Bolus is one of thousands of New Yorkers sentenced to life in prison who are waiting for the governor to keep his clemency promise.

And padding city and state coffers with millions of dollars.

News of the victory is spreading rapidly to other cities.

New types of registries are being created around the country, despite research showing they don’t work.

In jurisdictions across the country, people incarcerated before they’ve ever been convicted of a crime are charged a daily fee just for sitting in jail—and several courts have ruled that the practice is legal.

“Jail is not a country club,” the Bristol County sheriff said. “That’s why once you’ve done time in the Bristol County House of Corrections, you won’t want to come back.”

Trump’s pick to replace Justice Kennedy would most likely undermine the rights of criminal defendants and stall progress on solitary confinement, prisoners’ rights, and the death penalty.

New bail funds aren’t just getting immigrants out of detention—they’re helping them stay in the country permanently.

But after a spree of commutations, the governor recently put down his clemency pen amid tough-on-crime fear mongering.

San Francisco just became the first city in the nation to stop charging court fines and fees, but the rest of the state has a long way to go.

Families are torn apart by the criminal justice system every day.

Advocates decry court’s shift to using teleconferencing for hearings.

‘We have a reaction as mothers to what’s been going on.’

With privatization of the state’s prisons in full swing, this year is on track to be its deadliest on record.

As a consequence, authorities are keeping them in cells for 22 to 23 hours a day, according to Oregon’s federal public defender.

A New York City man has been shuffled between Rikers Island and mental hospitals for 32 years.

New York’s Democratic governor has granted only a trickle of commutations, fewer than many of his Democratic and Republican predecessors.

Activists launch a new campaign to close an infamous St. Louis jail.

Kim Kardashian’s successful campaign to free a 63-year-old grandmother serving a life sentence in a drug case is a reminder that we need to go big on clemency. A 52-year-old grandfather named Euka Wadlington, also doing life in a drug case, would be a great place to start.

Debate coach Katrina Burlet says she was banned from state’s prisons after prisoners in her program argued for parole.

The judge who sentenced Brock Turner brought much-needed compassion to the bench, says public defender Sajid Khan.

People incarcerated at Angola want opportunities for education instead of hard labor in the fields.

Death penalty mitigation offers juries a chance to see defendants in a different light.

A new paper argues that President Johnson’s 1967 Commission on Law Enforcement’s report on the subject was “decades ahead of its time.”

Activists say a once-radical campaign has been co-opted.

Houston has come up with a new way to make life harder for people leaving prison on parole: by forcing the programs that provide them with housing, often paired with job placement and other services, to move outside the city limits. At the end of March, the city council approved an ordinance that imposes new regulations and […]

On Wednesday, May 16, 16-year-old Rosalyn “Bird” Holmes was able to walk out of prison and hug her mother. Though the teenager has yet to be indicted, let alone convicted, of any crime, she nonetheless spent the past 40 days in the Tennessee State Penitentiary, an adult women’s prison in Henning, Tennessee. Had it not […]

Todd Entrekin, the sheriff of the small Alabama county of Etowah, recently found himself in the national spotlight when an Alabama newspaper discovered that over the course of three years he pocketed at least $750,000budgeted for feeding the people detained in his county jail. While the inmates in his jail ate meat from a package labeled “not fit for human […]

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is quietly rolling out a pair of new policies that could restrict access to books and communications for the system’s nearly 200,000 prisoners. The first of the new policies bans all books from being sent into federal facilities from outside sources including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These retailers are […]

When Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that he would restore voting rights to New Yorkers on parole, he won instant praise from organizers who had long pushed for criminal justice reform. “This executive order will mean thousands more will be welcomed back into our democracy and assured that in 21st century America, the right to vote is […]

Marius Mason is a transgender man incarcerated at FMC Carswell, a federal women’s prison located in Fort Worth, Texas. Since at least 2014, Mason has wanted to change his legal name to his chosen name, an important step in the transition process for many transgender people. Section 45.103 of the Texas Family Code, however, prevents anyone […]

A few miles from Miami International Airport, outside of Hialeah, sits a tent camp of about 280 homeless people. There’s no electricity or running water and no bathrooms. News reports describe the stench of human waste and garbage, tents that flood when it rains, and flies, mosquitoes, and rats infesting the area. “Animals live better than this,” one resident […]

In February 2017, Mweze Kyungu was pulled over by Houston police officers in Harris County, Texas for a defective brake light and then arrested. “You kill people like me,” Kyungu told the arresting officers, “all you do is kill black people.” Thus began a nearly year-long ordeal for Kyungu in Harris County’s criminal justice system, […]

When Steven Shockey was arrested at a San Diego port of entry in December 2011, he knew his luck had run out. The 52-year-old was trying to re-enter the United States after jumping bail and fleeing to Mexico because of an arrest in Williamson County, Texas, for the aggravated assault of his ex-wife. Because of […]

Legal defense for immigrants has long been central to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s anti-Trump messaging. “We will use all the tools at our disposal to stand up for our people,” he assured immigrant New Yorkers during a high-profile speech at Cooper Union immediately following the 2016 election. His tone was similar during […]

A few days after an argument with her boyfriend led to a 911 call, Ms. L, a mother of two young boys, received an unexpected visit from Child Protective Services (CPS). The caseworker asked her if she used drugs, and Ms. L truthfully responded that she smoked marijuana from time to time. According to Ms. […]

As part of a growing push to end the use of cash bail, a national movement is calling attention to the plight of defendants held in jail simply because they can’t afford to pay their way out.

By all accounts, 71-year-old Henry Montgomery is not the same man he was when he was 17. In 1963, Montgomery skipped school and encountered Charles H. Hurt, a plainclothes sheriff’s deputy, in the woods. In a panic, he shot and killed Hurt with his grandfather’s gun.

Russell Maroon Shoatz says that for 22 years straight he couldn’t sleep for more than three or four hours a night. The restricted housing unit where he lived — a solitary confinement cell, in common parlance — was smaller than most horse stalls, perpetually lit, and often cold during Pennsylvania’s long winters. Another Pennsylvania prisoner, Andre Jacobs, […]

By all accounts, 71-year-old Henry Montgomery is not the same man he was when he was 17. In 1963, Montgomery skipped school and encountered Charles H. Hurt, a plainclothes sheriff’s deputy, in the woods. In a panic, he shot and killed Hurt with his grandfather’s gun. A Baton Rouge, Louisiana jury convicted Montgomery of murder […]