Under the banner of Detroit Will Breathe, the city’s Black Lives Matter activists have formed a cohesive and lasting local political force.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s popularity has declined after a summer of protests against police violence in the Oregon city.
Through a loophole in the 13th Amendment, governments and corporations profit from cheap, incarcerated labor.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Research has shown only that police can be sufficient, not that they are necessary.
The ruling said the commission wasn’t diverse enough and gave little voice to communities affected by policing.
If he becomes president and Democrats win the Senate, Biden should push a federal spending bill that includes money for civilian first-responder programs.
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.
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.
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.
The proposed legislation would expand the city’s public mental healthcare system using funds reallocated from the police budget.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.