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Articles on Mass incarceration

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Only 15% of adults in prison have earned a postsecondary degree or certificate – either before or while being incarcerated. Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

As Second Chance Pell Grant program grows, more incarcerated people can get degrees – but there’s a difference between prison-run and college-run education behind bars

With the expansion of Second Chance Pell grants, more colleges and universities will soon offer degree programs to students in prison.
Black men disproportionately make up the US prison population. AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

Biggest racial gap in prison is among violent offenders – focusing on intervention instead of incarceration could change the numbers

The US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. When it comes to violent offenders and the Black community, the system isn’t working, argue criminologists.
Activists participate in a march urging Congress to pass voting rights legislation in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 2021. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Black Lives Matter protests are shaping how people understand racial inequality

The Black Lives Matter movement is having a lasting impact on the racial reckoning in the US that was triggered after the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in 2020.
Ketanji Brown Jackson at her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing as a nominee to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, on April 28, 2021. Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)

Biden nominates Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court: 7 questions answered

A constitutional law professor provides insight on what Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, could mean for how that court works.
Activists wave flags in front of the U.S. Capitol to demand that Congress pass cannabis reform legislation on Oct. 8, 2019. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Legalizing marijuana, once a pipe dream on Capitol Hill, takes an important step forward

A cannabis decriminalization bill approved by the House is a sign from Congress that sentiment around the drug is evolving, but it misses a chance to regulate marijuana for the good of all Americans.
Prison education programs have been shown to improve job prospects. Thinkstock/Getty Images

Congress lifts long-standing ban on Pell grants to people in prison

For the first time since 1994, incarcerated individuals can get federal aid to pay for college. A prison education scholar explains how higher education helps those who have run afoul of the law.
According to Oregon law, possessing a small amount of drugs for personal consumption is now a civil – rather than criminal – offense. Peter Dazeley via Getty

Oregon just decriminalized all drugs – here’s why voters passed this groundbreaking reform

Possessing heroin, cocaine, meth and other drugs for personal use is no longer a criminal offense in Oregon. The idea is to get people with problem drug use help, not punishment.
Despite criticism during her first term, progressive prosecutor Kim Foxx won reelection as Cook County state’s attorney by a 14-point margin. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Progressive prosecutors scored big wins in 2020 elections, boosting a nationwide trend

Reform-minded prosecutors across the US notched victories against traditional law-and-order candidates by running on progressive platforms to reduce mass incarceration and tackle police misconduct.
Dade Correctional Institution where mentally ill prisoner Darren Rainey was locked in a shower stall and died in June 2012. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

People are dying in US prisons, and not just from COVID-19

Violence in the criminal-justice system isn’t limited to police. It’s time to pay more attention to violent deaths within state prisons.
Calls for help at Chicago’s Cook County jail, where hundreds of inmates and staff have COVID-19, April 9, 2020. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images

Prisons and jails are coronavirus epicenters – but they were once designed to prevent disease outbreaks

In the 1790s, penal reformers rebuilt America’s squalid jails as airy, hygienic places meant to keep residents – and by extension society – healthy. Now they’re hotbeds of COVID-19. What went wrong?

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