Punishment

I spent years visiting prisons and courts. At every turn, facilities forced me to comply with invasive searches that left me feeling sexually violated.

Gregory Sharkey spent 15 years in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. He was finally freed last month—but will those responsible for caging him be held accountable?

Formerly incarcerated Californians say that if Gavin Newsom wants to keep touting his record as a “progressive,” he should stop vetoing bills that ban or restrict solitary confinement.

A state spokesperson confirmed six men at Red Onion State Prison in Western Virginia used “improvised devices” to give themselves electrical burns.

Billie Allen says he is an innocent man on death row. Allen and his supporters want President Biden to pardon him before Trump takes office.

Even though the United Nations considers more than 15 days of solitary confinement a form of torture, American prisons still use the practice liberally. Prolonged isolation makes imprisoned people more violent and less likely to reintegrate into society.

Most people in prison can’t vote. That doesn’t mean they aren’t paying attention.

For people trapped in prison for decades, simple things like book clubs can be a lifeline and help people cope with the realities of the prison system. Sing Sing Correctional Facility’s club has helped give me and others a sense of purpose and belonging.

In Georgia, a person can be charged as a “party to a crime” for simple acts like answering a phone or loaning gas money. I—and many women incarcerated alongside me—are trapped in prison for crimes committed by men or abusive partners.

New rules from the Federal Communications Commission are putting the brakes on the prison telecom industry’s exploitative practices.

State legislators subpoenaed Robert Roberson one day before the state was set to kill him—an act that delayed the execution. Lawmakers are fighting to let Roberson testify before the state House despite objections from the attorney general and governor.

Despite pleas from state lawmakers, Texas will execute Roberson on Oct. 17 unless Governor Greg Abbott grants a reprieve in his case.

Tasha Shelby was sentenced to life in prison for allegedly shaking her fiance’s two-year-old son to death. But the science around “shaken baby syndrome” has unraveled, and the lead witness against her recanted his testimony.

More than 20,000 people are incarcerated in Florida jails and prisons located in counties subject to evacuation orders. Many officials are refusing to evacuate them.

Even though a federal jury found Terence Richardson not guilty of murder, he was sentenced to life in prison. Virginia prosecutors want to keep it that way.

Prisons and jails across the Southeast have experienced utility outages, evacuations, visitation disruptions, and staff shortages in the storm’s wake.

Five women in Mississippi have been incarcerated longer than any others in the state. Each has been denied parole a multitude of times. Here, one of the women shares their stories.

In 2019, the state passed a law restricting how long prisons can hold people in isolation. But, according to a new report, people still say they’re being isolated for weeks and even months.

More than 700 prisoners at FPC Montgomery in Alabama refused meals over concerns that the Bureau of Prisons was violating sentencing reform provisions in the 2018 First Step Act.

In the early ‘90s, Oklahoma prosecutors claimed Littlejohn and another man had killed someone, even though the victim was shot with a single bullet. A state board has recommended the governor spare Littlejohn’s life.

The term short staffing is a euphemism to divert attention from the state’s continued addiction to incarceration.

Aging in prison meant realizing my son was also a victim of my crime due to my absence from his life. I try to do what I can on visits to help my son succeed.

Texas is set to execute Robert Roberson on Oct. 17 for allegedly shaking his baby to death. But numerous experts now agree the theory used to convict Roberson isn’t real—including the detective who helped arrest him.

Correctional officers allegedly used chemical spray and pepper bombs against women in handcuffs at Central California Women’s Facility.

Although my artistic pursuits began with material necessity, they have become a way for me to express myself and find inner peace within the oppressive environment in which I am confined.

With heat waves sweeping across the country, incarcerated people in states with traditionally milder climates are facing brutal conditions that have long plagued the South and Southwest. A survey by The Appeal reveals that many of the hottest states house prisoners in units without air-conditioning.

After The Appeal published an investigation into the Phoenix Police Department’s killing of 19-year-old Jacob Harris, a community coalition sprung up to help Harris’s three young friends, who are incarcerated for his death. Now, a court has granted the trio a chance to get out of prison.

“I was sentenced and put in prison for the choices I made. I was not sentenced to being raped and abused while in prison.” 

Two secretive prison units that used to almost exclusively house people said to be connected to terrorism have expanded by nearly 80 percent in 15 years, and a new unit is on the way. Formerly incarcerated people say they have been used to punish dissent.

On Wednesday, Tiana Hill testified before the U.S. Senate Human Rights Subcommittee that staff at the notorious Clayton County Jail insisted she wasn’t pregnant—until she gave birth on a metal bed.

In June, I stepped into a body scanner outside the visitation room at the Washington Corrections Center and held my breath.

A proposed HUD rule change would stop federal housing providers from discriminating against many people harmed by mass incarceration and the war on drugs.

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.