prisons

Corrections officials are attempting to alleviate sweltering conditions in Florida’s unairconditioned prisons, but inmate advocates say the efforts are falling short.

The campaign's photos on Twitter show wives, children and parents posing and smiling with inmates in blue prison uniforms.

Drug-related mortality rates have increased in prisons and jails even as the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses has dropped. The pandemic lockdowns on visitors didn’t eliminate the problem, showcasing that guards have been a source of the contraband.

Federal prisoners said to be the most dangerous are sent to a special unit at an Illinois penitentiary. NPR and The Marshall Project have uncovered violence, abuse and a string of inmate deaths there.

Research shows the average time between sentencing and execution has increased by two-thirds in the past 20 years.

The Department of Corrections says the change will reduce the amount of contraband coming into prisons. Florida prisons are in the process of converting incoming snail mail to a digital-only format.

An estimated 300,000 people were held in solitary confinement in the U.S. at the height of the pandemic. Advocates are pushing to limit the practice, citing lasting harm to prisoners' health.

A top corrections official offered a stark picture of Florida’s prison system Wednesday, warning that lawmakers must boost salaries of corrections workers to avert a looming disaster as the system grapples with high turnover rates, dangerously low staffing levels and fatigued employees.

As part of civil lawsuit settlement, the New Jersey Department of Corrections has agreed to make it customary for prisoners to be assigned a prison stay in line with their gender identity.

The Senate and House lawmakers are reintroducing legislation to create "one stop" shops for formerly incarcerated individuals to reduce crime and keep people out of prison once they leave.

Since March of last year, some 25,496 inmates have been placed in home confinement, including those who have already completed their sentences. But, on Jan. 15, just a few days before the Trump administration ended, the office of legal counsel in the Department of Justice issued a memo saying that the CARES Act requires inmates who got extended home confinement to go back to prison once the pandemic emergency ended.

Prisoners like Kent Clark who broke the law before 1987 should have a chance at parole, unlike more recent inmates. But there are dozens of men in their 60s and older who have little hope of release.