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The Marshall Project
Why Fighting California Wildfires Was the Best Prison Job I Ever Had
In 1985, I decided to move from New York to California without knowing anyone in the state. I was caught up in the hype of what I saw on TV. With its beautiful women and rolling hills, Los Angeles looked to me like the promised land. When I arrived, I...
Redemption Songs: The Forgotten History of American Prison Music
One morning in 2019, Kenyatta Emmanuel Hughes was released from Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, New York, and traveled 70 miles south to Carnegie Hall. That night, he stood before a crowd — flanked by a horn section, string quartet and backup singers — and sang words he’d written during his nearly quarter-century behind bars. He’d been convicted of killing a cab driver during a robbery in 1996, when he was 21 years old. “I had no value for life back then,” heonce told a reporter — and that included his own life, which he tried to end while in prison. Now 45, he sang over a steady pulse of piano chords: “Can’t we agree there’s something wrong, if I feel the need to scream, ‘My life matters’? And why in the world, to you, does that feel like an accusation?”
It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s the Police Responding to a 911 Call.
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. If you call 911 to report an emergency, the odds are increasing that a drone will be the first unit...
Can’t Stop. Won’t Stop.
With renewed purpose, Issue 14 of News Inside goes the extra yard to deliver information behind bars. In June, I visited Turbeville Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison in rural South Carolina. I was part of a group of journalists and criminal justice advocates that the Justice Department had invited to tour the prison’s Community Opportunity Restoration Enhancement (CORE) housing unit. In this special unit, incarcerated mentors work with younger prisoners to curb violence, promote a culture of dignity and encourage success after prison.
How One Alabama County Declared War on Pregnant Women Who Use Drugs
Some women were prosecuted for smoking marijuana before they even knew they were expecting. Chelsea Stewart waited on the bench of a north Alabama court in early 2019, holding tight to the big news she hoped might get her out of trouble. Gadsden police had caught Stewart, then 20 years...
These States Are Using Fetal Personhood to Put Women Behind Bars
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 had struggled with addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder for nearly a decade, since serving in the Iraq War. But when she found out she was pregnant with her third child, in October 2018, she resolved: “I want to be a mama to my kids again.” Armstead says she did stay clean before delivering a baby girl in January 2019. Records show that hospital staff performed initial drug tests, and Armstead was negative.
Cuyahoga Judge May Be the Only One Using Receivers, Costing Divorcing Couples Thousands
Three Cuyahoga County domestic relations judges say they’ve never seen the need to appoint receivers in divorce cases, a move fellow Judge Leslie Celebrezze has done repeatedly for a family friend while costing couples nearly $500,000 in fees. Two of those three judges also declined to answer questions about...
‘Concrete Coffins’: Surviving Extreme Heat Behind Bars
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. Sweltering doesn’t even describe it. — This week, more than a third of the U.S. population wasunder excessive heat warnings...
A New Law Gave Me 1 Year With My Babies Before Heading to Prison. How Will I Say Goodbye?
Minnesota’s Healthy Start law allowed Victoria Lopez to begin her seven-year prison sentence at home with her infant twins. Now comes the separation. In November 2022, Victoria Lopez went into early labor in a Minnesota jail cell. Like most incarcerated parents, she thought she’d have to say goodbye to her newborn twins just hours after giving birth. But Lopez was lucky. Before she went to prison to serve seven years and four months, she was enrolled in a new state program designed to maintain the bond between infants and their mothers. Under the Healthy Start Act passed in 2021, Lopez can spend up to a year at home with her twins and her other two children.
For Many, a Lawyer Is a Luxury Out of Reach
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. If you live in a large city, you probably don’t worry much about finding a lawyer, should you ever need...
While Doing Time in a California Prison, I Was Given a Hysterectomy Without My Consent
Moonlight Pulido believed she was having surgery to remove growths from her uterus. In a brutal bait-and-switch, she was sterilized. In the early 2000s, a California prison doctor urged Moonlight Pulido to undergo surgery to remove potentially cancerous growths from her uterus. Instead, she was given a hysterectomy without her knowledge. — After she was paroled, Pulido applied for and received a reparations payment from California’s Forced or Involuntary Sterilization Compensation Program. That outcome was rare: Of the 320 applicants who have claimed to be survivors of state-sponsored eugenics or their descendants, only 51 have been approved, according to themost recent report on the program. Like many others, Pulido lacked the documentation to prove her story. The 58-year-old says she hasn’t even seen the records that the California’s Victim Compensation Board pulled to process her claim.
4 Reasons We Should Worry About Missing Crime Data
The FBI’s crime data is still incomplete — and politicians are taking advantage. 8,356 agencies submitted all 12 months of crime data in 2022. 4,464 agencies submitted less than 12 months of 2022 data. 24% of all police agencies. Did not participate. 6,097 agencies submitted no 2022 data.
Students Behind Bars Regain Access to College Financial Aid
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. Education has been Sheron Edwards’ escape during his more than 20 years in state and federal prison. He’s earned certifications...
A Texas Jail Delayed My Prenatal Care to Keep Costs Down. Then I Had a Miscarriage.
Collin County Jail failed to send a bleeding, cramping Lauren Kent to an outside OB-GYN. In a lawsuit, she blames their “cost-containment” strategy. In 2019, after days of bleeding, cramping and begging to go to the offsite obstetrician, Lauren Kent had a miscarriage in Texas’ Collin County Jail. Two years later, she filed a lawsuit against the county and private medical provider, Wellpath, alleging that jail staff ignored her repeated requests due to a “cost containment program.” The program was designed to keep medical spending low by limiting access to outside appointments. Detainees at the Collin County Jail must be suffering from a “life or limb threatening illness or injury” to be transported offsite for emergency medical care, according to court documents. The case is still pending.
‘This is Major Trauma’: New Accounts of Abuse at Federal Prison Prompt Calls for Investigations
More than 120 prisoners held at a special unit in Thomson Penitentiary reported mistreatment, lawyers’ committee report says. Months after officials closed a violent federal prison unit in Illinois, a new report reveals more accounts of a pervasive culture of abuse inside and calls for an investigation of the officers involved.
Mississippi Says Poor Defendants Must Always Have a Lawyer. Few Courts Are Ready to Deliver
In April, the Mississippi Supreme Court changed the rules for state courts to require that poor criminal defendants have a lawyer throughout the sometimes lengthy period between arrest and indictment. The goal is to eliminate a gap during which no one is working on a defendant’s behalf. That mandate...
Why DeSantis Wants to Kill Trump’s Prison Reform Law
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 Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a criminal justice reform bill that passed the state House and Senate with...
I Survived Pregnancy and Postpartum Depression in Jail. Now I Guide Others Like Me.
As a doula in Georgia prisons and jails, Tabatha Trammell supports incarcerated clients through pregnancy, childbirth — and giving up their newborns. Tabatha Trammell, 55, is a certified prison doula based in Gwinnett County, Georgia, who uses her personal history to connect with incarcerated clients. In a post-Roe landscape, community-based doulas like Trammell could play a key role in helping pregnant people in custody advocate for themselves and get the mental and physical support they need.
Reproductive Healthcare Behind Bars Was Dismal Even Before Roe Ended
One year ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, we immediately wondered what losing the constitutional right to an abortion would mean for people incarcerated in states where the procedure is outlawed. We knew that finding people to tell these stories would be a challenge. Even before...
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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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