The court found that a law that critics described as a poll tax violates the Constitution.

A Department of Corrections official knew the extrajudicial practice was going on but little has been done to correct it.

Arthur’s story speaks to a troubling tendency in the legal system, reform advocates say: to treat mental health crises as criminal matters, rather than matters of public health.

An Appeal documentary on life without the possibility of parole—and its impact on loved ones—in the state.

Leaving power with the same actors, who equate safety with mass criminalization and detention, will yield the same results.

Advocates say junk science was used to convict Jimenez. DA Margaret Moore has not yet decided whether she will drop charges or retry her.

Mistaken identifications have been involved in nearly 70 percent of post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence.

A review of charging dockets in Lebanon County shows Ashley Menser was the only person charged with felony retail theft in 2018 to receive a 7-year maximum sentence.

A small school district spent $1.4 million to equip surveillance cameras with the technology.

A year after Alfonzo Riley returned from prison, he’s helping to vet innocence claims.

Elmer Daniels served nearly 40 years in prison before he was exonerated in 2018. He’s one of at least three people who could receive $50,000 for every year spent behind bars.

Jails in New Orleans and Cleveland have had significant population drops, yet conditions of confinement remain poor. Communities harmed by these jails should experiment with new accountability measures to maintain political pressure against jail administrators.

A fiery debate outlined what’s at stake in the race to lead the largest prosecutor’s office in the country.

Legislators are considering giving the DEA dangerous authority, harm reduction advocates say.

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.

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.

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.