connor May 18, 2023
Family Caseworkers Are Like Cops, But They Don’t Tell Parents Their Rights
New York families are organizing to require caseworkers to give parents a Miranda-like warning informing them of their rights in so-called “child welfare” investigations.
Sarah Duggan May 16, 2023
‘Never Designed to Help’: How New York’s ‘Child Welfare’ System Preys on Families
The New York City Administration for Children’s Services effectively serves as a policing system for parents, which disproportionately targets families of color and only rarely finds evidence of abuse or neglect.
Daniel Moritz-Rabson May 15, 2023
How California Cops Exploit Legal Gray Areas to Continue Their War on Cannabis
Years after legalization, the state’s growers say police are taking a “seize first, ask questions later” mentality toward marijuana enforcement, sometimes with heavily militarized operations that allegedly violate their rights.
Kate Mishkin Apr 20, 2023
Background Check Industry Profits Off ‘Digital Punishment,’ Despite Flawed Data
Criminal background checks have become nearly ubiquitous in many settings. But experts warn that reports can be deeply inaccurate, with some records databases containing “phantom crimes” that appear nowhere else in public record.
Caleb Brennan Apr 17, 2023
Book Explores How Child Protective Services’ Failures Led to Murder-Suicide
Long before the murder-suicide, there had been numerous reports to CPS about suspected abuse in the Hart household.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Apr 12, 2023
Anti-Trans Bills Flood States in ‘Centrally Coordinated’ Attack on Transgender Existence
Advocates have expressed shock at a rapid escalation in the severity of anti-trans legislation, which is increasingly seeking to restrict medical care and public expression, including with threats of criminal punishment.
Adam M. Rhodes Mar 22, 2023
Injustice, Inc.: How America’s Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor
Countless forms of detention and foster care facilities are profiting from warehousing the humans treated as remnants.
Daniel L. Hatcher Mar 01, 2023
A Lonely Child Finds His Way Out of Abuse and Homelessness, It Lands Him Behind Bars
First in a three-part series on a teenager with a tumultuous childhood sent to die in prison, and where his life would lead. The following narrative was compiled from interviews and court records.
Sylvia A. Harvey Jan 30, 2023
California Politicians are Disguising Homeless Sweeps as “Care”
Newsom’s measure—called “CARE Court”—paves the way for family members, state officials, and first responders to force more unhoused people into court-ordered treatment programs for a period of up to two years.
Jerry Iannelli Jan 25, 2023
What Tracy McCarter’s Case Reveals About the Fight to Decriminalize Survival
Prosecutors recently dropped murder charges against McCarter, a domestic violence survivor who killed her estranged husband in an act of self-defense. Her legal ordeal shows how much more we must do to show up for women.
Caryn York Dec 16, 2022
NYC Advocates Fear More Police Violence, Homeless Criminalization Amid Forced Hospitalizations
New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued a directive this week that puts police at the center of renewed efforts to remove people exhibiting signs of mental illness from public spaces.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Dec 01, 2022
Youth Curfews Feed Kids into the Criminal System. But Cities Keep Expanding Them.
Youth curfews don’t work. Over 11,500 kids were arrested in 2019 for curfew violations or loitering, per FBI data. Nearly 30% were Black.
Tara Francis Chan Nov 23, 2022
Almost All Abortions Are Now Banned in Arizona
A judge allowed a Civil War-era law to go back into effect today. The law requires two to five years in prison for people who provide abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person.
Meg O'Connor Sep 23, 2022
How American Public Spaces Became so Criminalized—and How We Can Win Them Back
On September 23, 2020, a Black man died for the alleged crime of crossing the street the wrong way. His death was due in large part to America’s long history of criminalizing public spaces and our existence in them.
Nneka Ewulonu Sep 21, 2022
Pressure Mounts Against HIV Criminalization as Prosecutions Continue
Roughly 30 states still have some form of HIV criminalization law or sentencing enhancement on the books. Advocates say it’s long past time for change.
Adam M. Rhodes Sep 15, 2022
Amid Fears of Crime and Mental Illness, States Move to Expand Forced Treatment
Advocates of assisted outpatient treatment say it could reduce homelessness and mass shootings. Critics call it incarceration by another name.
Caleb Brennan Aug 04, 2022
How to Get an Abortion by Mail in Your State
States will have a hard time stopping medication abortion. Abortion pills are safer than Tylenol and have been approved by the FDA since 2000.
Meg O'Connor Aug 02, 2022
Arizona Judge Blocks Law That Treats Fetuses as People
The law granted embryos and fetuses the same rights as a person. Civil rights groups sought an injunction out of concern the law could criminalize people who provide or obtain abortions.
Meg O'Connor Jul 12, 2022
28 Years, 160 Arrests: What One Man’s Record Reveals About San Diego’s Broken Justice System
What do you do with people who are repeatedly failed by social services and the legal system?
Kelly Davis Jul 11, 2022
Justice Department Launches Investigation Into NYPD’s Troubled Special Victims Division
The probe will assess whether the SVD engages in a “pattern or practice of gender-biased policing,” according to the DOJ.
Meg O'Connor Jun 30, 2022
Here’s How You Can Help People After Roe
Resources from organizations that have spent decades helping people access abortions and defending people who are criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes.
Meg O'Connor Jun 24, 2022
What To Expect Now That Roe’s Been Overturned
Most abortion bans criminalize providers by making it a felony to perform an abortion. But experts say people who obtain abortions can and will be criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes — they already have been even while Roe was still in place.
Meg O'Connor Jun 24, 2022
Supreme Court Overturns Roe, Opening Door for Mass Criminalization of Abortion
Police and prosecutors will now be tasked with enforcing state anti-abortion laws.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Jun 24, 2022
Anti-Abortion Group Urges States to Pass Sweeping Criminalization Laws Post Roe
Model state legislation proposed by a leading anti-choice group would impose felony charges for a broad new set of activities related to abortion.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Jun 22, 2022
‘I Did Not Shake My Son’: Is a Father Serving Life for a Crime That Never Occurred?
Expert says trauma from childbirth, not shaking, led to the death of Danyel Smith’s two-month-old child.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Jun 06, 2022
How Los Angeles Created the Playbook for a Nationwide War on the Unhoused
As politicians look to build public support for homeless encampment sweeps, they’re using tactics popularized in LA—the site of one of the nation’s most intense battles over the unhoused.
Jonny Coleman May 26, 2022
America’s Dark History of Criminalizing Queerness
New laws imposing criminal penalties for trans healthcare follow a long legislative history of explicitly targeting queer people in the United States.
Adam M. Rhodes May 25, 2022
Man Left Paralyzed After Hospital Denies Care And Calls Police: Lawsuit
Accused of faking his symptoms, Joshua Lee Smith was dragged from his hospital bed, called a “junkie,” and thrown in jail, his lawsuit says. Then, he woke up paralyzed.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg May 16, 2022
What Would the End of Roe v. Wade Mean for Pregnancy Behind Bars?
A Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion could force thousands of incarcerated people to carry pregnancies to term.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg May 05, 2022
After Years Locked up for Stealing Cold Medicine, Reginald Randolph Is Released
But if he loses his appeal and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declines to grant him clemency, he will likely be sent back to prison.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Jan 25, 2022