Women told The Appeal they found the routine practice degrading and dehumanizing. Prisons around the country have long humiliated people for menstruating.

The medical examiner who helped put Tasha Shelby in prison has since said her son’s death was not a homicide.

Detainees at New Mexico’s Torrance County Detention Facility recently launched a hunger strike, motivated in part by the August death of a 23-year-old asylum seeker in custody.

New York’s landmark solitary confinement reform law created a new, “rehabilitative” type of isolation unit. State prisons aren’t on board with the changes.

Data obtained by The Appeal show nearly 2,000 people in Mississippi and Louisiana are serving long—and sometimes life—sentences after they were labeled “habitual offenders.” But most are behind bars for small crimes like drug possession.

An upcoming court ruling could decide the fate of a plan to detain “problematic youth” at a facility that previously housed prisoners awaiting execution.

Patrick Stephens, a formerly incarcerated writer, explains how arbitrary, byzantine, and punitive visiting rules tear apart the families of the incarcerated—especially after the pandemic.

Thousands of deaths in jails, prisons, and police custody have gone uncounted in recent years. Now the DOJ is calling for changes to federal law.

County officials agree that conditions have deteriorated at L.A.’s Inmate Reception Center. But they’re resisting calls for substantive change.

Prison officials allegedly used solitary confinement to get the plaintiff to submit to an invasive examination prohibited under federal law.

“They were destroying me,” said one person placed in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s “Program for the Aggressive Mentally Ill Offender.”

The ban had helped the Broome County Sheriff rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from detainee video and phone call fees.

Politicians are demanding greater oversight over the Virginia Department of Corrections, after women at one state prison said they’re served spoiled food.

Incarcerated people need opportunities to learn and grow.

A federal monitor says substandard healthcare persists—with horrific consequences—more than a decade after a lawsuit was supposed to compel changes.

Fluvanna Correctional Center patients say they’ve been threatened with disciplinary action for asking about symptoms at medical appointments.

Water at 12 state prisons has tested positive for the bacteria this year.

Thousands of elderly people are released from U.S. prisons each year, and advocates say states urgently need to scale up their capacity to provide them with compassionate care.

The real aim of these operations might be to boost support for cops.

The horrific experiences of women at a Virginia prison fit a broader pattern of neglect across the country.

I wanted to have a better diet in prison. But when you’ve been stripped of your freedom, it can be impossible to make the “right” decisions.

Police and prosecutors will now be tasked with enforcing state anti-abortion laws.

Model state legislation proposed by a leading anti-choice group would impose felony charges for a broad new set of activities related to abortion.

More than two years into the pandemic, the Broome County Sheriff’s Office is still prohibiting all jail visits. The policy helped them take in more than a half-million dollars in 2021.

Expert says trauma from childbirth, not shaking, led to the death of Danyel Smith’s two-month-old child.

Advocates say the policy, aimed at eliminating contraband, will harm prisoners and their loved ones by making it much harder to send fresh food and other essentials into prisons.

As politicians look to build public support for homeless encampment sweeps, they’re using tactics popularized in LA—the site of one of the nation’s most intense battles over the unhoused.

Accused of faking his symptoms, Joshua Lee Smith was dragged from his hospital bed, called a “junkie,” and thrown in jail, his lawsuit says. Then, he woke up paralyzed.

A Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion could force thousands of incarcerated people to carry pregnancies to term.

An incarcerated writer reflects on what her “going home” story will look like when home no longer exists.

One incarcerated author used skills from an HIV/AIDS group to push imprisoned people and prison guards to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Cynthia Alvarado was raped in jail before she was sentenced to life in prison for a murder she did not commit. Now that her sentence has been overturned, Alvarado is fighting for women like her.

Reporters entertained the notion that a toddler deserved prison time with headlines like ‘No Charges for 5-Year-Old in Pembroke Pines School Attack’

Legionella bacteria was found in five Illinois prisons in March.

Our team at the University of North Carolina analyzed death-in-custody reporting policies at every state and federal carceral entity. Data collection is a mess—and many states don’t follow the law at all.

Gloria Williams, who became known as “Mama Glo” behind bars, was released Tuesday, more than two years after the state parole board first recommended that her sentence be commuted.

But if he loses his appeal and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declines to grant him clemency, he will likely be sent back to prison.

Reginald Randolph is currently serving a two to four year sentence in state prison for stealing cold medicine

Sky-high costs, fear of retaliation, and isolation create roadblocks for incarcerated people to join conversations about reform.