Parole Boards Decide the Fate of Thousands With Little Oversight
Every day, 50 parole boards across the country, often made up of fewer than ten individuals, determine the fate of the tens of thousands of prison inmates eligible to be released on parole.Each state's...
View ArticlePresumption of Innocence for Sale: Why D.C. Has Done Away With Bail
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview."Excessive bail shall not be required." Those six words begin the 8th Amendment, and they have built the framework for our new series that looks...
View ArticleDefending The $3 Billion Bail Business
In the final installment of our series about bail, "Presumption of Innocence for Sale," we wondered, with so many people dissatisfied with the bail system right now, who supports it?There are...
View ArticleWhen Unemployment Becomes a Life Sentence
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.Joshua Pruitt is 32-years-old. He moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue a career and to move beyond his criminal background—Pruitt has two Class C...
View ArticleMomentum Builds for Criminal Justice Reform
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.There are more than 2.2 million people incarcerated in America, or about one out of every 110 adults. Millions are also on probation or parole,...
View Article'Lockdown on Rikers': Shocking Stories from New York's Toughest Jail
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.Earlier this month, the New York City Council passed new legislation to tighten oversight of the city's jails. The new rules require jail...
View ArticleA Look at the 6,000 Inmates Set to Be Released Later This Month
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.Later this month, the Justice Department will release 6,000 inmates from federal prisons to ease overcrowding. The decision to release the...
View ArticleTop Cops and Prosecutors Seek to End Mass Incarceration
Click on the audio player above to hear this segment.When 130 current and former police chiefs, federal and state prosecutors, and attorneys general call for a reduction in incarceration in America,...
View ArticleFinding a Solution to Mass Incarceration Without Increasing Crime
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.With 2.2 million people behind bars, the United States is the world's leader in incarceration. The good news? Bipartisan reform efforts are...
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Voices from Solitary Confinement
Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.On any given day, upwards of 80,000 inmates in America are held in some form of solitary confinement. These individuals pass their days inside...
View ArticleMother Sues Over Son’s Death on Rikers Island
The mother of a mentally ill man who died last year on Rikers Island is suing the city, as well as several high-ranking Department of Correction officials and a private healthcare contractor.Beverly...
View ArticleNYC Considers Segregated Housing for Violent Prison Inmates
New York City’s Department of Corrections is considering a controversial new program at Rikers Island that will segregate what it considers to be the jail’s most violent inmates.The program has drawn...
View ArticleCity Bans Solitary Confinement for Those Under 21 at Rikers
The New York City Board of Correction approved Tuesday the de Blasio administration's plan to ban solitary confinement for inmates on Rikers Island under the age of 21 by next January.Correction...
View ArticleAttica Prisoner Beating Resonates With a Violent Past
In 2011, a prisoner at the upstate prison Attica was brutally beaten by guards. Tom Robbins, investigative journalist in residence at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and former longtime...
View ArticleCommissioner Ponte On Safety at Rikers Island
Joseph Ponte, the commissioner for the New York City Department of Correction, discusses the 14-point plan to aggressively combat violence at Rikers Island, which he announced yesterday with Mayor de...
View ArticlePhone Rates in NJ Prisons Cut in Half
Making a 15 minute phone call from a state prison is New Jersey will soon costs inmates 66 cents — down from $1.95.New Jersey Public Radio has reported that making the same call from a county jail can...
View ArticleNYC Tackles Its ‘Warehouse’ Jail System
Elizabeth Glazer, director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, and Laurie R. Garduque, director of Justice Reform at the MacArthur Foundation, discuss the Safety and Justice Challenge: an...
View ArticleCan One Challenged City Agency Provide Healthcare for Another?
New York City's cash-strapped public hospital system is the largest in the U.S. -- and it's now poised to take on health care for one of the largest jails in world: Rikers.Corey Johnson, chairman of...
View ArticleA Call to Shutter Rikers; Kind Conservatism; Fallen Heroes
Despite a string of recent reforms, the Rikers Island jail complex is still struggling to deal with issues of violence and mental health. The Marshall Project's Neil Barsky argues the only way to fix...
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