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At New Mexico’s biggest jail for children, toilets and staff are lacking — but strip searches are common.
By Joshua Bowling On July 19, 2023 The décor inside the Bernalillo County Youth Services Center (YSC) is more in line with the children’s wing of your local library than a jail built for kids. The walls and furniture are painted in bright colors and classrooms line a hallway just a short walk from a…
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Voting Rights Restored for Minnesota Felons
Minnesota has passed a new law restoring voting rights for people who are not currently incarcerated. By Kyla Jackson Published: Jul. 13, 2023 at 5:13 PM MDT People across the state are celebrating, now that Minnesota has passed a new law restoring voting rights for people who are not currently incarcerated. This new law will extend voting…
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Michigan governor signs legislation expanding voting rights
Published 4:22 PM MDT, July 18, 2023 LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday signed a bipartisan package of bills into law to expand voter rights by allowing early voting and early tabulation of absentee ballots across Michigan. The legislation, which resulted from the voter-approved Proposal 2, establishes a website for voters to track when…
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Patrol dogs are terrorizing and mauling prisoners inside the United States
By Hannah Beckler On July 23, 2023 In a photo taken in December 2003, two US military dog handlers, Sgts. Santos Cardona and Michael Smith, corner a detainee at Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq used by the US-led coalition and the Iraqi government. Smith holds back his unmuzzled dog Marco, a large black shepherd…
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These States Are Using Fetal Personhood to Put Women Behind Bars
By Cary Aspinwall On July 25, 2023 Hundreds of women who used drugs while pregnant have faced criminal charges — even when they deliver healthy babies. When Quitney Armstead learned she was pregnant while locked up in a rural Alabama jail, she made a promise — to God and herself — to stay clean. She…
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133 Degrees and No AC: Kids at Angola Prison Kept in Potentially Deadly Heat
By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg On July 18, 2023 With heat indexes in the area regularly hitting triple digits, children incarcerated at Louisiana’s Angola prison have been locked in windowless cells for nearly 24 hours a day. One medical expert says the conditions put lives at risk. Children incarcerated on the former death row unit of Louisiana’s Angola…
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Illinois is first state to eliminate cash bail, a penalty affecting low-income communities most
By John O’Conner On July 18, 2023 SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois became the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail as a condition of pretrial release from jail on Tuesday when the state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionally of the law abolishing it. The 5-2 ruling overturns a Kankakee County judge’s opinion…
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A play written and performed by men in prison hopes to change state’s parole laws
By Francia Garcia Hernandez On July 18, 2023 Theatre Y worked with 12 men at Stateville Correctional Center to create the play Editor’s note: The article has been updated to include the correct name of the Prison + Neighborhood Art Project Think Tank. On July 18, 12 men shared their stories and danced their lives…
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California’s prison-to-homelessness pipeline
By Simone Weichselbaum, Andrew Blankstein and Alexandra Chaidez On July 18, 2023 Thousands of former inmates are adding to a growing homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, an NBC News investigation found. LONG BEACH, Calif. — On a warm spring morning, a lone Los Angeles County probation officer stood across from a parking lot lined with…
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