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I ‘Stood My Ground’ — but It Was the Police Raiding My House
One morning in September 2020, I woke up to the sound of glass shattering. My first thought was: Someone is breaking into my house. It was around 8 a.m., but it felt like the middle of the night because we had blackout curtains. My daughter, who was 11, had spent that night at a friend’s house, and I’m so thankful she wasn’t there.
Cuyahoga County Jail Shows People the Door, Offers Little Else to Aid Reentry
A high-ranking leader in the Cuyahoga County Jail raised alarms in October about the lack of help offered to people before they are sent back onto the streets. But after questioning the shortcomings of the jail’s reentry work during his first six weeks on the job, Warden Jeremy Everett’s concerns were not met with change. — Instead, all he received from his boss was a demand that he resign.
Cleveland Focus
News and information from our Cleveland newsroom. As outreach manager for The Marshall Project - Cleveland, I am extremely excited about Issue 15 of News Inside. This is our first issue to include an insert we call “Cleveland Focus,” which deals with news specific to us. News Inside...
More to Explore in Expanded News Inside
Issue 15 branches out with a special section for people incarcerated in Ohio. As 2023 comes to a close, we at The Marshall Project hope we have served our incarcerated readers well with news and narratives relevant to their lives behind bars. This year, The Marshall Project expanded our hyperlocal...
DNA Testing Refutes Ohio Man’s Claim of Innocence
DNA taken from items preserved from one of Northern Ohio’s most brutal kidnapping and sexual assault cases matched that of the man convicted of the crime, officials said Wednesday. Samuel Herring was sent to prison nearly 40 years ago after a jury convicted of him of kidnapping, raping and...
What’s a Hate Crime? Depends on Where You Live
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. Hate crimes have been on my mind lately as the Israel-Hamas conflict and resulting siege on Gaza have sparked fears...
They Were Prosecuted for Using Drugs While Pregnant. But It May Not Have Been a Crime
Spencer Woods wanted to fight a crime that didn’t exist. — As a sheriff’s investigator in Monroe County, Mississippi, near the Alabama border, he would occasionally receive reports from his state’s child protection agency that a baby had tested positive for illegal drugs at birth. To...
In Ohio, Losing Your License Is Easy. Getting It Back Is Complicated.
Ohio issued more than 200,000 new driver’s license suspensions in 2022 to people who owe money for failing to pay court fines or child support or not having proof of car insurance — often called debt-related suspensions. Getting a license suspension lifted can be frustrating. The Marshall Project...
Supreme Court Takes on Gun Cases as State Laws Shift
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. This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a gun rights case that could make domestic abuse victims more vulnerable...
After Nearly 40 Years Behind Bars, Ohio Man Pins Hopes on DNA Testing
Samuel Herring hopes the first-ever testing in a notorious 1984 rape will add another exoneration to the Ohio Innocence Project’s resume. Samuel Herring shuffles slowly, even for a 67-year-old. Tightly gripping a wooden cane in his right hand, he slides into a black leather chair, straightening his posture before retelling his story.
The Untold Story of How Crack Shaped the Justice System
One of the most confounding legacies of the crack epidemic is that everyone has heard of crack — we all think we know what we need to know — but few of us actually understand it. That’s not an accident, argues journalist Donovan X. Ramsey in his new book, “When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era.” Public information about crack was often more hyperbole than science, Ramsey writes, and those who used crack were portrayed as villains, to our detriment, as lawmakers and law enforcement tried to respond to the drug’s explosion in popularity.
The Prison Soul Band That Opened for Stevie Wonder
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. While working as a janitor at Philadelphia City Hall, Ron Aikens began spending his free time singing karaoke outdoors for...
New Data Shows Violent Crime Is Up… And Also Down.
Property crime and violence against young people are both up, recent federal data shows, but other crime trends are murkier. Two key crime reports released by the Justice Department this fall reveal a changing crime landscape, even when they diverge on year-over-year trends. Property crime rose in significant ways for the first time in years. Violent crime against young people doubled. As usual, most crimes go unreported. And as a major election season looms in 2024, the deviation between the reports on recent trends in violent crime could be read selectively to score political points.
Prison Is a Dangerous Place for LGBTQ+ People. I Made a Safe Space in the Library.
When I was 16, my mom attacked me with a butcher knife. She was chasing me out of my childhood home after finding pages from a Playgirl magazine that I had secreted inside my bedroom wall years earlier. A friend had used the pages — along with those from Penthouse...
Yes, It’s Getting Worse: New Data Shows Mass Shootings Are More Frequent
The massacre in Lewiston, Maine, last week was the seventh mass shooting of 2023. There were seven in total last year. In 2022, The Marshall Project looked at trends in mass shootings in the U.S. Here is an update of that piece. Last week, a gunman opened fire in Lewiston,...
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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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