Much of the country is in a dither over the Supreme Court decision (Brown v. Plata) that requires California to release up to 33,000 inmates in order to reduce prison overcrowding.
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Thirty people in a room, all teachers in high school and GED programs in various prisons from across New York State, listening to me talk about teaching locked up kids.
Over 2,500 prisoners are serving juvenile life without parole in America. They were convicted at age 15, 16, 17, 18 -- and they will die in prison regardless of how well they live their lives while incarcerated.
A sharp divide in the recent Supreme Court ruling ordering California to drastically reduce its prison population represents a deeper national division.
In prison, if you treat people like animals, and surround them with unspeakable atrocity and terror on a daily basis, they don't come out very nice people.
Unless we drastically reform our spending priorities, and move toward "smart on crime" policies, our City on the Hill will continue to resemble Rikers Island instead of the Library of Alexandria.
The crook told the cabbie to ask a cop for directions. The cop recognized the idiotic passenger from a surveillance tape and arrested him. For once a man asked for directions and look what happened.
On Saturday, 17 male inmates in Burma's Insein Prison joined at least five women who had been on a hunger strike since May 17. This bold and risky move comes on the heels of a "general amnesty" for 14,600 prisoners freed last week.
Stephen Lawrence was a black teenager from south-east London who was stabbed to death. Now, after years of allegations of official corruption and the withholding of evidence, two men stand trial for his 18-year-old murder.
As a society we can no longer afford to declare youth worthless and sentence them to die in prison without giving them an opportunity to have their sentence reviewed.
Prisoners who have worked toward earning meaningful academic credentials, built strong networks of support with law-abiding citizens, and demonstrated their commitment to leading law-abiding lives should expect resistance rather than encouragement.
Today, at this very moment hundreds of thousands -- probably millions -- of human beings are being wrongfully imprisoned around the world.
This is a love story about a quadriplegic woman named Sarah and a heroin addict named Rick grappling with the consequences of conviction under California's Three Strikes Law.
When Gov. Nathan Deal signed his state's punitive HB 87 immigration law at noon today, Georgia took Arizona's place on the nation's fast track to penal profiteering from immigration crackdowns.
Imagine a program that saves Cook County at least $20 million per year while reducing crime, incarceration, and unemployment. This is no fantasy -- it's called diversion court.
It's hardly a secret that private prison corporations are deliberately promoting and designing laws aimed at incarcerating immigrants and turning the prison system into an incredibly lucrative business.
Of my 24 years as a mother, seven have been stained by the reminder of a loss that never ends. I am the mother of a young man in prison, one of 2.4 million sons and daughters behind bars.
It is hard to shake off bad habits and the U.S. has a number of them. The addiction to remaining in a permanent state of war is one of the largest and most problematic.
Prison has its own distinct landscape. While not all prisoners have been liberated from obsessive thinking or chronic negativity, neither have many of us who are not "locked up."
The death of the world's most wanted terrorist is building up pressure on the United States government to end our country's longest-running war. The question now is whether the American public and its leaders are willing to invest in a long-term strategy for peace.
Yes, tough girls do wear tutus. I thank my mother for this wisdom and freedom, a woman who allowed the tension of opposites to live in me, while at the same time she didn't so much for herself.
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