The medical examiner who helped put Tasha Shelby in prison has since said her son’s death was not a homicide.

The politics of criminal justice is overwhelmingly local, and elected prosecutors have some of the most direct power over how justice is dispatched.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon be hearing a case that will impact whether Texas executes Rodney Reed for capital murder— though another man has confessed to the crime.

The intense focus on increased law enforcement spending in recent years has overshadowed a historic funding boost for community violence intervention.

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.

The fight to remove cops from classrooms is still raging, with some successes.

Intergenerational partnerships must be prioritized amid the youth gun violence epidemic — not more police and prisons.

The stakes for getting reporting on abortion right are very high, but it costs nothing to call out politicians on their BS.

Politicians are demanding greater oversight over the Virginia Department of Corrections, after women at one state prison said they’re served spoiled food.

If Brooke Jenkins fails to deliver results with “tough-on-crime” policies, will San Franciscans blame her, just as they did her predecessor, Chesa Boudin?

States will have a hard time stopping medication abortion. Abortion pills are safer than Tylenol and have been approved by the FDA since 2000.

Florida seems to be sprinting in the opposite direction of progress. A new law allows cops to pull people over for driving loud cars.

Stacey Abrams wants to give police officers raises. Time and again, Democrats have reacted to calls for racial justice by giving more money to cops.

When I was 19, I worked in an emotional support classroom in a North Philadelphia elementary school. I saw children as young as five get treated like prisoners.

The horrific experiences of women at a Virginia prison fit a broader pattern of neglect across the country.

Resources from organizations that have spent decades helping people access abortions and defending people who are criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes.

If the Democratic Party wants to run away from those candidates, it will only be running towards its own demise.

New “domestic terror” laws will do little to stop gun violence in America, but may pacify suburban white voters.

For the wealthy backers of the Boudin recall, “progressive” prosecutors are the perfect scapegoat for what they see as threats to a system that treats them just fine.

Prosecutors across the country could soon be tasked with enforcing abortion laws that require people to reproduce against their will.

New laws imposing criminal penalties for trans healthcare follow a long legislative history of explicitly targeting queer people in the United States.

The racketeering charges against Young Thug, Gunna, andYSL are over-broad, over-stated and unnecessarily harsh

The U.S. must close its congregate care facilities and fully fund community-based alternatives for kids with mental-health issues.

In January, a New Jersey judge said Shaken Baby Syndrome is “akin to junk science.”

Her jeans were so tight, she couldn’t have been raped, the judges said.

We’re celebrating 4/20 by tackling some popular myths about marijuana and the criminal legal system.

Reporters entertained the notion that a toddler deserved prison time with headlines like ‘No Charges for 5-Year-Old in Pembroke Pines School Attack’

Opponents of bail reform blame pretrial release for increased crime, despite a lack of evidence. Lost in the debate—the proven harms of jail.

Billions of dollars of federal COVID relief aid are flowing to police, prisons, and jails in jurisdictions across the nation.

Every Thursday morning, the Philly Homes 4 Youth (PH4Y) Coalition hosts a weekly virtual workspace for its members. The coalition of young advocates, youth workers, and non-profit administrators have been strategizing together since at least 2016 to improve care for young people experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia. But lately, the group’s meetings have taken on a more urgent tone: Tens of millions in federal COVID-19 relief funding is currently up for grabs in Philadelphia, and the coalition wants to ensure at least 20 percent of the money goes to youth services.

In February, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón became the latest local Democratic politician to fold to conservative critics when he walked back two major campaign promises that had swept him into office just over a year before.

Barbed wire and a surveillance camera User 652243 via Pixabay Private Tech Surveillance Companies Are Taking Over Prisons by Nneka Ewulonu Incarcerated Americans are being watched like never before. Private American companies are rapidly digitizing prison mail. Some ankle-monitors can record whole conversations without people’s knowledge or consent. Most recently, at the end of last […]

Not literally, thankfully.

On the night of Jan. 6, Arizona’s former prison director, Charles Ryan, drank half a bottle of tequila and got into a three-hour armed standoff that involved about 50 police officers. After a tense confrontation in which Ryan repeatedly pointed a gun at officers, Tempe police took Ryan into custody and brought him to a hospital — but he was never booked into jail. In the end, Ryan went back home like nothing had happened.

The specific ways in which Frey and other local leaders failed to respond to Floyd’s death seem frankly astonishing when laid out on paper. But the story of this failure is, in fact, the only future offered by the centrist “police reformer” set. 

It’s been quite a year for us, to say the least. In May, we unionized. Then our former bosses shut The Appeal down. But we, the workers, resolved to save The Appeal and continue the important work we do covering the criminal legal system.  Since then, we succeeded in becoming a worker-led nonprofit newsroom. We […]

Thank you for all of your support. Your contributions have enabled us to turn The Appeal into a worker-led newsroom dedicated to exposing the harms of the criminal legal system — and to begin publishing again! Check out some of our recent pieces: We uncovered a robbery task force at DC’s Metropolitan Police Department that […]

Last month, Glamour magazine featured “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay on the cover of its “Women of the Year” issue. On Nov. 8, an avalanche of A-list celebrities — including “SVU” co-stars Christopher Meloni and Ice-T, actress Melissa McCarthy, and #MeToo co-founder Tarana Burke — honored Hargitay at the Women of the Year Awards which was held at the Rainbow Room, a ballroom that serves as one of the epicenters of New York City high-society.

It’s Giving Tuesday! And a generous donor has pledged to match the first $5,000 we receive today. If you love this newsletter and The Appeal’s reporting, now is the best time to give. With your help we can make major headway toward funding more vital journalism in 2022. Photo by Joseph Ngabo at Unsplash Police […]

The Appeal team has a lot to be thankful for this year, including the fact that we can spend time with our families again. We know not everyone is as fortunate, and we’re thinking of community members, especially those behind bars, who can’t be with their loved ones.  In the midst of Thanksgiving travel and […]