NEWS

By Michael Hall September 2023 We keep putting convicts away. And lawmakers want those numbers to rise. The Texas frontier was a lawless place, so the early waves of white settlers dealt with suspected wrongdoers the way the Old Testament told them to. Even as other states found alternatives to the lash, Texas—whose prison system…

By Paige Pfleger, research by Mariam Elba On August 17, 2023 Michaela Carter was one of at least 75 people killed in domestic violence shootings in Nashville since 2007. Nearly 40% were shot by people who were legally barred from having a gun. Michaela Carter felt like she was being hunted. She fled her family’s…

By Shannon Heffernan On August 14, 2023 The state has paid Wexford Health Sources more than $1 billion, but about half the medical positions are unfilled. As their contract expires, lawmakers hear calls for change. Illinois lawmakers heard testimony on Monday from civil rights lawyers and family members about the dismal state of health care…

By Amanda Hernandez On August 14, 2023 Climate change has amplified heat-related struggles in more state prisons. While sweltering heat in prisons without air conditioning has long been an issue in the South, extreme heat waves worsened by climate change are expanding the problem into Northern states. In recent years, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota, Washington…

By Bennito Kelty On August 11, 2023 More than five years have passed since the world watched, aghast, at the video of Diana Sanchez giving birth alone in a Denver County Jail cell in July 2018. The incident was covered by countless media outlets after Sanchez’s lawyer, Mari Newman, released footage of her client’s horrifying ordeal in…

By Anabel Sosa On August 8, 2023 Renee Espinoza thought her first strip search at the hands of a California correctional officer would be her last. It happened during a visit to Centinela State Prison to see her incarcerated husband.  A few months later it happened again. And then again.  “It was the same process…