NEWS

By Isabelle Taft, Mollie Simon, ProPublica and Agnel Philip, ProPublica July 27, 2023 In Mississippi, serious mental illness or substance abuse can land you in jail, even if you aren’t charged with a crime. The state is a stark outlier in jailing so many people for so long, but many officials say they don’t have another option. This article…

By Erik Ortiz July 27, 2023, 11:01 AM EDT / Updated July 27, 2023, 12:06 PM EDT The End Solitary Confinement Act would prohibit isolating inmates and detainees with limited exceptions while ensuring their due process rights. A bill that would broadly ban the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons, jails and detention centers was introduced by a coalition…

BY WAYNE D’ORIO JULY 27, 2023 In 1999 Connecticut had so many people in prison that it paid to send 500 of them to be incarcerated in Virginia. Nearly 25 years later, the state has not only sliced its number of imprisoned people in half, but been able to close more than 10 prisons while keeping its…

By AMY YURKANIN July 26th, 2023 Chelsea Stewart waited on the bench of a north Alabama court in early 2019, holding tight to the big news she hoped might get her out of trouble. Gadsden police had caught Stewart, then 20 years old, smoking marijuana outside her house a month earlier. It was the first time…

by Nichole Manna July 25, 2023 Some of those deaths include people who died in custody, like 33-year-old Amanda Howard and 28-year-old Lina Odom. Others, not reported by the Sheriff’s Office, died shortly after their release, like Dexter Barry. Barry, 54, went two days in jail without anti-rejection medications for his transplanted heart and died after he…