prisons

Dominican officials cram thousands of inmates facing no charges into overcrowded prisons

1:38am February 19, 2025

Despite promises to improve the system, problems within prisons keep mounting. Critics say the Dominican Republic continues to push for pretrial detentions in cases where no charges have been filed.

National

Trans community fears Trump's actions will upend legal precedent on prison protections

5:01am January 30, 2025

One of President Trump's first executive orders impacts transgender inmates incarcerated in federal facilities. It's just one in a series of actions signed by Trump that target the trans community.

Glynn Simmons reacts as he leaves court after a judge ruled to approve his "actual innocence" claim during a hearing at the Oklahoma County Courthouse on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023, in Oklahoma City, Okla.

National

An Oklahoma judge ruled a man who spent 48 years in prison for murder is innocent

3:30pm December 20, 2023

by The Associated Press

Glynn Simmons, 71, was released in July after prosecutors agreed that key evidence in his case was not turned over to his defense lawyers. He is the longest imprisoned U.S. inmate to be exonerated.

Soldiers patrol from on top of an armored vehicle as supporters of presidential candidate Daniel Noboa, of the National Democratic Action Alliance political party, attend a rally downtown in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023.

World News

A 7th man accused of killing an Ecuador presidential candidate is slain in prison

1:21am October 09, 2023

by The Associated Press

The killing of the seven suspects happened a little more than a week before Ecuador holds a presidential runoff election and as officials struggle to explain how this was possible.

Fulton County Jail is seen on April 2, 2013, in Atlanta. The Justice Department announced that it has opened a civil investigation into the conditions at the facility.

Feds to investigate Georgia's Fulton County Jail for filthy, dangerous conditions

2:31pm July 13, 2023

by Jaclyn Diaz

The investigation into the Atlanta-based jail comes almost a year after the death of Lashawn Thompson who died in a bedbug-infested cell in Fulton County Jail's psychiatric wing.

Larry Jordan, 74, served 38 years in an Alabama prison and is in poor health now. One reason the U.S. trails other developed countries in life expectancy, experts say, is that it has more people behind bars and keeps them there far longer.

Health & Safety

When a prison sentence becomes a death sentence

5:38am April 27, 2023

by Fred Clasen-Kelly

As U.S. life expectancy falls, experts say incarceration has serious health impacts. The U.S. has one of the highest rates of people in prison or jail in the developed world.

People walk outside the U.S. Immigration and Enforcement Processing Center operated by GEO Group Inc. in Adelanto, Calif. The company is facing a lawsuit for the alleged use of hazardous chemicals in the facility during the COVID-19 pandemic.

National

GEO Group sickened ICE detainees with hazardous chemicals for months, a lawsuit says

9:11am March 25, 2023

by Jaclyn Diaz

The Social Justice Legal Foundation says one of the country's largest private prison operators knowingly exposed ICE detainees to the disinfectant HDQ Neutral.

Two of artist Dean Gillespie's miniatures in the traveling visual arts exhibition Marking Time, which examines mass incarceration.

'Imagining Freedom' will give $125 million to art projects focused on incarceration

10:45am February 15, 2023

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

Since 2020, the Mellon Foundation has given over $40 million to arts and humanities projects addressing mass incarceration. In all, it says, it will donate $125 million to such efforts.

Queue Listen Now

NC inmate safety, juvenile justice changes begin Wednesday

3:53pm December 01, 2021

by Associated Press

Some North Carolina laws that took effect on Wednesday are designed to protect expectant mothers behind bars, keep more elementary school-age children accused of misdeeds out of court and force pol

Police walk on the roof of the Litoral Penitentiary on Saturday after riots broke out inside the jail in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

World News

Dozens of inmates die in a battle between prison gangs in Ecuador

2:42pm November 13, 2021

by The Associated Press

A prolonged gun battle between rival gangs inside Ecuador's largest prison was the latest violence to hit the Litoral Penitentiary, which recently saw the country's worst prison bloodbath.