Columbus
The Marshall Project
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.
Computer Book Bans and Other Insights From a Year Investigating Prison Censorship
When you think of book censorship, where do you imagine it happening? Libraries and schools, most likely — but incarcerated people face an even more restricted environment in prison. There’s little oversight or accountability. Policies vary by state and prison. Some states limit buying books to specific vendors, while...
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...
Aala Abdullahi Joins The Marshall Project as Engagement Reporter
Abdullahi comes to The Marshall Project with a track record of reaching underserved audiences. The Marshall Project is delighted to announce that Aala Abdullahi will be joining as an engagement reporter. In this role, she will work closely with our engagement editor, Nicole Lewis, to understand the news and information needs of our audience, particularly those directly affected by the criminal legal system. — The Marshall Project is committed to engagement journalism: how to conceive and distribute our work so that it better reflects and reaches people who have been marginalized in mainstream news platforms. This is an emerging form of journalism that involves rethinking storytelling forms, distribution platforms and information needs of anyone ensnared in the legal system, including the incarcerated and their families. These groups are often subjects of journalism, but seldom see news that could affect their own lives.
Four Suicides in L.A. and the Mental Health Problem in Law Enforcement
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 Nov. 6, a man was found dead at 10:30 a.m. in Los Angeles County. A second man was found...
Being a Corrections Officer Is Hard Enough. Doing the Job While Pregnant Is a Nightmare.
Lia McKeown says a California prison refused to adjust her job duties to accommodate her pregnancies. Now she’s suing for discrimination. Several months into Lia McKeown’s first pregnancy while working as a corrections officer with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), she asked to change roles. Her job had become too physically demanding, and she needed a position with less daily movement and more predictability. — For years, the CDCR had a “reasonable accommodation” policy that allowed pregnant corrections officers to transfer roles during their pregnancies while retaining their pay and benefits. But in 2015, the department instituted a new policy forcing pregnant officers to stay in physically arduous and dangerous positions — or risk losing their jobs, a class-action lawsuit alleges.
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...
A Warden Tried to Fix an Abusive Prison. He Faced Death Threats.
The handwritten letter arrived days before Christmas 2022. “THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ISSUE!!!” it began. “PLEASE HELP.” Signed by 14 people incarcerated in one of the highest security federal prisons in the country, the letter was an urgent warning for prison officials: Several corrections officers were trying to bribe prisoners to attack the warden and one of his captains.
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,...
The Marshall Project
743+
Posts
5M+
Views
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.
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments. It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency: our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. We strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation. Join us in shaping the news narrative together.