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The Marshall Project
The Enduring Use of Solitary, and New Proposed Limits That Will Likely Fail (Again)
As a thought experiment, head to your nearest private bathroom, close the door and imagine spending at least 22 hours a day there by yourself for the next few weeks, months, or maybe even decades. If you’ve never been held in solitary confinement, this is a useful approximation of the space that about 6% of people incarcerated in the U.S. are limited to at any given time.
Officials Failed to Act When COVID Hit Prisons. A New Study Shows the Deadly Cost.
People in prison died at 3.4 times the rate of the free population, with the oldest hit hardest. New data holds lessons for preventing future deaths. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, it wasn’t hard to predict that incarcerated people would be at higher risk. Many prisons and jails are crowded, dirty places with inconsistent access to health care: a breeding ground for the highly infectious virus. But we’re still waiting for an official count of how many more people died because they were behind bars, and the job of documenting the deaths has fallen to a patchwork of research groups and reporters.
I Had a Tough Job at My Brooklyn Jail: Keeping Men From Taking Their Own Lives
Having your freedom snatched away is immensely traumatic. One minute you are living a life of calm. The next minute you are surrounded by walls that seem to be closing in by the second. I know this firsthand: In November 2016, I found myself detained on New York’s notorious Rikers...
This Supreme Court Case on Homelessness May Limit Prisoner Rights and Expand Executions
When the Supreme Court hears the case of Grants Pass v. Johnson later this month, the justices will consider how far cities can go in policing homeless people. But just as the court swept away a half-century of precedent by overturning Roe v. Wade, the justices could use this case about homelessness to upend how we interpret four key words in the Bill of Rights — “cruel and unusual punishments.” Their decision could have ramifications across a wide swath of the criminal justice system, including prison conditions and the death penalty.
What an Eclipse Lockdown Reveals about Dignity in Prisons and Jails
This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters here. On Monday afternoon, tens of millions of people around the country will stop whatever they’re doing to go outside and...
I Made 13 Cents an Hour as a Prison Janitor. Here’s Why I Donated My Wages to Gaza Relief
As he shared the news, my mentor of over 15 years, Justin Mashouf, was smiling ear-to-ear. “I’ve received tons of messages from people all over the world,” he continued during our late February video visit. “I had no idea it would blow up like this when I first posted it on X.” The story Justin was referring to was about how I — an incarcerated man in California working as a janitor for 13 cents an hour — had donated $17.74 of my earnings to relief efforts in Gaza.
How Mississippi’s Jim Crow Laws Still Haunt Black Voters Today
Charles Caldwell was never meant to have a voice. Mississippi’s White ruling class made sure of it. He was part of Mississippi’s silenced majority in 1860 — 436,600 enslaved people to 354,000 White people, according to the Census — who would be granted full citizenship after the Civil War.
Terror, Murder and Jim Crow Laws: Inside Mississippi’s Racial Voter Intimidation History
Mississippi has a long history of voter suppression. An 1890 rule that permanently strips people convicted of certain crimes of their right to vote remains in the state’s constitution. This practice, called felony disenfranchisement, impacts an estimated 55,000 people today. State lawmakers this year considered, then rejected, lifting the voting ban for some nonviolent offenses. — When Mississippi was admitted to the union in 1817, White men reserved decision-making power for themselves. After the Civil War, they used violence, terror and Jim Crow laws to keep power in their own hands and out of the hands of the formerly enslaved Black people who outnumbered them. Here is a quick look at how voting intimidation and voting rights have evolved through the last 150 years.
The Marshall Project Wins Prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence
The Marshall Project has won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, Special Interest, at the 2024 National Magazine Awards. This is the third time The Marshall Project has received this prestigious award from the American Society of Magazine Editors. Last year, the organization also received the General Excellence award in the Special Interest category, and in 2017, it won the same prize in the Literature, Science and Politics slot. It has been nominated for General Excellence seven of the past eight years. — The Marshall Project also won an ASME Award for Best Digital Illustration for the feature “In New York Prisons, Guards Who Brutalize Prisoners Rarely Get Fired.” The illustrations were by Dion MBD; design and development were by Bo-Won Keum, Katie Park and Andrew Rodriguez Calderón; and art direction was by Bo-Won Keum, Celina Fang and Andrew Rodriguez Calderón.
He Faces Execution. His Lawyers May Have Earned Less Than $4 per Hour.
Some death penalty lawyers get paid the same no matter how long they work on a case. Critics say it’s a perverse incentive when a life is at stake. Brian Dorsey’s argument for why he should not be executed by the state of Missouri requires the kind of math familiar to any gig worker.
Who Can and Can’t Vote in Mississippi: A Guide to the State’s Lifetime Voting Ban
For more than a century, Mississippi has imposed a lifetime voting ban on people convicted of various offenses, including arson, forgery and bigamy. Called “disenfranchisement,” the removal of a citizen’s right to vote through conviction is rooted in the state’s 1890 constitution. The constitution’s drafters freely...
Her Story
Issue 16 highlights women’s experiences in the U.S. criminal justice system. We are proud to dedicate Issue 16 of News Inside to topics impacting incarcerated women across the United States. Although women constitute only around 10% of the total incarcerated population, their number behind bars — approximately 190,600 —...
For a Handful of Lawyers in Cuyahoga County, Juvenile Cases Are Big Business
The juvenile court system is supposed to ensure that young people accused of crimes have legal representation, even if their families can’t afford a lawyer. But in Cuyahoga County, some courtrooms resemble hiring halls for favored attorneys who get hundreds of assignments yearly, while others get none. — In one year, the juvenile court paid at least 60 attorneys to represent hundreds of children accused of crimes. Of those, judges steered more than two-thirds of the work to just 10 of the lawyers, according to a Marshall Project - Cleveland analysis of the most recent case data and state reimbursement filings.
Cleveland Promised Oversight of Police Surveillance. The Work Hasn’t Been Done
In 2022, Mayor Bibb pledged to form a panel to address concerns over cameras and high-tech tools. It’s finally set to happen. As Cleveland spends millions on new license plate readers and surveillance cameras, some residents fear that police officers will soon be able to track their movements. Activists...
When Police Encounters With Autistic People Turn Fatal
This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters here. Last Saturday, a San Bernardino sheriff’s deputy shot and killed Ryan Gainer, an autistic Black 15-year-old, outside his home in...
Boxer Shorts Blues: My Path to Gender-Affirming Underwear in Prison
I am sitting in a large conference room. It is bare, utilitarian. It could be an interrogation room. I am compulsively picking at a piece of black trim peeling off the edge of the slate-gray table. The hum of the ventilation system fills the silence, which is heavy. Floating heads stare in my direction waiting for a reply — or is it a confession?
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The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.
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