Many women who are incarcerated were just trying to make ends meet for their families. Here an image from a rally to demand the release of people held in jails, outside the Riverside Correctional Facility in Philadelphia, May 2020.
Joe Piette/Flickr
For Mother’s Day, we look at the fastest growing prison population in Canada — racialized women, many of whom are mothers. Experts connect the trend to rising poverty and the attempts to cope with it.
What does ‘justice reinvestment’ mean in practice? Who makes funding decisions? To find out more, we consulted Aboriginal communities in Bourke, Moree and Mount Druitt.
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
Ghana needs a more effective approach to juvenile justice reform that considers the long-term impact of detention on youth offenders.
Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro speaks during a Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers’ meeting on bail reform in Ottawa in March 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
Those determining bail must reflect on their own beliefs and show restraint as they determine risk to avoid relying on false racist narratives. So should those calling for bail reform.
Black men disproportionately make up the US prison population.
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
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.
Cells at Alcatraz, a famous former prison on an island off the coast of California.
Andrea Pistolesi/Stone via Getty Images
To protect communities, we must improve the likelihood that accused people can comply with their bail conditions by offering greater support on several fronts, from social services to law enforcement.
Every year, hundreds are held arbitrarily in provincial jails. The Canadian government must take action to end the jailing of migrants.
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Migrants and refugee claimants in immigration detention continue to face serious trauma and abuse. The federal government must take action to stop migrant detentions.
Protesters hold placards during an Indigenous deaths in Custody protest in Sydney , June 2022.
Bianca De Marchi/AAP
Russell Marks’ Black Lives, White Law is not about solutions; it’s about identifying the problems with Australia’s criminal legal system, and the injustice it does to First Nations people.
Every day, tens of thousands of American prisoners are locked up in solitary confinement. This is how that looks for those behind bars, and those guarding them.
First Nations children are 20 times more likely to be incarcerated. Governments need to consider raising the age of incarceration and pursuing culturally-led care for these children.
People with disability in prison may need help with personal hygiene, reading, filling in forms, understanding rules, participating in criminal justice proceedings, or making complaints.
Activists protest for the end of shackling pregnant women during birth in prison in New York in 2015.
Yanina Manolova/Associated Press
Tennessee and Wisconsin are among the states that can jail pregnant women because of illegal substance use, despite major medical groups saying that this practice isn’t effective.
Thousands of imprisoned persons in Ontario faced barriers to voting in the June 2 provincial election. Many will also be explicitly barred from voting in the upcoming municipal elections in October.
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Linda Mussell, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa and Jessica Evans, Toronto Metropolitan University
Elections Ontario must ensure imprisoned people are provided information on their candidates, registration assistance and facilitation by Elections Ontario employees on voting day.
Associate Dean and Chief Academic Officer for Nursing and Director, Project Healthy Grandparents, Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions, Georgia State University