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A group of nearly 20 federal lawmakers sent letters to two companies this week calling out abusive industry practices and requesting additional information about their profits, policies, and contracts with local governments.
In 2011, more than 6,600 people imprisoned in California stopped eating for 19 days to protest extreme isolation inside the state’s prisons. The protests lead to state hearings and a lawsuit.
In prison, there is no space to grieve. I kept thinking that if only I was home, I could have given her the support she needed.
Incarcerated laborers on Angola’s Farm Line face “substantial risk of injury or death” during extreme heat, a federal judge ruled this week, ordering corrections officials to make policy changes to “preserve human health and safety.”
The governor’s broken promises have perpetuated an unacceptable status quo that denies incarcerated individuals a fair and transparent process for parole decisions.
“I was different than the 22-year-old who had made that devastating decision, but I couldn’t say when that shift had begun.”
He hopes the settlement will lead to reforms in New York prisons, where three-quarters of trans people say corrections officers have inappropriately touched or sexually assaulted them.
My checks came out to $300-400 weekly for about 70 hours of labor.
A review of a decades-old case resurfaces questions of judicial bias in Arizona, and is relevant to the state’s current judicial appointees.
The prison telecom giant charges more than a million incarcerated people significant fees to contact their loved ones. But twice in one week, the service was down for long periods.
A new book uses parole to chronicle how the criminal legal system prioritizes punishment over actually rehabilitating people or making society safer.
State policies nearly everywhere banish those with a sexual offense in their past. Vermont does the opposite by building communities around them—with dramatically positive results.
Less than five months into 2024, deaths at the Clayton County Jail have already surpassed last year’s total. The local sheriff’s lack of transparency has only compounded the pain for grieving families.
Two years after Elena’s death, I try to understand why I was given a child just to lose her.
If I protect and guide someone else’s child in here, maybe someone will do mine out there.
I experienced my first childbirth while I was incarcerated in a county jail.
I had to return to jail before a resentencing hearing. It meant taking a trip back through hell.
Death row prisoners rarely get last meals, writes Lyle May, who is on death row in North Carolina. But on the night of an execution, the prison staff break room is full of cookies and cake.
A suit filed this week accuses Broome County Jail staff of using threats of punishment to “create a culture of fear” that forces pretrial detainees to submit to unpaid labor.
The Appeal’s 9-month investigation uncovered prison commissaries’ exploitative, inconsistent systems with inside prices up to five times higher than in the community and markups as high as 600 percent.
Inside The Appeal’s 9-month investigation.
At Kentucky’s Northpoint Training Center, incarcerated people are not allowed to participate in programs until they’re at least four years away from their parole board date—robbing people of years of educational opportunities.
On the hook to repay $1.3 billion of debt this year, the nation’s largest prison telecom company, Securus, is on the verge of bankruptcy. Its failure would represent a remarkable victory for advocates—and a potential beginning of the end for the industry as we know it.
The federal Bureau of Prisons has suggested banning imprisoned people from using social media—but First Amendment defenders say the rule would chill free speech and silence whistleblowers.
A report by the Vera Institute of Justice and Black & Pink highlights the many ways in which state prisons mistreat transgender people—nearly 90 percent of respondents said they’d been placed in solitary at some point.
“That video visitation is going to work,” one Genesee County official reportedly said in 2012. “A lot of people are going to swipe that Mastercard and visit their grandkids.”
Larry Jones says Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Ira Ynigo crushed his middle finger in a door and, instead of helping him, locked the door and walked away. “He watched me scream,” Jones said.
The ACLU sued the state after it moved children to the former death row unit at the notorious Angola prison. But a court filing says the kids have faced abuse in their new facility, too.
The teacher was disciplined after refusing a supervisor’s orders to tell students literacy tests weren’t racist and instead meant to ensure people “knew what they were voting for,” according to the lawsuit.
BOP Director Colette Peters blamed understaffing and “crumbling” facilities for the increasing number of deaths in federal prisons during hearings last week.
Multiple legal groups on Monday filed a lawsuit to protect Pennsylvanians from being thrown in solitary for extended periods of time, or if they have mental illness.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and Jeff Merkley wrote a letter to the federal Bureau of Prisons and Department of Justice asking the agencies not to renew a contract with the American Correctional Association.
The ACLU says the state’s policy is the “most restrictive” in the nation.
On Jan. 19, New York City Mayor Eric Adams vetoed a bill that would have effectively banned solitary confinement in his city’s jails. Incarcerated writer Chris Blackwell and CUNY Law Professor Deborah Zalesne share why the practice is so horrific.
State Sen. Anna Hernandez filed the bill following The Appeal’s investigation into the Phoenix Police Department’s shooting of Jacob Harris. Though police killed Harris, his friends were charged using the state’s felony murder statute. Tomorrow, a coalition will join Hernandez in a press conference to support the bill.
In 2001, a jury found Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne not guilty of murdering a police officer. But, thanks to a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a judge sentenced both men to life in prison anyway. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Virginia granted Richardson a new hearing to prove his innocence.
A federal complaint filed today alleges that the Ronald McDonald House is discriminating against people with sick children who happen to have been convicted of certain crimes in the past. The ACLU, among other groups, alleges the rule violates the federal Fair Housing Act.
Lorenzo Johnson, a former boxer, quoted Muhammad Ali in his fight against his wrongful conviction. After reading Johnson’s writing, one of Ali’s children, Khaila, demands that Pennsylvania’s governor clear Johnson’s name.
Poor educational opportunities in youth prisons lead to reduced earnings and increased unemployment later in life.