NEWS & BLOG

In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice.

My federal prison sentence ended three months ago, and for someone who’s been free only that long, it would appear that I have accomplished quite a lot.

German-style program at a Connecticut maximum security prison emphasizes rehab for inmates.

Everyone heard tales of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy during childhood. As we grew older, a realization dawned within our young minds that in our innocence belief in those fallacies were errant, or worded another way, we believed a lie.

An animated short film about life, death, and compassion. Based on a true story.

When Nathan Deal moved into the Governor’s Mansion in 2011, he quickly made clear that reforming the state’s prohibitively expensive and ineffective criminal justice system was going to be the cornerstone of his administration.

In 2014, investigative reporter Shane Bauer embarked on a daring journalistic experiment. He took a job as a $9-an-hour private-prison guard at Winn Correctional Facility in Louisiana, and managed to capture the inner workings of the sort of place reporters rarely ever venture to.

How many formerly incarcerated people are able to find work? Answering this fundamental question has historically been difficult, because the necessary national data weren’t available — that is, until now.

The U.S. criminal justice system is in desperate need of an overhaul that builds off the understanding that crime is primarily a young man’s game and that harsh punishments destroy the lives of salvageable people.

Harvard University sociologist Bruce Western weighs in on the role of prisons in perpetuating human vulnerability.

What does it take to build a world-class French restaurant? What if the staff is almost entirely men and women just out of prison? What if most have never cooked or served before, and have barely two months to learn their trade?

Meek Mill's release should be a rallying cry, but while we celebrate we must remember that millions like him continue to struggle on a daily basis with our broken justice system.

April is National Second Chance Month, a time to center the voices, experiences, and promise of people involved in the criminal justice system.

Robert Hood brought to each of the prisons he oversaw the concept of an individualized education plan (IEP). Hood believes that every person—inmate or not—has the ability to change and can benefit from an IEP.

Authoritarian capitalism and the prison industrial complex is a two-tiered tyrannical system designed to enslave through mass incarceration.

With help and ideas from incarcerated men and women, Van Buren is creating dynamic spaces that provide safe venues for dialogue and reconciliation; employment and job training; and social services to help keep people from entering the justice system in the first place.

In the past 40 years, incarceration in America has increased by more than 500 percent, with female prisoners the fastest growing population. Here are eight women taking a stand against a criminal justice system that’s anything but just.

A new interactive report that identifies the major trends and developments in justice systems.

Join with Prison Fellowship in celebrating "Second Chance Month" in April! Together we can unlock brighter futures for 65 million Americans who have repaid their debt to society.

In response to an article in the Washington Post about the increasing curtailment of book privileges in prison, I wrote this Op-Ed. They didn't use it, but that's okay. It was definitely a long shot.

Uniting grassroots leaders and elected officials to build empathy for those impacted by the criminal justice system.

A growing readiness exists to reinvent corrections. Bold thinking and experimentation are needed. So, how can prisons be improved? Here are three general ideas.

There’s little doubt among researchers that mass incarceration is wreaking havoc on our society, in particular on people of color, LGBTQ and the poor. What’s often overlooked in this discussion is the damage that prisons and jails do to our health.

While prison admissions have dropped almost 19 percent in the past eight years, the incarceration of black inmates fell by 30 percent. And the number of black inmates entering the prison system last year was at its lowest level in decades.

Questions and answers with Georgia supreme court Justice Michael Boggs about the state criminal justice reform.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions retracted an Obama-era guidance to state courts that was meant to end debtors’ prisons, where people who are too poor to pay fines are sent. Its withdrawal is the latest sign that the federal government is retreating from protecting civil rights for the most vulnerable among us.

Inmates who study for years are often barred from law, medicine and other fields when they get out. With 700,000 released annually, the distaste for ex-cons poses a problem.

Fulton officials on Monday filed suit against more than two dozen drug manufacturers, distributors and doctors, accusing them of causing an ongoing opioid crisis that has killed hundreds of people in that county alone.

Upon release, discontinuity of care is the norm, and when continuity is established, it is often hindered by distrust, discrimination, poor communication, and racism in the health system.

Despite the enactment of justice reforms in many states, the nation’s prison and jail population has dropped only slightly in recent years. Well over two million people remain behind bars, and there has been little dent in the “mass incarceration” that that has been criticized by many on both the left and the right.

As women go to jail in record numbers, who's watching out for their kids? No one.

The United States professes a belief in blind justice while eagerly distributing photos of its accused. It’s not that police departments in England and Canada don’t collect photographs of people they’ve arrested; they just release them only on occasion.

The new presidential administration has given mixed messages, sometimes using strong rhetoric about increasing criminal penalties, but other times speaking with thoughtfulness about expanding treatment for opioid addiction.

By all indications, Jeff Sessions aims to bring back the Reagan-era war on drugs, a generational struggle that has imprisoned millions and has been wrongheaded at best, racially discriminatory at worst.

This family photo shows Richard Tavera with younger family members. Tavera, who was bipolar and had a history of depression, committed suicide in 2014 in a Georgia prison. The circumstances surrounding Tavera’s death on that December night in 2014 are now the basis of federal lawsuits.

I am very concerned about the future of African American males in our community. Too many African American boys are dropping out of high school, too many are in prison or jail, and too many commit violent crimes upon others.

If we look back to the 2012 presidential election, the criminal legal system, much less mass incarceration, were not even on the list of issues to be debated

The sweeping order, in a swing state that could play a role in deciding the November presidential election, will enable all felons who have served their prison time and finished parole or probation to register to vote. Most are African-Americans, a core constituency of Democrats, Mr. McAuliffe’s political party.

Mary Ziman already had debilitating fibromyalgia and, unable to work, was on permanent disability. Then she was arrested and sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine, charges she says stemmed from fabrications by a woman with mental illness caught with drugs and a gun. That was 17 years ago.