More from The Appeal:
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 | December 9, 2020
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 | December 7, 2020
With aggressive legal maneuvering, the incoming head of the Justice Department can reverse some of Trump’s most lasting harm and take steps toward a more humane immigration system.
Chris Gelardi | December 4, 2020
Investing in local communities and rolling back the criminalization of marijuana is exactly what the country needs right now.
Barbara Lee | December 3, 2020
Eric Garcetti, who may be considered for a position in the administration, is out of touch with the city’s working class and poor people, activists say. And they fear he’ll bring that sensibility to national politics.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | December 3, 2020
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Transportation Secretary or Assistant to the Transportation Secretary, Rahm doesn’t belong in any of D.C.’s halls of power.
Jamaal Bowman | December 2, 2020
Two moped riders were left dead or injured after recent police pursuits in Washington, D.C., and Providence, Rhode Island.
Ella Fassler | December 2, 2020
Incumbents Jimmy Flannigan and Alison Alter have been targeted by conservative challengers because of the council’s votes to cut police funding and repeal a ban on public camping.
Meg O'Connor | December 1, 2020
New York City’s jail population is close to reaching pre-pandemic levels. Advocates say dishonest fearmongering about bail reform—and the politicians who capitulated to it—have created a very real safety crisis.
Joshua Manson | November 30, 2020
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.
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 | November 24, 2020
None of the Austin City Council members who voted to cut police funding lost their elections, but a police union vice president who fearmongered about the defund movement did.
Meg O'Connor | November 20, 2020
Progressive lawmakers and activists say Cuomo has failed to adequately protect those who are out of work, at risk of losing their homes, or living behind bars, where the virus has spread rapidly.
When election and racial justice protests rocked the city, Lori Lightfoot used raised bridges and shutdown public transportation as crowd control measures, which harmed the city’s workers.
Maya Dukmasova | November 13, 2020
Law enforcement organizations have long treated mass incarceration as a job creation program. In 2020, the tide began turning against them.
Jay Willis | November 10, 2020
Kelly Davis | November 6, 2020
Researchers with the Covid Prison Project talk about how COVID-19 has opened up possibilities for data collection, a new report shows persistent disparities in L.A. County jails, and Colorado’s El Paso County jail sets a grim state record.
Kelly Davis | November 5, 2020
An overview of gubernatorial candidates and their stances on decarceration during the pandemic, a new lawsuit argues that Massachusetts corrections officials are ignoring home-confinement requests, and new infections spike at the Fort Dix federal prison in New Jersey.
Kelly Davis | November 2, 2020
A judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking the release of seriously ill prisoners from a facility that is now dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak; despite nationwide calls to shrink prison populations through sentencing reform, only one Election Day ballot measure seeks to tackle the issue; partying corrections officers are blamed for an outbreak at a North Carolina jail.
Kelly Davis | October 30, 2020
Under the banner of Detroit Will Breathe, the city’s Black Lives Matter activists have formed a cohesive and lasting local political force.
Chris Gelardi | October 29, 2020
The ACLU and other groups sue to free people from the deadliest federal prison; a new study finds that coronavirus-driven jail releases hasn’t caused an increase in crime; and half of people in South Dakota prisons have tested positive for COVID-19.
October 28, 2020
A new watchdog report finds ‘inadequate adherence to basic safety protocols’ during COVID-19 outbreaks in California prisons; advocates call on Gov. Cuomo to release incarcerated people and enhance medical oversight; Abbe Lowell says the First Step Act needs a Second Step Act.
Kelly Davis | October 26, 2020
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says decarceration is the only way to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control; the CDC changes its testing guidelines after a Vermont prison guard contracts coronavirus; and our ongoing case map shows more than 60 new outbreaks.
Kelly Davis | October 26, 2020
Incumbent Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel is backed by police unions and has declined to charge officers in high-profile killings. Challenger Julie Gunnigle says she wants to create an independent unit to review police use-of-force cases.
Meg O'Connor | October 23, 2020
Fort Bend Sheriff Troy Nehls wants voters to send him to Congress despite his department’s history of jail deaths and allegations of racial-profiling.
Jerry Iannelli | October 23, 2020
A California appeals court orders San Quentin prison to reduce its population by half, the ACLU’s Death by Incarceration project paints a stark picture of COVID-19’s toll, and a new law grants early release to 3,000 New Jersey prisoners.
Kelly Davis | October 21, 2020
An outbreak at Montana’s Cascade County jail demonstrates the risk COVID-19 poses to rural communities, the virus has infected nearly 2,000 children in juvenile-detention facilities, and one large Michigan prison is grappling with an outbreak that’s infected roughly one-third of its staff.
Kelly Davis | October 19, 2020
A new report by researchers at Johns Hopkins University warns prisons and jails that ‘changes are urgently needed’ to prevent more COVID-19 outbreaks; Wisconsin continues to struggle with infections inside and outside its prisons; and a new video series shares the tragic story of a wife trying to get help for her husband amid an outbreak at Chicago’s Cook County Jail.
Kelly Davis | October 17, 2020
Civil liberties experts say the Strategic Response Group’s recent crackdown on ICE protests is the most brutal suppression of protests in decades—and many of its officers are the subject of significant misconduct allegations, including a supervisor with 32 complaints.
Ali Winston | October 15, 2020
How a collaboration between scholars, public health officials, and the Wayne County jail has kept COVID-19 in check; the California prison with the most coronavirus cases kept prisoners working despite the outbreaks; two counties report spikes in infections among juvenile detainees.
Kelly Davis | October 14, 2020
Truitt Watts, who is serving a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole at Oregon State Correctional Institution, describes the programs that helped him recover from addiction and address his past.
Truitt Watts | October 13, 2020
A ’freedom fighter’ reports from the San Quentin prisons on Twitter, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a ruling made to protect elderly prisoners, and a class-action lawsuit seeks $400 million from the state of Delaware for ignoring basic COVID-19 precautions.
Kelly Davis | October 9, 2020
Contrary to reports, most City Council members—who ran and won by pledging to advance racial equity—tried to do the right thing, but were stalled by a charter commission that overstepped its authority.
Scott Shaffer | October 9, 2020
The Florida Sheriffs Association gains a third of its multimillion-dollar budget by selling big-ticket items like trucks and mobile command centers to local sheriff’s departments and other government agencies.
Jerry Iannelli | October 9, 2020
COVID-19 has exposed a huge gap in knowledge over the rights of hospitalized prisoners, Wisconsin sees a spike in new cases in correctional facilities, and vitamin D might help save the lives of incarcerated people.
Kelly Davis | October 7, 2020
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s popularity has declined after a summer of protests against police violence in the Oregon city.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | October 7, 2020
Through a loophole in the 13th Amendment, governments and corporations profit from cheap, incarcerated labor.
Michele Bratcher Goodwin | October 7, 2020
President Trump has appointed a quarter of active federal appellate judges, and they have decisively hampered legal efforts to force prisons and jails to address the coronavirus.
Samuel Weiss | October 6, 2020
After being COVID-free for months, Massachusetts facilities see new outbreaks; a New York lawmaker wants to make it easier for people to serve prison and jail sentences at home; and deaths continue to plague a Virginia prison.
Kelly Davis | October 5, 2020
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 | October 5, 2020
Despite new outbreaks in Oregon prisons, Gov. Kate Brown remains hesitant to release people, federal prison inspector releases an online COVID-19 dashboard to boost transparency, and our ongoing case map suggests widespread trouble for Georgia prisoners.
Kelly Davis | October 2, 2020
Research has shown only that police can be sufficient, not that they are necessary.
John Pfaff | October 2, 2020
The ruling said the commission wasn’t diverse enough and gave little voice to communities affected by policing.
Joshua Vaughn | October 1, 2020
If he becomes president and Democrats win the Senate, Biden should push a federal spending bill that includes money for civilian first-responder programs.
Aaron Stagoff-Belfort | October 1, 2020
An investigation by The Appeal and Spotlight PA found that troopers in three counties have taken big money from drivers, many of whom were never charged.
A ruling by a Texas judge slams officials for deliberate indifference toward vulnerable prisoners; in San Diego, an ill-advised hospital visit led to a massive COVID-19 outbreak; and a new report finds an alarming increase of Latinx and Native American youth in juvenile-detention facilities.
Kelly Davis | September 30, 2020
Mayors of liberal cities love to criticize the president’s incendiary law-and-order rhetoric, but do precious little to check police violence and bloated budgets in their own backyards.
Jay Willis | September 30, 2020
Under the guise of restoring public confidence in law enforcement, President Trump’s secretive and regressive Commission on Law Enforcement is stacked with old-guard failed tough-on-crime thinking that precipitated the crisis of confidence we now face.
A new report documents pandemic-driven efforts to release people from Chicago’s Cook County jail, how Virginia’s 900-page COVID-19 response plan has failed elderly and ill prisoners and federal prosecutors argue that a life sentence equals a death sentence.
Kelly Davis | September 28, 2020
The proposed legislation would expand the city’s public mental healthcare system using funds reallocated from the police budget.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | September 28, 2020
New Jersey is close to enacting a law that would release up to 3,000 people from prison, advocates urge New York legislators to consider early parole for elderly prisoners, and California prisons see a new spike in coronavirus cases.
Kelly Davis | September 25, 2020
Lawsuits from Joliet Police Department officers are among at least 12 current federal complaints against the agency. The men say their civil rights lawsuits are part of a decades-long history of discrimination.
Jerry Iannelli | September 25, 2020
Legislation proposed this week by Gov. Ron DeSantis also seeks to withhold state funding from counties that move to decrease police budgets.
Experts discuss ongoing issues with COVID-19 in prisons and jails, Oklahoma prison officials agree to mandatory testing of all staff, and an incarcerated journalist pens a heart-wrenching account of his experience with coronavirus.
Kelly Davis | September 23, 2020
Accused of shaking a baby to death and facing the death penalty, Amy Wilkerson says she is innocent, but pleaded guilty to spare her life.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | September 23, 2020
Documents obtained by the ACLU suggest that restarting executions caused a COVID-19 outbreak at a federal prison; Florida’s Brevard County jail says it quashed an outbreak, but a lack of testing raises questions; and San Quentin’s newspaper is publishing again.
Kelly Davis | September 21, 2020
As protests against racism and police violence were sweeping the country, a Vallejo, California detective shot and killed Sean Monterrosa. His death has galvanized a community.
John Glidden | September 21, 2020
Despite more than 16,000 COVID-19 infections in Florida’s prisons, the head of the system says his department has protected people from the virus; Science Magazine explores research being conducted on decarceration best practices; and a recent outbreak puts South Dakota on our new infections map.
Kelly Davis | September 18, 2020
Women at California’s Folsom prison report that men with COVID-19 have been moved into their building, an ACLU attorney says federal judges don’t understand the realities of incarceration, and Iowa’s prisons are emptier than they’ve been in 20 years—but are still over capacity.
Kelly Davis | September 17, 2020
The 17-year-old, who his lawyers say was pushed off a fence by a police officer, survived the fall but suffered serious injuries.
Joshua Vaughn | September 17, 2020
Through a series of maneuvers, state legislators narrowed the ambitious scope of Senate Bill 14.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | September 16, 2020
Brian Stepter, a 61-year-old with chronic respiratory problems, has struggled with substance use for decades. Police and prosecutors sought the harshest sentence possible after he failed to return the car.
Meg O'Connor | September 16, 2020
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 | September 15, 2020
California just made it a tiny bit easier for formerly incarcerated people to become civilian firefighters. But the law still leaves many obstacles in their path.
Jay Willis | September 15, 2020
After testing positive for COVID-19, Tommy Zeigler, whose case inspired legislation and multiple investigative reports, is missing in a Florida prison; advocates for women inside Oklahoma’s Eddie Warrior Correctional Center want to hear from Gov. Kevin Stitt; and men quarantined in a previously shuttered prison say they’re being forced to pee in cups.
Kelly Davis | September 14, 2020
We should demand that prison officials and our elected representatives honor their constitutional obligation to promote and support youth healing, growth, and change.
Mark Wilson | September 14, 2020
Now is the time to act. If we have learned anything since George Floyd’s death, it is that we cannot keep waiting for change.
A court ruling allows the Cook County Jail to return to double-occupancy and dorm-style housing, a state oversight agency makes an example of New York’s Fishkill prison, and we update our ongoing map of new COVID-19 cases.
Kelly Davis | September 10, 2020
"To be in the same place where I was three years ago is very frustrating," said one teen who, like others, has seen her DACA application rejected despite a ruling in June against the Trump administration’s cancellation of the program.
Liz Robbins | September 10, 2020
Doctors at California’s San Quentin State Prison hope other correctional institutions will learn from their experience, COVID-19 causes one Colorado county to cancel its plans to build a bigger jail, and guards at Oregon’s Snake River Correctional Institution are blamed for an ongoing outbreak.
Kelly Davis | September 8, 2020
Efforts to address the harms of police violence and incarceration must consider the drug war, activists and treatment professionals note, including the punitive models of treatment.
Elizabeth Brico | September 8, 2020
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.
Dawn R. Wolfe | September 4, 2020
In February 2019, police officers in Killeen shot James Scott Reed in his home. One officer entered a guilty plea to evidence tampering, but Reed’s family is still suing the city and several officers in federal court.
Jerry Iannelli | September 4, 2020
The review follows an investigation by The Appeal and Spotlight PA, which found that troopers were using minor traffic stops to illegally detain and search motorists along highways.
Joshua Vaughn | September 3, 2020
Like her Democratic mayoral counterparts in Portland, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York, Lightfoot has condemned police violence outside her borders, while using law enforcement to suppress demonstrations in her own city.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | September 3, 2020
Nikki Addimando, convicted of second-degree murder for the death of her boyfriend, whom she said abused her, petitioned to have her sentence reduced under the 2019 law. But a judge ruled against her. If that ruling is affirmed, state legislators say, it will be ‘insurmountably difficult’ for survivors to ever benefit from the law.
Victoria Law | September 3, 2020
As states move toward reopening, jails and prisons continue to report large COVID-19 outbreaks; researchers call for greater transparency in reporting infection rates; and prisoners at a New York federal jail say screening is limited to, ‘Are you OK?’
Kelly Davis | September 2, 2020
Body camera video shows that Daniel Prude was complying with police when they knelt on his back and pushed his face to the ground for so long that he stopped breathing.
Meg O'Connor | September 2, 2020
California’s corrections secretary is retiring amid criticism over his handling of COVID-19 outbreaks, a Baltimore public defender describes his struggle to get an elderly client out of prison, and advocates for incarcerated people in Colorado want Gov. Jared Polis to consider more prisoner releases.
Kelly Davis | August 31, 2020
A review of five years of cases that arose from traffic stops in the south-central region of the state shows that police used underhand tactics to justify holding and searching drivers illegally.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown considers releasing more people from prison, how California’s Fresno County quietly became a major COVID-19 cluster, and new updates to our coronavirus outbreak map.
Kelly Davis | August 28, 2020
Athletes should demand more than prosecutions of police officers who kill Black people. The criminal legal system is a guilty system responsible for our oppression. It cannot also be the guardian of our liberation. Here are three racial justice demands that athletes can support right now.
Derecka Purnell | August 27, 2020
A new lawsuit uses the lesson of one prison to demand the release of people from New Mexico lock-ups, a new bill would require more transparency in reporting COVID-19 cases in prisons and jails, and deaths of incarcerated people hit a grim milestone.
Kelly Davis | August 26, 2020
Administrative subpoenas—which do not require a judge’s approval—are typically used for the department’s internal investigations, but The Appeal has learned that they are being used in criminal cases.
Ali Winston | August 25, 2020
What makes Ohio prisons so deadly, the CDC urges corrections officials to conduct mass testing, and the Washington Post editorial board finds a surge in jail and prison COVID-19 outbreaks ’morbidly unsurprising’.
Kelly Davis | August 24, 2020
Removing police union influence from the prosecutor’s office is a critical first step towards building a system that is safe, just, and fair for all.
Taewon Wilson and Candace Chavez-Wilson are part of a growing movement to end life without possibility of parole and other harsh sentences.
Mara Kardas-Nelson | August 24, 2020
As of Thursday, 993 incarcerated women and 62 staffers at Lowell Correctional Institution have tested positive for the virus. Two women have died.
Alexandra DeLuca | August 21, 2020
White voices and victims dominate the genre, which can skew the perception of what constitutes a crime.
Elon Green | August 21, 2020
Gov. Ron DeSantis ignores calls to release elderly people from Florida prisons, quarantines are no longer hampering California prison fire crews, and an update to our ongoing COVID-19 outbreak map.
Kelly Davis | August 20, 2020
Some say their roles are already too close to those of law enforcement and are organizing for a radical rethinking of the profession.
Mia Sato | August 20, 2020
Amid ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks in state prisons, Oregon lawmakers grapple with decarceration plans; the Sacramento County Sheriff won’t share infection data with the oversight board; and Oklahoma corrections officials use CARES Act money to ’boost morale’.
Kelly Davis | August 19, 2020
Although there’s a diversity of views about law enforcement in Brownsville, Brooklyn, there’s widespread agreement that the community is still fighting to obtain all the resources it needs to thrive and police itself.
Abigail Savitch-Lew | August 19, 2020
A state investigation found that Detroit police officers fabricated evidence that helped convict a 14-year-old boy. A judge threw out his conviction after he spent nine years in prison, but the officers are still on the job and haven’t been flagged as unreliable to testify in court.
Kira Lerner | August 19, 2020
California prison watchdog finds lapses in COVID-19 screening procedures, the ‘trailer jails’ that officials in one Missouri county praised as ‘innovative’ are the site of an outbreak, and the U.S. Marshals Service is blamed for spreading infections among federal detention facilities.
Kelly Davis | August 17, 2020
The state Board of Pardons recommended last year that hundreds of people’s criminal records be cleared. Months later, more than half are still waiting for Tom Wolf’s signature.
Joshua Vaughn | August 17, 2020
Nicole Poston was sentenced in July for punching a police officer after she slipped free from a handcuff. Life sentences, even for nonhomicide offenses like Poston’s, are ‘a major factor’ in mass incarceration in the U.S., a criminal justice expert said.
Lauren Gill | August 14, 2020
Newspaper fearmongers around releasing people from prison due to COVID-19, oversight agency urges state DOC to ease restrictions on people in prison who have faced months of lockdown due to pandemic, sheriff orders staff not to wear masks.
Kelly Davis | August 13, 2020
President Trump and the DOJ are funding federal policing programs in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Baltimore, but advocates say they’re unnecessary, harmful, and ineffective.
Marcia Brown | August 13, 2020
The City Council passed a budget that cut nearly $150 million from the Austin Police Department. Millions will be reinvested in services like violence prevention and supportive housing.
Meg O'Connor | August 13, 2020
New outbreaks continue to hit California prisons, advocates have harsh words for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and a longtime journalist weighs in on a sheriff’s decision to take a battle with the ACLU to the Supreme Court.
Kelly Davis | August 12, 2020
In difficult moments like this, we can’t let bad faith attacks set our community back. What our families need are resources and investment, not more police on the streets.
Robert Peters | August 12, 2020
The boy’s mother says Orange County Sheriff John Mina has still never spoken to her after more than 20 years. And in the wake of the George Floyd uprisings, local activists are asking why Mina deserves to keep his job.
Jerry Iannelli | August 12, 2020
The City Council will pass a budget this week that could cut nearly $150 million in funding from the Austin Police Department. The proposal appears to have majority support.
Meg O'Connor | August 12, 2020
Judge Mary Ellen Brennan jailed the 15-year-old, known as Grace, for violating her probation by not completing schoolwork. Last month, the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered Grace’s immediate release, which Brennan said left her without the means to ‘issue consequences.’
Dawn R. Wolfe | August 11, 2020
A new research project aims to better understand how COVID-19 spreads through jails, the virus continues to sweep through California’s death row, and federal prison employees are suing for hazard pay.
Kelly Davis | August 10, 2020
If the bill is signed into law later this month, about 20 percent of the state’s prison population could see their sentences reduced to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus, including some people who have served lengthy sentences for violent crimes.
Ellison Berryhill | August 10, 2020
Attorneys file a class-action lawsuit over the outbreak at a California forensic psychiatric hospital, cases increase among Vermont prisoners sent to Mississippi, plus a map of new cases.
Kelly Davis | August 7, 2020
They shared their stories as part of a lawsuit seeking urgent changes to protect prisoners. One prisoner wrote that a jail officer denied his request for a mask, so he tied old underwear around his face.
Lauren Gill | August 7, 2020
Despite the growing consciousness around the need for reforms, thousands of prisoners who might also deserve clemency or early release are slipping through the cracks.
Tana Ganeva | August 6, 2020
Amid sustained lockdowns and deteriorating conditions, prisoners and guards are reaching a breaking point; a new study shows decarceration is slowing amid increasing outbreaks in detention facilities; and HuffPost interviews a Rikers Island whistleblower.
Kelly Davis | August 5, 2020
Incompetence and inaction by California’s leaders are driving illness and death inside the state’s prison system.
Adnan Khan | August 5, 2020
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 | August 5, 2020
A lawsuit alleges Breonna Taylor died because Louisville was trying to arrest its way toward economic redevelopment. Research shows this is common.
Brenden Beck | August 4, 2020
Dozens of Vermont prisoners sent to an out-of-state private prison test positive for COVID-19, new study shows the prison infection rate is more than four times the general public’s, and Jay-Z’s Team Roc sues a Mississippi prison over “sub-human and deplorable” conditions.
Kelly Davis | August 3, 2020
The Michigan Court of Appeals ordered her immediate release pending an appeal of a circuit court judge’s decision to jail the teen, known as “Grace,” in mid-May.
Dawn R. Wolfe | August 3, 2020
Local law enforcement tear-gassed and beat protesters and journalists.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | August 3, 2020
California watchdog agency that repeatedly warned of "dire consequences" of prison overcrowding urges lawmakers to implement reforms; human rights org tweets "keep-you-up-at-night horrifying" stories from Georgia jail; and we map out four days of coronavirus outbreaks.
Kelly Davis | July 30, 2020
Sixteen-year-old William Haymon has spent more than 500 days in an adult jail in rural Lexington, Mississippi. There are no state rules governing how long a person can be incarcerated without being formally charged with a crime.
Lauren Gill | July 30, 2020
Protesters believe law enforcement is looking for retribution after police arrested a woman Tuesday night and placed her in an unmarked van, a callback to recent events in Portland, Oregon.
Chris Gelardi | July 29, 2020
As U.S. attorney in Seattle, Durkan prosecuted a severely mentally ill man in a terrorism case using an informant convicted of child sex abuse—and claimed to have reformed the same Seattle Police Department that has tear-gassed peaceful protesters for weeks.
Jerry Iannelli | July 29, 2020
Though domestic violence is often cited as a reason to maintain the carceral status quo, advocates say there are more humane—and effective—alternatives.
Jessica Pishko | July 28, 2020
COVID-19 tears through a Texas prison for medically fragile women; California prisons are flattening the curve on new diagnoses, but deaths continue to climb; and the ACLU finds jails releases haven’t led to an increase in crime.
Kelly Davis | July 27, 2020
To decarcerate New Orleans, we must defund the police department.
Federal agents have been unfairly arresting Black and brown people for decades. Now that white Portlanders are seeing it up close and personal, they are outraged. Better late than never.
Qualified immunity is just one obstacle of many that incarcerated people face when seeking to hold correctional officers accountable for misconduct.
Joshua Manson | July 23, 2020
If the justice system’s goal is to produce healthy, safe, and productive members of society, then it must begin with support from corrections staff and healthy relationships with peers.
Anthony Richardson | July 22, 2020
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 | July 22, 2020
Under current law, established during the "tough on crime" era, San Francisco mandated at least 1,971 full-time police officers. Voters will now have the opportunity to reconsider that mandate.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | July 21, 2020
Judge Mary Ellen Brennan sent the 15-year-old, known as Grace, to juvenile detention in May for violating her probation by not completing online schoolwork. On Monday, the judge said Grace was ‘blooming’ in the facility, despite arguments by Grace that she is falling behind.
Dawn R. Wolfe | July 21, 2020
From crackdowns on Black students decades ago to more recent arrests during protests against neo-Confederates, the department has served as a tool for enforcing white supremacy.
Cam Calisch | July 21, 2020
Police should no longer occupy all of our vital support systems in our communities.
Alex S. Vitale | July 20, 2020
Excessive force against people being arrested, falsification of evidence against suspects, and brutality by guards against prisoners — these are all just different forms of the same problem.
Vernon Horn | July 20, 2020
A year after state officials said they would take steps to overhaul solitary confinement rules, prisoners remain isolated in conditions that one says is akin to being ‘buried alive.’
Victoria Law | July 20, 2020
State law requires all murder charges be automatically filed in adult court, regardless of age.
Joshua Vaughn | July 20, 2020
Prisons that have lagged on releasing people have also seen significant COVID-19 outbreaks, one Indiana sheriff is spending his CARES Act money on high-tech virus prevention tools and California’s corrections chief says he’ll crack down on staff who refuse to wear masks.
Kelly Davis | July 17, 2020
Through this mechanism, communities can accept accountability for the racism they allow to flourish by failing to disrupt it.
Monica C. Bell | July 17, 2020
There are nearly 1,000 new cases at Seagoville Federal Correctional Institution in Texas, the Cook County Jail gets praise for its COVID-19 response, and California’s jail oversight board announces plans to collect and publish county-level data.
Kelly Davis | July 16, 2020
Today’s update focuses on major outbreaks in two state prisons in tiny Buckingham County, Virginia that in June gave it one of the highest per-capita COVID-19 infection rates in the U.S.
Whet Moser | July 15, 2020
As criminal justice reformers take steps to defund police departments and limit qualified immunity, it’s important to consider the role of universal and special duties in policing.
Eric Kennedy | July 15, 2020
Geriatic prison with the most deaths in Texas has a years-long history of neglect, Kentucky corrections officials won’t say how many people they’ve tested for COVID-19, and an outbreak at a remote Oregon prison grows from 20 to 120 cases in less than a week, all as Gov. Kate Brown has refused calls to decarcerate the state’s prison system.
Kelly Davis | July 14, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests over police brutality are strengthening the case against mass incarceration, advocates argue.
Emily Nonko | July 14, 2020
Critics say California’s release plan is an inadequate response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the state’s prison system, 42 percent of Louisiana prisoners tested for COVID-19 are positive, and conditions at Texas and Indiana prisons get the attention of lawmakers.
Kelly Davis | July 13, 2020
A new report finds that too many kids, particularly Black youth, continue to be held in dangerous juvenile detention facilities; California prison officials refused offers of free testing before and during San Quentin outbreak; and Gov. Gavin Newsom announces plans to release 8,000 incarcerated people.
Kelly Davis | July 10, 2020
In a moment of crisis, the state Senate and House are slated to be in recess until January.
Jay Willis | July 10, 2020
A new multimedia campaign seeks to amplify voices of people incarcerated in Maryland’s Prince George’s County Jail, a GEO Group stockholder sues the for-profit prison company over its ’woefully ineffective’ COVID-19 response, and widespread testing is turning up thousands of new infections.
Kelly Davis | July 9, 2020
Pressure mounts on California’s governor to release people from prison; people with months, even days, left on their sentence are dying in Texas prisons; and a new report finds higher rates of COVID-19 in prison than in the U.S. population.
Kelly Davis | July 8, 2020
Legal experts say the IRS is illegally denying CARES Act payments to incarcerated people.
Jordan Michael Smith | July 8, 2020
Florida media outlets had to sue to obtain information on COVID prison deaths; after preventable outbreaks, California replaces its prison medical director; and the Texas prison where Andrea Circle Bear died grapples with a new outbreak.
Kelly Davis | July 7, 2020
Social Workers address crises regularly and without an armed police officer standing in front of us. Often, the presence of an armed officer escalates a crisis that could have been better handled by mental health professionals alone.
This year’s presidential contest will be the first since a federal judge lifted a decades-old consent decree barring the Republican National Committee from engaging in “ballot security,” or voter intimidation at the polls.
Kira Lerner | July 2, 2020
In late April, officer Toni McBride shot Daniel Hernandez to death after a suicide call. His attorney and grieving family say videos posted on social media of McBride gleefully firing high-powered weapons show that she’s a trigger-happy officer.
Jerry Iannelli | July 2, 2020
In the 1990s, Davis was a policing superstar, hailed as the best crime solver the Crescent City had ever seen. But a dispute over a paid detail at a festival turned into a major federal case against her, brought by a prosecutor involved whose conduct in other cases was called ‘grotesque.’
Ethan Brown | July 1, 2020
A representative board is needed to check the power of the NYPD and appropriately discipline officers for misconduct, they argue.
Amir Khafagy | June 29, 2020
Workers report facing a difficult choice between earning a living and feeling safe and healthy at their job.
Amir Khafagy | June 26, 2020
The city’s clearance rate for murder, whose victims are disproportionately Black, has hovered around 40 percent for the last several years.
Joshua Vaughn | June 25, 2020
Law enforcement super PACs are spending big money on district attorney races and local elections from California to New York—and respected Democratic consulting firms are helping them.
Safe and healthy communities start with less police and more investment in community services that work.
A’Brianna Morgan | June 25, 2020
The Department of Justice is leaving researchers, policymakers, and advocates in the dark about deaths in police custody, prisons, and jails.
Ethan Corey | June 24, 2020
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has hampered the process of installing a police oversight council, activists say, despite making it a major part of her public safety platform during her mayoral run.
Maya Dukmasova | June 23, 2020
For decades, the Court has been carving out generous exceptions and crafting new rules that limit the Miranda warning’s real-world impact.
Jay Willis | June 23, 2020
Two people, arrested and detained in Cincinnati after protesting the police killing of George Floyd, recall being held at the jail, outside, for hours.
Caleb Brennan | June 22, 2020
Protesters and activists have categorically changed the national conversation about public safety. Now they have to figure out how to change public policy.
Ted Alcorn | June 22, 2020
The ruling thwarts the administration’s attempt to deport nearly 700,000 immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
Liz Robbins | June 18, 2020
In October 2018, Marshall Miles died at the Sacramento County jail after struggling with deputies. His lawyers say a deposition scheduled for next month will force the sheriff to answer for the in-custody death.
Jerry Iannelli | June 18, 2020
The cuts will defund a controversial gang policing unit and end the city’s policing partnership with TriMet, the regional transit agency.
Jay Willis | June 17, 2020
A lawyer with the state attorney general’s office omitted key evidence in a meeting with the family of Ricky Ball, who Canyon Boykin shot and killed in 2015.
Yes, we must radically transform policing in America. But we cannot stop there. We must transform the pervasive systems of economic and carceral injustice that are choking our common life.
The city wants to give the force an additional $24 million. But the department is still failing to solve crimes, and officers have shot 212 people between 2011 and 2018, killing about half.
Meg O'Connor | June 17, 2020
After families of people killed by police asked the organization to investigate racist American policing, 54 African nations called for a debate on the treatment of Black Americans. The debate will happen today.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | June 17, 2020
District Attorney Rachael Rollins sought to block the disclosure of records that could show Boston police used Snapchat to target people who are Black or Latinx.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 16, 2020
Although the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis are both provoked by natural phenomena, the dangers they present are just as political as the crisis of police violence.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò | June 16, 2020
Memos obtained by The Appeal and anecdotes from public defenders reveal how, for a week during protests over police brutality, the NYPD stalled cases by directing officers not to testify in court.
Chris Gelardi | June 12, 2020
Sterling Higgins called 911 in March 2019 seeking help during a mental health crisis. Police took him to Obion County Jail, where he died after officers pinned him to a floor.
Tana Ganeva | June 12, 2020
Essential workers say curfews put them at risk of police violence, even though they were exempt.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 12, 2020
Videos contradict officers’ claims that they didn’t ‘kettle’ protesters.
Jerry Iannelli | June 12, 2020
The New Jersey department received slavish media praise after it was disbanded and reoriented toward community policing. But behind the reformist mask was an embrace of surveillance and broken windows policing.
Brendan McQuade | June 12, 2020
Breonna Taylor was killed nearly three months ago during a no-knock raid. All 26 members of the Metro Council have signed on as co-sponsors to “Breonna’s Law,” which would ban them.
Jay Willis | June 11, 2020
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has asked for the budget increase amid ongoing local and national reports of police violence against protesters.
Ko Bragg | June 11, 2020
Coroners and police departments have cited the condition in cases across the country, often clearing officers of wrongdoing when people die in their custody. In Floyd’s case, experts say, the diagnosis is irrelevant to his death.
Tana Ganeva | June 11, 2020
Farmworker and labor advocates say these workers are among the most exploited in the country.
Madeline Leung Coleman | June 10, 2020
The country’s homeless population was already struggling to access services during the pandemic.
Kira Lerner | June 10, 2020
The ‘drug house’ ordinances that force landlords to kick out tenants are mostly compounding the overdose crisis, critics say.
Leora Smith | June 9, 2020
Some unions and labor activists are calling for the AFL-CIO to expel police unions.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 8, 2020
Democrats have introduced and reintroduced bills that have languished in the Judiciary Committee, which must approve them before they reach the full House.
Joshua Vaughn | June 8, 2020
The move follows the police killing of George Floyd and more than a week of uprisings, where hundreds of thousands of people around the world have protested against police violence, and abusive police responses to the protests.
Jay Willis | June 7, 2020
Dion Johnson’s family wants answers about the last moments of his life.
Meg O'Connor | June 5, 2020
The use of excessive force against nonwhite communities and people protesting police brutality is further eroding public confidence in policing.
Ellison Berryhill | June 5, 2020
This weekend’s string of errors is just the latest in his career of cruelty.
Jonny Coleman | June 4, 2020
Lawmakers are targeting a statute that has been used as a cudgel to bat away almost any inquiries into police misconduct.
Chris Gelardi | June 4, 2020
The killing of George Floyd demonstrates that incremental police reforms are insufficient in the absence of a comprehensive plan to transform law enforcement and its stated purpose.
David A. Love | June 4, 2020
A president who openly endorses police brutality struggles with a nation rejecting it.
Jay Willis | June 3, 2020
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.
Ross Barkan | June 3, 2020
State Assembly members, senators, and city council members have said they will decline and donate funds from police and corrections officers as New Yorkers fill the streets to protest recent violence by law enforcement.
Bryce Covert | June 2, 2020
Cops who turn marches against police violence into parades don’t actually want substantial changes to policing.
Derecka Purnell | June 2, 2020
Canyon Boykin was charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing Ricky Ball during a traffic stop in 2015.
Ko Bragg | June 1, 2020
More training, more equipment, and more officers will not stop police from killing Black people.
Justin Brooks | June 1, 2020
The city is flouting CDC guidance by continuing to dismantle homeless encampments during the COVID-19 pandemic, though it does not have nearly enough shelter space.
Meg O'Connor | May 28, 2020
On the pretext of conducting ‘transnational gang operations,’ ICE raids have swept up thousands of U.S. citizens.
Simon Davis-Cohen | May 21, 2020
Advocates say states aren’t doing enough to close the gaps in the federal stimulus bill.
Rebecca Chowdhury | May 20, 2020
As of April 30, one in three unsheltered people have been arrested in Miami-Dade County since a local state of emergency was declared in March.
Jerry Iannelli | May 7, 2020
People incarcerated in the Otay Mesa Detention Center decry crowded units and substandard medical care as COVID-19 tears through the facility.
Chris Gelardi | May 6, 2020
As COVID-19 spreads, Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio are slashing budgets, but leaving funding for police and prisons largely untouched.
Ross Barkan | April 30, 2020
Using language evoking pernicious stereotypes about immigration and crime, the Court’s conservative majority clears the way for the Trump administration to deport legal permanent residents for crimes committed long ago.
Jay Willis | April 29, 2020
A woman detained by ICE was sick with COVID-19 for days before being removed from a 50-person jail dorm in York County, Pennsylvania, according to women housed with her.
Joshua Vaughn | April 27, 2020
The Supreme Court will soon decide the fate of 650,000 so-called Dreamers across the country. Lawyers say terminating protections for them during a pandemic would be 'catastrophic.'
Liz Robbins | April 24, 2020
Intentionally disqualifying millions of American citizens from much-needed stimulus funds during this unprecedented health crisis is both unnecessary and cruel.
Jane Lilly López | April 24, 2020
On the anniversary of the Baltimore Uprising protests, new evidence in Gray’s death uncovers suppressed witness accounts of police brutality.
Justine Barron | April 23, 2020
The city has created the structural conditions that have engendered disproportionately high rates of infection and death among its Black and Latinx residents.
The current coronavirus crisis underscores our urgent need to look hard at our pretrial justice system. Eliminating money bail is a necessary first step.
Michigan was one of several states requiring registrants to report to local police stations in person despite the risk to public health from coronavirus.
Dawn R. Wolfe | April 9, 2020
Louisville, Kentucky judges are ordering people with COVID-19 who have allegedly defied quarantine to wear GPS ankle monitors, raising ethical questions about the government's role in a pandemic.
Kira Lerner | April 9, 2020
As infections and deaths mount, state leaders and law enforcement are turning to tough-on-crime tactics in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Jessica Pishko | April 7, 2020
ICE has adopted no policies aimed at releasing any of the 38,000 people it keeps in county jails and private detention centers across the country.
Chris Gelardi | April 1, 2020
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.
In Boston, it’s worse than business as usual at the police department as the pandemic spreads. On a recent day, officers arrested people for charges the district attorney has publicly declined to prosecute.
Will Isenberg | March 24, 2020
One of America’s largest police forces says it’s drastically reducing the number of people it arrests during the coronavirus pandemic.
Jerry Iannelli | March 20, 2020
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 | March 18, 2020
The Metropolitan Police Department has discussed reducing arrests, but it has not formally announced any policy changes.
Jon Campbell | March 18, 2020
Rhode Island prosecutors charged nine people with felony distribution of the addiction treatment drug. Reform prosecutors in other states are declining such charges and instead encouraging access to the drug.
The student, whose last name is Mohammed, was subject to improper searches based on little evidence, his attorney argues.
Roxanna Asgarian | March 9, 2020
We need to be more critical of the former New York mayor’s outsize influence on the gun control movement.
Alex Clavering | March 3, 2020
Sarah Lustbader | March 3, 2020
The city is ramping up a cleanup program that activists fear will worsen the criminalization of homelessness.
Eliyahu Kamisher | March 3, 2020
Deputies in Orange County wrote false reports about their collection and booking of evidence, according to internal audits kept secret for months.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | February 27, 2020
At least one error led to a wrongful arrest, according to a Freedom of Information Law request, underscoring the need for better oversight of the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, advocates say.
Aaron Morrison | February 24, 2020
The former mayor issued a city resolution honoring officers for their ‘bravery’ in a shooting that paralyzed Tarance Etheredge, who will receive a payout from a civil rights lawsuit.
Joshua Vaughn | February 21, 2020
The authors reported that 29.4 percent of the possession cases involved Black individuals in a county where Black people make up only 8.9 percent of the population.
Dawn R. Wolfe | February 21, 2020
As a Black child in San Francisco, I learned early that mine and others’ bodies meant nothing to those supposedly tasked with our protection.
Jamal Trulove | February 19, 2020
Jawan Richards was shot by Baltimore police and hit with gun and assault charges stemming from the incident. His defense attorneys now say video evidence may exonerate their client.
Brandon Soderberg | February 13, 2020
As old audio clips of Bloomberg defending the controversial policing policy went viral, new data showed the practice isn’t fading away in New York city.
Aaron Morrison | February 12, 2020
Rann Bar-On pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault of Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson to remain a legal U.S. resident. For the next two years, he isn’t allowed to protest in the county.
Aaron Morrison | February 11, 2020
Erick Wallace’s federal civil rights lawsuit joins a long line of litigation and misconduct allegations against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Jerry Iannelli | February 11, 2020
Mistaken identifications have been involved in nearly 70 percent of post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence.
Jay Willis | February 11, 2020
A civil suit claims that an officer who shot a 46-year-old stagehand in Midtown Manhattan should have de-escalated the encounter.
Jon Campbell | February 7, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | February 5, 2020
In a lawsuit, the boy’s family said he was repeatedly suspended, secluded, and violently restrained before he was ever given a special education evaluation.
Roxanna Asgarian | February 4, 2020
Leading with housing status for homeless people is a common trope in the news reporting business and one in urgent need of re-examining.
Adam H. Johnson | January 31, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | January 29, 2020
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister’s stings, conducted under the guise of targeting human trafficking, netted the largest number of arrests there since 2008. Sex workers say the operations put them at risk.
Molly Minta | January 28, 2020
A wave of sensationalist press is not just coming from New York City, but also from county sheriff and city police departments frustrated by bail reform that they claim is ‘too broad.’
Adam H. Johnson | January 27, 2020
Activists hope Chesa Boudin will press charges, and push for systemic changes to address the criminalization of mental illness.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | January 22, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | January 17, 2020
There’s a cynical local-to-national news pipeline designed to mock the powerless under the guise of “odd” news stories.
Adam H. Johnson | January 16, 2020
Vaidya Gullapalli | January 15, 2020
Charges in each of four arrests of a city man were subsequently dropped. Now he has become one of a long line of New York City residents who have filed wrongful arrest lawsuits against the city.
Dawn R. Wolfe | January 14, 2020
The move is made possible by a Texas law that legalized the production of hemp last year.
Jay Willis | January 10, 2020
The department is targeting communities of color and violating local and federal law by using broad ‘association’ criteria to list people in a gang database, a Rhode Island community organization claims.
Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez of Texas told The Appeal about her vision for a complete overhaul of her state’s legal system.
Kira Lerner | January 9, 2020
Logbooks were seized as part of an inquiry into misconduct allegations against high-ranking officers in the division that investigates sex crimes.
Meg O'Connor | January 9, 2020
According to a complaint, police in Oak Lawn, a suburb of Chicago, subjected Tylus Allen Jr. to invasive searches, all of which turned up nothing.
Aaron Morrison | December 19, 2019
Misconduct complaints against officers in the NYPD’s 34th Precinct have risen for three years straight. In 2018, 15 officers had complaints against them substantiated, the most of any precinct in New York City.
Ali Winston | December 19, 2019
Since 2010, no Vallejo officer has been disciplined for using deadly force, despite multiple shootings of unarmed people—including a man holding a can of beer. And active police union leaders have been involved in the shooting investigations.
Darwin BondGraham | December 18, 2019
Social media posts, tattoos, or the unvetted word of an officer can lead to inclusion on the list, which is overwhelmingly composed of people of color.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | December 18, 2019
A City Council Committee considers a bill on NYPD surveillance today.
Ali Winston | December 18, 2019
Criminalizing those who sell drugs by enacting more punitive laws may lead to more dangerous drug use and will disproportionately affect communities of color, a new report suggests.
Zachary A. Siegel | December 17, 2019
District Attorney Rachael Rollins ran as a reformer who would work to increase transparency, but her office and the police department have been fighting the order.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | December 13, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | December 9, 2019
Investing billions of government dollars into programs that embed police in Black communities will not reduce police violence, nor repair years of injustice.
Philip V. McHarris | December 2, 2019
A Philadelphia police union’s recent attack on Players Coalition co-founder Malcolm Jenkins matches rhetorical tactics that officers’ groups are using in the face of outspoken support for criminal justice reforms.
Aaron Morrison | November 27, 2019
Kyle C. Barry | November 26, 2019
Advocates say the removals are more evidence of a troubling and unregulated law enforcement tool, overseen by the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Aaron Morrison | November 26, 2019
During the tenure of Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal, deputies assaulted and harassed men inside the parish jail. Several deputies were convicted in federal court, and now cases brought by the office are under renewed scrutiny.
Joshua Vaughn | November 25, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | November 22, 2019
The billionaire and former New York City mayor defended the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslim Americans and mandatory minimum prison sentences for gun possession, among other policies.
Aaron Morrison | November 21, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | November 19, 2019
Research shows access to a trauma center is critical after a shooting. But as gun deaths are rising in Philly, one trauma center has closed. Experts say a rise in homicides may prompt more policing.
Joshua Vaughn | November 12, 2019
A close examination of a poll backed by a business group reveals loaded questions, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and the shortchanging of very real privacy concerns.
Adam H. Johnson | November 7, 2019
If passed, Question 2 would also allow the board to force police commissioners to provide more insight into disciplinary decisions.
Aaron Morrison | November 5, 2019
Recent violent arrests in the city subways should make New Yorkers question the push by Governor Andrew Cuomo and the MTA to hire 500 new transit police.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | November 5, 2019
The mayors of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco wrap themselves in the language of progressivism, but when it comes to the criminal legal system they’re Trumpian.
Kelly Hayes | November 4, 2019
At least three women made police reports about Girls Do Porn in 2015, but recruiters continued to exploit women until the FBI stepped in last month.
Meg O'Connor | November 4, 2019
A lawsuit in Los Angeles and a motion in Orange County highlight battles to get key information.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | October 31, 2019
Criminal case files from Oakland’s seminal Riders scandal were among documents shredded by the Alameda County Superior Court in 2015.
Last week, the City Council reinstated a “no camping” ordinance meant to discourage people experiencing homelessness from sleeping on sidewalks and outside a shelter. Advocates say the city is criminalizing poverty.
Aaron Morrison | October 25, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | October 18, 2019
Sheriff Mike Chapman, who runs the Loudoun County jail, has received close to $15,000 in contributions from the provider since taking office in 2012.
Aaron Morrison | October 17, 2019
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva was elected on the promise of reforming the scandal-plagued sheriff’s department. But eight deputies now accuse Sheriff Villanueva of allowing a violent group, the Banditos, to thrive in his department's ranks.
Ali Winston | October 10, 2019
The former Dallas police officer should be held accountable for killing Botham Jean, but sending her to prison does not keep us safe.
Elisabeth Epps | October 7, 2019
The gang database in the state gives police increased authority to approach and harass people for virtually no reason at all.
Emily Galvin-Almanza | October 4, 2019
The Madison County Sheriff’s Department was sued in 2017 for allegedly subjecting Black motorists and pedestrians to unconstitutional stops and searches.
Aaron Morrison | October 3, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | October 3, 2019
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood and District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer intend to openly defy a 1975 state Supreme Court precedent that says law enforcement cannot intentionally discriminate against a person or group of people.
Kate Chatfield | October 3, 2019
WJLA’s Kevin Lewis selectively reports on immigrants arrested for sex crimes to paint a misleading picture of violence in Montgomery County.
Adam H. Johnson | October 1, 2019
Vaidya Gullapalli | September 27, 2019
The Washington State Patrol has added thousands of old sealed juvenile records to a database it shares with law enforcement agencies across the country—erasing for many their chance of a clean slate.
Tori Marlan | September 24, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | September 19, 2019
In a rare case of local media nuance, a Boston TV news station provided a humane and health-focused segment on safe drug use.
Adam H. Johnson | September 17, 2019
Court records and interviews with former prosecutors show that internal assessments of police dishonesty are rarely memorialized, potentially violating the rights of people charged in criminal cases and sometimes keeping the records of bad cops clean.
Vaidya Gullapalli | September 16, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | September 10, 2019
Police are accused of lying to obtain the warrants to conduct military-style raids on the homes of poor people and people of color.
Joshua Vaughn | September 6, 2019
Jose ‘Lil Joe’ Chapa says one way to make Beauregard Parish ‘great again’ is to stop construction of a new jail and divert resources to services that keep people out of lockup altogether.
Aaron Morrison | September 5, 2019
Advocates and homeless people are suing Sacramento County over its treatment of homeless—and the city responded by filing a lawsuit against seven men for being a ‘public nuisance.‘
Meg O'Connor | September 4, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | September 3, 2019
Kansas City news outlets called scores of people ‘violent criminals’ based solely on the word of police and the federal government.
Adam H. Johnson | September 3, 2019
In a civil rights lawsuit, an officer in Allentown claims he was subjected to racial discrimination before he was fired.
Joshua Vaughn | August 29, 2019
Elsewhere in the country, lawsuits and legislation seek to protect people from predatory mugshot sites.
Katie Rose Quandt | August 27, 2019
Sarah Lustbader | August 20, 2019
Police and prosecutors claimed facial recognition technology wasn’t at the center of a shoplifting case, but defense attorneys say it was the sole basis for probable cause to arrest.
Mike Hayes | August 20, 2019
Media coverage obsessively focuses on homicides, which are at historical lows. Meanwhile, suicides and overdoses skyrocket, quietly driving record declines in American life expectancy.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | August 20, 2019
Murder rates are at an all-time low in Brooklyn, but one would hardly know it reading the New York Times.
Adam H. Johnson | August 16, 2019
In Valencia County, a sheriff’s deputy who once faced allegations of excessive force in Albuquerque is accused of assaulting an elderly man.
Joshua Vaughn | August 16, 2019
Heather Marlowe, now an activist, says neglected kits are a reflection of who and what police prioritize.
Raven Rakia | August 15, 2019
Most coverage of police raids targeting homeless people and substance users parroted official—and fraught—talking points.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | August 15, 2019
Children as young as 4 years old are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result, the complaints say.
Lauren Gill | August 14, 2019
A new internal audit shows that officers disproportionately strike, tussle with, and draw guns on Black people but then fail to disclose the incidents in their reports.
Darwin BondGraham | August 12, 2019
A federal lawsuit claims that Palo Alto, California, police falsely detained, arrested, and beat a gay Latinx man—then boasted about their brutality.
Joshua Vaughn | August 8, 2019
The family of Ricardo Treviño, an unarmed 21-year-old killed by police last year, says they’ve spent months waiting for answers on why he was shot.
Aaron Morrison | August 7, 2019
The New Jersey General Assembly unanimously passed a bill to extend qualified immunity to police officers at private colleges and universities.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | August 2, 2019
Current and former mayors were questioned about how they managed their police departments.
Aaron Morrison | August 1, 2019
Dozens of reports about an indigent man in Bradenton, Florida, showed the cruel excesses of local news’s homelessness coverage.
Adam H. Johnson | July 31, 2019
The Crescent City is in the final stages of a multimillion-dollar federal police reform process. Here‘s why it and other programs like it fail to achieve real reform.
Matthew Nesvet | July 30, 2019
Three Bronx friends recount their 2012 arrests in the NYPD’s ‘Operation Crew Cut,’ along with their experiences with the court system and incarceration, and reflect on their lives seven years later.
Olivia Heffernan | July 30, 2019
In California, Texas and Florida, advocates sent letters to district attorneys, demanding that they refuse to work with officers with histories of misconduct.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | July 29, 2019
A new effort to reduce arrests and summonses is criticized as continuing to criminalize homelessness.
Raven Rakia | July 26, 2019
Offices across the state conduct operations under the guise of saving victims of human trafficking. But the vast majority of people detained, including sex workers, are charged with prostitution.
Molly Minta | July 25, 2019
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, Florida, is one of the state’s most controversial lawmen.
Jessica Pishko | July 23, 2019
For far too long, the press has leaned on wrong-headed tough-on-crime officials like the former NYPD commissioner when reporting on the criminal legal system.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | July 22, 2019
A Shippensburg man faces 15 years on the sex offense registry for offering a girl a ride.
Joshua Vaughn | July 17, 2019
A California Superior Court ruling gives officers accused of misconduct access to investigator notes and files while cases are in progress.
Darwin BondGraham | July 17, 2019
Sensational and false news reports about the drug are pushing lawmakers to enact harmful policies.
Expert reports in a 2017 federal lawsuit explore an alleged pattern of discrimination against men perceived to be gay.
Kira Lerner | July 12, 2019
Louis Ackal has said he isn’t seeking re-election. But advocates fear that may not be enough to bring change.
Jessica Pishko | July 8, 2019
ABC News claims anti-police violence is on the rise but offers no data.
Adam H. Johnson | July 2, 2019
The accusations span decades and involve two separate Biddeford cops and at least seven alleged victims.
Roxanna Asgarian | July 1, 2019
Brandi Courtesis lost her job with the Gettysburg force after saying a colleague sexually harassed her. The accused, fired for another reason, may be back in uniform soon.
Joshua Vaughn | June 27, 2019
Reality shows like ‘The First 48,’ ‘Live PD,’ and ‘Cops’ are interfering in legal cases, exploiting people of color, and threatening lives.
Adam H. Johnson | June 24, 2019
The police union’s newly elected vice president led the investigation into the shooting that cleared Officer William Gourley of any wrongdoing.
Darwin BondGraham | June 21, 2019
The California county has a thin blue line that appears to protect not just the police, but also the DA’s office, criminal justice advocates say.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | June 19, 2019
Jose Montelongo-Morales challenged the jail’s immigration detainer policy. He and some of his family members were arrested months later.
Lauren Gill | June 18, 2019
Thanks to the diligence of one assistant state attorney, 119 cases were thrown out and the officer is under state investigation.
Katie Rose Quandt | June 17, 2019
The popularity of Axon’s tech soared after the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014, but it may be doing more harm than good in protecting people from excessive force.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | June 10, 2019
Vaidya Gullapalli | June 10, 2019
The sensationalist coverage of a handful of fights highlights local media’s misplaced priorities.
Adam H. Johnson | June 7, 2019
City officials say its vast network of cameras are simply a tool when responding to 911 calls and complaints of criminal activity. But several cases suggest the system serves an additional purpose.
Mike Hayes | June 3, 2019
In Pennsylvania, mothers are harshly penalized for leaving children unattended in vehicles, even for several minutes.
Joshua Vaughn | May 30, 2019
Chicago hands out millions in settlements and legal fees for police misconduct. Its newly inaugurated mayor should take a dollar from the department’s budget for every dollar the city spends settling with its victims.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | May 29, 2019
Newly released records show that task force members faced allegations of theft and questionable overtime, all under the watch of a commander later fired for lying as the misconduct was investigated.
Darwin BondGraham | May 23, 2019
Trooper testimony inconsistent with video and misconduct among state and local law enforcement in New Hampshire and Massachusetts have caused at least 15 drug cases to unravel.
Zachary A. Siegel | May 20, 2019
A former Baltimore officer says the Hopkins plan should be viewed skeptically because campus police have a history of deadly force and its officials come from troubled Baltimore Police units.
Larry Smith | May 16, 2019
Instead of building ‘humane jails’ to replace Rikers Island, let’s push the NYPD to cut down on arrests.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem | May 15, 2019
New York City just paid Jose LaSalle of the Copwatch Patrol Unit nearly $900,000 over claims of false arrest related to the 2016 incident, but his fight for justice is far from over.
Ashoka Jegroo | May 9, 2019
In a case of mistaken identity, Jada Noone was arrested by Pennsylvania State Police, spent 15 days in jail and faced a felony drug case before charges were dismissed. She’s now suing over her false arrest.
Joshua Vaughn | May 7, 2019
The fatal shooting by Oakland police of an unconscious man as he woke is putting pressure on the California department to rethink its deployment of force.
Darwin BondGraham | May 2, 2019
Videos and audio posted by the group and its supporters on social media raise questions about the agency’s role.
Debbie Nathan | April 29, 2019
Advocates are pushing to abolish the office in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Jessica Pishko | April 24, 2019
After a drug bust involving Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines turned deadly, questions are being raised about how he operated during his time on the force.
Mike Hayes | April 23, 2019
New NYPD data show that in 2018 the department closed nearly 500 rape cases due to an alleged lack of participation from victims and had a declining clearance rate for rape, raising questions over its handling of sexual assault.
Meg O'Connor | April 23, 2019
A new documentary explores the notorious ‘Bronx 120’ raid—and what it says about the evolution of policing in New York City.
Simon Davis-Cohen | April 18, 2019
Police union lawsuits delayed many local governments from complying with a new transparency law. In the meantime, some cities have destroyed files.
Darwin BondGraham | April 17, 2019
In September, Marcus Smith experienced a mental health crisis and begged Greensboro, North Carolina police for help. Instead, they tied him with restraints. Moments later, his body went lifeless.
William C. Anderson | April 9, 2019
Attorneys for a man exonerated in a Baltimore murder say detectives suppressed exculpatory evidence and that the police’s homicide unit has a pattern and practice of similar conduct in decades of cases.
Amelia McDonell-Parry | April 2, 2019
Banishing people from the subway will only marginalize them without addressing the problem.
Guy Hamilton-Smith | April 1, 2019
Andrew Mitchell, a former officer in Ohio who was recently indicted on charges he kidnapped women and forced them to have sex for their freedom, will soon face a grand jury for killing Donna Dalton during a prostitution arrest.
Melissa Gira Grant | March 28, 2019
A scandal of falsified drug arrests is spreading at a Florida sheriff’s office that has also spent more than $1.33 million settling excessive force lawsuits and is at the center of the increasingly troubled Robert Kraft case.
Meg O'Connor | March 26, 2019
Their claims are part of a federal lawsuit; other women say they, too, were assaulted and the officer now faces a raft of criminal charges.
Joshua Vaughn | March 19, 2019
In 2017, over 2,000 homeless people were arrested on charges including drinking in public and panhandling. That same year, roughly 1,400 people were arrested in Miami-Dade County for rape, murder, and robbery.
Meg O'Connor | March 18, 2019
Critics say New York’s new interrogation recording law falls short.
Curtis Stephen | March 14, 2019
In 2009, Anaheim police shot and killed Theresa Smith’s son. A new California law promises police transparency, but her quest for answers faces a substantial cost.
Aaron Morrison | March 13, 2019
Attorneys representing the arrestees in Cartersville, Georgia, say they were mistreated in jail, lost jobs, and endured public humiliation.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg | March 11, 2019
New bills would expand access to medical marijuana, but the state's sheriffs' association promises to fight even such modest legislation.
Michael Arria | March 4, 2019
In April 2018, Herman Bell was paroled after spending 45 years in prison in a case involving the shooting deaths of two police officers. Now, New York police unions and the widow of one of the slain officers are challenging the decision in court.
Victoria Law | February 26, 2019
Jason Van Dyke’s sentence for the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald is approximately half the average sentence for a person convicted of second-degree murder in Cook County, Illinois.
Rob Arthur | February 25, 2019
A new coalition of people in the sex trades wants New York to become the first state to fully decriminalize their work.
Melissa Gira Grant | February 25, 2019
Claims including sexual assault of a woman with mental illness to lying in reports haunt the Miami Gardens police; payouts in federal lawsuits have cost the city's taxpayers at least $3.5 million.
Meg O'Connor | February 21, 2019
Since Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s 2017 election, at least five people have died at the hands of the law enforcement in Mississippi’s capital city.
Ko Bragg | February 20, 2019
Senate Bill 1421 requires law enforcement agencies to make public investigative records of officer-involved shootings and uses of force resulting in great bodily harm. But law enforcement unions argue that the law threatens the privacy of their members.
Darwin BondGraham | February 20, 2019
Lexipol, a private for-profit company, has quietly become one of the most powerful voices in law enforcement policymaking in the country.
Scott Morris | February 13, 2019
A former Baltimore Police officer says it’s time for the department to stop wasteful, harmful marijuana arrests, especially after Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s announcement that her office would not prosecute cases of possession.
Larry Smith | February 11, 2019
‘There were explosions everywhere ... I had no idea who was in the house.’
Jessica Pishko | February 5, 2019
Advocates say the case hasn’t been handled fairly and there’s little hope for justice.
Melissa Gira Grant | February 1, 2019
In October 2018, Marshall Miles was taken into custody by Sacramento County sheriff‘s deputies outside a convenience store. About 14 hours later, he was dead.
Aaron Morrison | January 31, 2019
People who view body cam footage of an incident are less likely to attribute blame to a police officer than those who see the same incident through the lens of a dashboard camera.
Nicole Wetsman | January 29, 2019
She is suing the Division of Human Rights for saying it’s not authorized to investigate her complaint.
Emma Whitford | January 22, 2019
Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed decriminalization legislation that advocates say would curb the discriminatory policing tactics associated with fare evasion enforcement. Today, the D.C. City Council will decide if it will override her veto.
Ella Fassler | January 22, 2019
A new proposal to abolish small police forces seeks to end the cycle of debt and incarceration.
Teresa Mathew | January 18, 2019
The records raise questions about the department’s compliance with its protest monitoring rules.
George Joseph | January 17, 2019
Alex Berenson says he’s concerned there’s not enough research into cannabis risks, but his misleading arguments set scientists back.
Cherie Townsend is suing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department after she says they falsely imprisoned her for murder and destroyed her reputation.
Raven Rakia | January 11, 2019
The decision also held that the city’s routine storage of DNA profiles from nonconvicted people in a permanent database violates state law.
George Joseph | January 10, 2019
The president is drawing on two decades of bipartisan support for crackdowns on traffickers to secure support for his agenda at the border.
More states are giving undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses, but many DMVs are sharing their information with ICE.
Debbie Nathan | December 21, 2018