Since the state’s public safety realignment in 2011, sheriffs have used criminal legal reform as a scapegoat for their failure to maintain safe jails—and recent reporting has given county officials a free pass to make that excuse.
Four transgender women say clinicians and staff deny them gender-affirming care and see their identity as in conflict with sex offender treatment.
Last week, FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums) launched a campaign, calling on state and federal lawmakers to visit a prison, jail, or juvenile detention facility in the next 12 months. The challenge highlights the fact that although legislators make the laws governing when people can be sent to jail or prison, and for how long; […]
Outlets ran over 200 articles covering the vandalism. The outsize attention will likely damage young lives.
Advocates say Anthony Aceves’s death conforms with long-standing issues in the second-largest jail system in California.
Editor’s Note: The Daily Appeal is occasionally examining the 2020 presidential contenders’ records, platforms, and rhetoric on issues relating to criminal justice. You can find past installments here. The most memorable moment of the Democratic primary debates last week came when Senator Kamala Harris confronted former Vice President Joe Biden about his record on racial […]
The region of eastern Kentucky, once reliant on mining and the coal industry, has, over the decades, become home to three federal prisons. Last year, the Daily Appeal wrote about the controversial proposal to build yet another federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky. That project had been pushed since 2005 by local backers and a powerful U.S. representative, […]
Phone calls between prisoners in Orange County and their lawyers were recorded and accessed. How wide the eavesdropping was remains an open question.
The criminal and juvenile legal systems are drivers of poverty. Presidential candidates should recognize that.
A company in Cleveland County exemplifies how for-profit legal services affect poor and vulnerable individuals.
Beginning next week, people locked up in San Francisco will be able to call their loved ones for free. Last year, people in the city’s jails spent $1.7 million on phone calls and commissary, of which half a million went to GTL, a major corrections telecommunication company. For Mayor London Breed, who introduced the provision in the San Francisco […]
Marion Wilson’s was the 1,500th execution since 1976, the year Georgia resumed the death penalty after the Supreme Court’s decision in Gregg v. Georgia.
Corrupt cops, lazy lawyers, and cowardly politicians: Kevin Cooper’s case exemplifies three and a half decades of systemic failures
Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler’s office, which partners with immigration enforcement, faces jail deaths and a discrimination claim from a Legal Aid attorney.
Heavy reliance on pretrial incarceration in Berks County subjects people to poor medical care and unsanitary and unsafe conditions.
CBS 2 Chicago relied on police voices and irrelevant data to question efforts to end cash bail.
Though little is known about how Layleen Polanco died, advocates say her story highlights New York City’s flawed approach to criminal justice.
Right now, only the whitest states—Maine and Vermont—allow prisoners to vote. Washington, D.C., could change that.
A lawsuit filed by Kentrell Hurst’s children is the latest against New Orleans Sheriff Marlin Gusman over jail conditions.
As the Hampton Roads Regional Jail proposes spending $7 million for 113 new guards, advocates renew calls for officials to improve conditions—and an Appeal analysis suggests that the jail could save millions by incarcerating fewer people with mental illness.
The content of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act represents a new kind of lawmaking—a process that originates with the people who have the most at stake and is shepherded by a diverse coalition.
The criminalization of poverty in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, has led to a staggering increase in incarcerated people, all at a huge cost for defendants and taxpayers alike.
Yesterday the news broke that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign head who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on federal charges, will now face criminal charges in state court in Manhattan. The New York Times reports that Manafort will most likely be held at Rikers Island, segregated from the general population. […]
Many jurisdictions across the country use video instead of holding bail hearings in person, a practice that often leads to dire consequences.
Court challenges and a sweeping reform bill are offering hope to men trapped in isolation for decades.
Since 2017, LaToni Daniel has been incarcerated pretrial in a capital murder case. During that time, Daniel became pregnant, and she just delivered a baby boy. But as she brings in new life, she also faces the death penalty.
Aylaliya Birru has served over four years in a California prison for assaulting her husband, who she said was physically abusive. A pardon from Governor Gavin Newsom is her last hope to stay in the U.S.
A new court order allows the family’s lawsuit to proceed, and may lead to holding jail staff accountable.
Despite accounting for less than 12 percent of the state’s adult population, roughly 40 percent of all bail bonds were issued in cases involving a Black defendant.
The DeKalb County Jail, now at the center of protests, has a long history of problems and a legacy of housing people for unpaid fines.
Prisoners can shave time off their sentences by participating in shock incarceration programs. More than a dozen former shock prisoners say that comes at a steep cost.
At least two people have killed themselves in jail after waiting for more than a week to be appointed a lawyer.
A civil rights lawsuit claims officers pepper sprayed him, stripped him naked, and then surrounded him and beat him to death.
A number of people spent multiple days at the Atlanta City Detention Center for low-level offenses, including for driving while using a cell phone and for walking in the roadway.
A newly amended class-action lawsuit accuses the Cuyahoga County jail of neglect and mistreatment.
The bail bonds industry was caught overcharging 50,000 families $6 million over 14 years, according to SPLC.
A new lawsuit, filed against the Virginia Department of Corrections, says prisoners are kept in isolation for frivolous reasons and prevented from rejoining the general population.
‘Worst policy imaginable’ punishes, rather than treats, patients who earn less than a dollar an hour, advocates say.
Florida is poised to pass a law that imposes a ‘poll tax’ on thousands of formerly incarcerated people.
Rashad McNulty entered a guilty plea in a series of federal gang indictments in New York that have been criticized as racist and overly punitive. But before McNulty was even sentenced, he died in jail. Now, his family is seeking justice.