Feature August 7

Undiscovered

Defendants say evidence laws force them to take pleas while “blindfolded.”

By Beth Schwartzapfel

Feature July 30

Fearful of Court, Asylum Seekers are Banished in Absentia

Under Trump, an Obama strategy unravels

By Julia Preston

Feature June 21

How to Cut Down on Searches in Traffic Stops: Legalize Pot

New data shows legalization leads to fewer encounters between cops and drivers, but racial disparities remain.

By Justin George and Eric Sagara

Feature June 6

Can This Marriage Be Saved?

Left and right came together on criminal justice reform. Then Trump happened.

By Justin George

Feature June 3

Mugged!

How your ugly booking photos (and Tiger’s) became a commodity for cops, hustlers and journalists.

By Tim Stelloh

Feature May 31

Downloading a Nightmare

When autism, child pornography and the courts collide.

By Anat Rubin

Feature May 22

The Accusation

Katie's father went to prison for raping her and her brothers. It was an unthinkable crime that broke her family apart. So why couldn't she remember it?

By Maurice Chammah

Feature May 15

Sixty-eight Years Later, Apologies in Lake County

For the lives ruined, for justice denied, sorry.

By Gilbert King

Feature April 16

Drinking While Jurying

What happens when juries decide to tie one on.

By Ken Armstrong

Feature March 30

When Warriors Put on the Badge

Many veterans make careers in policing. Some bring war home.

By Simone Weichselbaum and Beth Schwartzapfel

Feature March 22

“Harmless Errors”

Eight young men and the murder story that sent them away for life

By Thomas Dybdahl

Feature March 9

Afraid of Jail? Buy an Upgrade

How California's pay-to-stay jails create a two-tiered justice system.

By Alysia Santo, Victoria Kim
and Anna Flagg

Feature January 3

Getting Away With Murder

Researching lynching cold cases, law students restore history.

By Beth Schwartzapfel

Feature December 12

America’s Toughest Immigration Court

Welcome to Stewart Detention Center, the black hole of the immigration system.

By Christie Thompson

Feature December 7

In Alabama, You Can Be Sentenced to Death Even if Jurors Don’t Agree

Judges have uniquely uncommon power in the state.

By Kent Faulk

Feature December 6

Out of Prison, Uncovered

Medicaid for ex-prisoners saves money and lives, but millions are released without it.

By Beth Schwartzapfel and Jay Hancock

Feature November 15

Inmates Say They Paid a Bloody Price for a Guard's Injury

Prisoners describe a rampage by correctional officers in a New York prison.

By Tom Robbins

Feature October 26

28 Days in Chains

In this federal prison, inmates have a choice: live with a violent cellmate or end up in shackles.

By Christie Thompson and Joseph Shapiro

Feature October 6

This Machine Could Prevent Gun Violence — If Only Cops Used It

A system that can link gun crimes through shell casings is hobbled by skepticism and lack of manpower.

By Beth Schwartzapfel

Feature September 28

Crime in Context

Violent crime is up in some places, but is it really a trend?

By Gabriel Dance and Tom Meagher

Feature September 14

The Obstacle Course

Applicants said the country's largest state university system discriminated against former prison inmates. Now, the schools have decided to 'ban the box'.

By Simone Weichselbaum

Feature September 9

When There’s Only One Public Defender in Town

Meet Rhonda Covington, the one-woman office.

By Eli Hager

Feature September 8

When Real Estate and Tax Lawyers Are Forced to Do a Public Defender’s Job

Louisiana judges are finding some unexpected substitutes for underfunded defenders.

By Eli Hager

Feature September 7

When the Money Runs out for Public Defense, What Happens Next?

Massive caseloads, long wait lists, group plea deals, and other realities of a funding crisis.

By Oliver Laughland

Feature July 22

The Strange Death of José de Jesús

Lost in America’s deportation bureaucracy.

By Marlon Bishop and Fernanda Echávarri

Feature July 13

How to Fix American Policing

At a painful time, a roundup of proposed remedies

By Ken Armstrong

Feature July 6

Inside the Deadly World of Private Prisoner Transport

Tens of thousands of people every year are packed into vans run by for-profit companies with almost no oversight.

By Eli Hager and Alysia Santo

Feature July 4

Turning Prisons into Haunted Houses

Giving strange new life to old penitentiaries.

By Deonna Anderson

Feature June 28

Meet the Full-Service Social Media Secretary for Prisoners

How Renea Royster gives prisoners access to the digital world.

By Maurice Chammah

Feature June 28

The Day My Brother Took a Life and Changed Mine Forever

I grew up idolizing my brother. Then he killed a man.

By Issac Bailey

Feature June 26

The Bookshelf

Books about criminal justice, curated by The Marshall Project staff.

By The Marshall Project

Feature May 24

Nothing But The Truth

A radical new interrogation technique is transforming the art of detective work: Shut up and let the suspect do the talking.

By Robert Kolker

Feature May 4

American Sheriff

David Clarke, the Trump-loving, pro-mass-incarceration Fox News favorite, is challenging criminal-justice reform—and stereotypes.

By Maurice Chammah

Feature April 19

The ‘Chicago Model’ of Policing Hasn’t Saved Chicago

Why is everyone else copying it?

By Simone Weichselbaum

Feature April 12

The Prison Visit That Cost My Family $2,370

How loved ones bear the hidden cost of shipping inmates out of state.

by Eli Hager and Rui Kaneya

Feature April 6

The Best Criminal Justice Reporting From Around the Web

Your guide to the criminal justice system.

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Feature March 24

The Deadly Consequences of Solitary With a Cellmate

Imagine living in a cell that’s smaller than a parking space — with a homicidal roommate.

By Christie Thompson and Joe Shapiro

Feature February 28

What Prison Guards Really Think About Their Jobs

Listening in on watercooler chatter online.

By Alysia Santo

Feature February 12

Kendrick Lamar, the Grammys and the Year in Socially Conscious Music

Black Lives Matter took center stage in 2015’s hip-hop and R&B.

By Pedro Burgos and Simone Weichselbaum

Feature February 3

Policing the Future

In the aftermath of Michael Brown's death, St. Louis cops embrace crime-predicting software.

By Maurice Chammah, with additional reporting by Mark Hansen

Feature February 2

What’s Justice for Kids Who Kill?

Kahton Anderson and the raging raise-the-age debate.

By Dana Goldstein

Feature January 27

Why Some Young Sex Offenders Are Held Indefinitely

Jhon Sanchez already served his time for a series of sex offenses he committed when he was 13. But he’s not free yet. Inside the world of civil commitment.

By George Steptoe and Antoine Goldet

Feature January 15

Where the Democratic Presidential Candidates Stand on Criminal Justice

A look at Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley in their fourth debate.

By The Marshall Project

Feature January 14

Republican Candidates on Criminal Justice: A Primer

Their sixth debate is in Charleston, a city still recovering from last year’s church killings.

By The Marshall Project

Feature January 7

How to Get Out of Solitary — One Step at a Time

New programs are easing inmates out of years of solitary confinement with surprising outcomes for both prisoners and corrections officers.

By Maurice Chammah

Feature January 4

This Boy’s Life

At 16, Taurus Buchanan threw one deadly punch—and was sent away for life. Will the Supreme Court give him, and hundreds like him, a chance at freedom?

By Corey G. Johnson and Ken Armstrong

Feature December 16

An Unbelievable Story of Rape

An 18-year-old said she was attacked at knifepoint. Then she said she made it up. That’s where our story begins.

By Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller

Feature December 10

The Marshall Project’s Holiday Gift Guide

From prison pups to personal trainers with rap sheets.

By Beth Schwartzapfel

Feature November 11

When School Feels Like Jail

Isolation rooms and paddling: What some schools in the South are doing to keep students in line.

By Eli Hager

Feature October 30

6,000 People Are About to be Freed From Federal Custody — Here’s What They’ll Face

Six men who spent years behind bars offer advice.

By Simone Weichselbaum

Feature October 23

Exclusive: Obama Calls the Death Penalty “Deeply Troubling.”

A one-on-one interview with the president.

By The Marshall Project

Feature October 18

For Men in Prison, Child Support Becomes a Crushing Debt

New regulations would give parents in prison the right to pause child support payments, but opponents say it undercuts welfare reform.

By Eli Hager

Feature October 16

America’s Rock Star Cops

Meet the elite chiefs who revolutionized policing nationwide, for better and for worse. Now they want to do it again.

By Simone Weichselbaum

Feature September 27

Why It’s So Hard to Fire an Abusive Prison Guard

Corrections officials say he injured an inmate and lied about it. He’s still a state employee. He’s more the rule than the exception.

By Tom Robbins

Feature September 25

Prison Without Punishment

Germany allows inmates to wear their own clothes, cook their own meals, and have romantic visits. Could that work in the United States?

By Maurice Chammah

Feature September 23

Alternatives to Bullets

From liquids that smell like dead animals to high-temperature heat rays, the present and future of non-lethal weapons.

By Eli Hager

Feature September 21

A Letter to Pope Francis

You are about to enter Philadelphia’s largest jail. Here is what you should know.

By Maurice Chammah

Feature September 18

The Next To Die

Tracking scheduled executions around the country.

By Gabriel Dance, Tom Meagher and Andy Rossback

Feature September 8

‘I Reviewed Jail on Yelp Because I Couldn't Afford a Therapist.’

Why people are using sites like Yelp to vent and offer tips about prison and jail.

By Beth Schwartzapfel

Feature August 4

The New Science of Sentencing

Should prison sentences be based on crimes that haven’t been committed yet?

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Ben Casselman and Dana Goldstein

Feature July 29

A One-Man Justice Crusade in North Carolina

Before there was a conservative push for reform, there was ‘Bev’ Lake.

By Eli Hager

Feature July 10

Life Without Parole

Inside the secretive world of parole boards, where your freedom may depend on politics and whim.

By Beth Schwartzapfel

Feature July 9

The Sex-Offender Test

Can the Abel Assessment tell if you're a potential child-molester?

By Maurice Chammah

Feature July 2

California’s Jail-building Boom

What comes after mass incarceration? Local incarceration.

By Anat Rubin

Feature June 28

This is Rikers

From the people who live and work there.

By The Marshall Project

Feature June 24

The Surprisingly Imperfect Science of DNA Testing

How a proven tool may be anything but.

By Katie Worth

Feature June 22

How the Right got Religion on Justice

Pat Nolan and a movement that may have found its moment.

By Bill Keller

Feature June 17

The Long and Winding Detainment of Diana Ramos

Why did this undocumented woman spend more than four years in detention?

By Christie Thompson

Feature June 17

Preying on Prisoners

In Texas, staffers rarely go to jail for sexually abusing inmates.

By Alysia Santo

Feature June 11

From Solitary to the Street

What happens when prisoners go from complete isolation to complete freedom in a day?

By Christie Thompson

Feature June 9

The Burnout

Missouri keeps killing Jennifer Herndon’s clients. So she invented an alternate life.

By Ken Armstrong

Feature June 3

Nigerians are Flocking to Work in Texas Prisons

An immigration trend changes the face of corrections.

By Maurice Chammah

Feature June 1

After Lethal Injection

Three states, three ways to kill a human being.

By Maurice Chammah, Andrew Cohen and Eli Hager

Feature May 26

Policing the Police

As the Justice Department pushes reform, some changes don't last.

By Simone Weichselbaum

Feature May 13

Willie Horton Revisited

We talk to the man who became our national nightmare. Thirty years later, does he still matter?

By Beth Schwartzapfel and Bill Keller

Feature April 15

Hard Labor

A doula offers a little comfort for a birth behind bars.

By Simone Weichselbaum

Feature April 11

A Record of Trouble

California looks to halfway houses, finds a company cited for violence and escapes.

By Anat Rubin

Feature April 7

Unfreed

The man who was accidentally released from prison 88 years early.

By Robert Kolker

Feature March 30

Florida’s Record on Rape

A closer look at the Sunshine State’s history of undercounting, or altogether ignoring, sexual abuse in its prisons.

By Alysia Santo

Feature March 24

How Actual White-Collar Criminals Should ‘Get Hard’

Advice from America’s prison coaches.

By Caroline Grueskin

Feature March 18

Where Law and Order Meets Paranoid and Schizophrenic

Three days in Room 19E2, Bellevue Hospital.

By Alysia Santo

Feature March 9

Doubts from Death Row

More questions about the Willingham case.

By Maurice Possley

Feature March 6

Inexcusable Absences

Skipping school is a problem. But why is it a crime?

By Dana Goldstein

Feature February 28

Attica’s Ghosts

A savage beating, a culture “beyond repair.”

By Tom Robbins

Feature February 25

A Boy Among Men

What happens when you throw a teenager into an adult prison? Guess.

By Maurice Chammah

Feature February 23

When Freedom Isn’t Free

The bail industry wants to be your jailer.

By Alysia Santo

Feature February 20

‘Trust Nobody, and Proceed with Caution’

Two new safety videos aim to protect New York inmates from prison rape.

By Eli Hager

Feature February 6

Start Me Up

Is entrepreneurship the way from prison to prosperity?

By Eli Hager

Feature February 2

Desperately Seeking Jurors

Notes from a Boston courtroom.

By Kevin Cullen

Feature December 22

16-Hour Shifts, 300 Inmates to Watch, and 1 Lonely Son

The very sleep-deprived life of a corrections officer.

By Alysia Santo

Feature December 17

The Slow Death of the Death Penalty

The public supports it, but the costs are lethal.

By Maurice Chammah

Feature December 11

Trial By Cash

Judicial elections have gotten ugly. That’s bad news for defendants.

By Christie Thompson

Feature December 10

Our Jury Is In on “Serial”

The lawyers favor acquittal.

By Eli Hager

Feature December 3

The Pentagon Finally Details its Weapons-for-Cops Giveaway

Bellying up to the arsenal.

By Shawn Musgrave, Tom Meagher and Gabriel Dance

Feature November 25

Cincinnati: Ferguson’s Hope or Hype?

A closer look at the Ohio city that everyone is touting as the model of police-community harmony.

By Simone Weichselbaum

Feature November 16

Death by Deadline, Part Two

When lawyers stumble, only their clients fall.

By Ken Armstrong

Feature November 15

Death by Deadline, Part One

How bad lawyering and an unforgiving law cost condemned men their last appeal.

By Ken Armstrong

Feature October 6

No Country for Young Men

Junior Smith was a troubled kid who needed help. Instead, West Virginia sent him to jail.

By Dana Goldstein

Feature August 3

The Prosecutor and the Snitch

Did Texas execute an innocent man?

By Maurice Possley