A case before the Kentucky Supreme Court involves a challenge to the practice of charging people for the time they are held in jail even if they are ultimately not convicted of the charges against them.

“We will prioritize family integrity and family unity at every stage of the process to the extent we can do so.”

The father of Nicole Rathmann says his daughter was “not made safe by employees” while incarcerated at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. She was one of 16 prisoners to die in state custody in August 2018.

The state Supreme Court erred this month when it failed to invalidate Willie Nash’s sentence as cruel and unusual punishment, his attorneys argue.

State Representative Todd Stephens has introduced a bill to impose a five-year minimum prison sentence for illegally possessing a firearm, but the governor, advocates, and others say it’s the wrong approach.

Testimony by an architect of the CIA torture program is a reminder of the problem of torture—and health professionals’ complicity—by domestic law enforcement

Activists hope Chesa Boudin will press charges, and push for systemic changes to address the criminalization of mental illness.

Unlike other states, Arizona offers minimal early release credits for the prisoners it sends to fight its wildfires.

The bill would disproportionately affect the 140,000 people whose voting rights were recently restored.

It’s the first time since 2014 that someone on Georgia’s death row has been granted clemency.

The most productive solution would be to allow prisoners and formerly incarcerated people to vote, but until that happens, the least we can do is stop giving their voting power to the towns that profit from their imprisonment.

The death of 27-year-old India Cummings in 2016 garnered national media attention and a renewed push by local activists over conditions of confinement in the New York county’s jails. But the deaths haven’t stopped.

The state said Michelle Heale shook the baby to death, but some experts say her conviction was based on debunked science.

Stories that uncritically blame child welfare agencies for the deaths of children at the hands of their parents can contribute to increases in child removals—with devastating consequences for families.

On Thursday, the state of Georgia is set to execute a 58-year-old man for a crime that would not receive the death penalty today. Jimmy Meders was convicted of murder and sentenced to die for the October 1987 killing of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. His lawyers want the state parole board to […]

A class-action lawsuit filed Saturday alleges that staff at a New Hampshire youth detention center subjected children to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal purports to take sexual violence seriously, but it aggressively ignores reality in favor of lazy solutions.

“I sometimes wonder whether, in 100 years’ time, people will be as shocked by the length of sentences we are imposing as we are by some of the punishments of the 18th century,” the lord chief justice of England and Wales said in 2006.

The move is made possible by a Texas law that legalized the production of hemp last year.

“New York Democrats have blood on their hands,” Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the state’s Republican Party, said in a news conference this week. “They rushed this dangerous, reckless law through, despite warnings from law enforcement.” Langworthy was referring to a recent attack on a rabbi’s house in Monsey, and his implication is that somehow bail reform […]

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez of Texas told The Appeal about her vision for a complete overhaul of her state’s legal system.

Many liberals support reform in theory. But when unpopular decisions need to be made, it’s back to the 1990s “Tough on Crime” playbook.

The violence that has left at least five people dead is the result of longstanding issues that have been ignored, justice advocates and prisoners’ family members say.

“Tens of thousands of people, some covered in Israeli flags and others singing Hebrew songs, poured into Lower Manhattan on Sunday in a show of solidarity for New York’s Jewish community in the wake of a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in the region in the last month,” reports the New York Times. “The most recent attack […]

Republicans are leading an effort to get rid of blanket restrictions on where some people with sex-offense records can live. A Democratic governor is blocking them.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. The new year means, for many, political transitions. In Kentucky, Matt Bevin, a Republican governor whose administration was fraught with conflict, lost re-election in November in a deep […]

Tia Hamilton’s State v. Us focuses closely on the criminal legal system, especially as it applies to people of color, who are statistically overrepresented in the carceral system.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. In 2014, Morgan Godvin’s best friend, Justin DeLong, experienced a fatal drug overdose. She had sold him the heroin he used. The next night, police officers raided […]

One man, Paul Houser, is serving 60 years on a drug conviction for purchasing cold medicine and batteries. He’s one of 2,600 people incarcerated as a result of the state’s three strikes laws.

Sensational headlines may score short-term partisan points, but long term they contribute to a toxic culture of Willie Hortonism.

Children who have been in foster care, especially those who have been subjected to multiple moves, are at a high risk of ending up incarcerated.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. “Ours is an unforgiving age.” This is the first sentence of law professor Martha Minow’s recent book, “When Should Law Forgive?” The U.S., she writes, “is particularly punitive in […]

Guards at the Mark Stiles Unit in Beaumont are alleged to have led the victim to a hallway where there were no security cameras.

The suit is the latest of at least three complaints filed against the Portage County Jail this year.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. Two years ago, the executive director of Just Detention International, an organization whose mission is to end sexual assault in jails and prisons, wrote in an opinion piece for […]

Officers at the Cuyahoga County Jail in Ohio are accused of pepper-spraying and assaulting a man for merely asking about his release date.

In a federal lawsuit, Hardel Sherrell’s mother accuses the staff at a Minnesota jail of allowing her son to die.

After protests over the police shooting of Alton Sterling, DeRay Mckesson, the Black Lives Matter activist, was sued by a police officer.

Staff at the troubled Orleans Justice Center are also accused of violating Edward Patterson’s constitutional rights by failing to treat his drug addiction.

Alternative approaches to rehabilitation and healing still face resistance, even though the criminal legal system’s reliance on punishment has done little to move the needle on addressing sexual violence.