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Prison Population

Colette Peters, a White woman in a red suit jacket and short brown hair, speaks, as Michael Horowitz, a White man in a navy suit jacket and white hair, looks on.
Closing Argument March 2
How Federal Prisons Are Getting Worse
Government watchdog agencies found hundreds of preventable deaths and excessive use of solitary confinement.
By and
In Palm Beach County, Florida, the number of people in county jails, including the main detention center pictured here, dropped by nearly 250 during the pandemic.
News June 7, 2021
Jail Populations Creep Back Up After COVID-19
Judges, prosecutors and sheriffs in many states sent people home instead of to jail last year, but new data suggests the change is not lasting.
By , and Michael R. Sisak
Kunlyna Tauch at Pelican Bay State Prison in January.
Life Inside July 9, 2020
I Am Not Your “Other”
I’m a Cambodian-American from Long Beach, California. But to a prison system that limits its population categories to “Black,” “White” and “Hispanic,” I’m the race version of a misfit toy.
By Kunlyna Tauch
Prisoners in Angola, Louisiana, where the state prison population has dropped by 5.4 percent.
News May 18, 2018
Maryland Leads as Prison Populations Continue to Decline
Sentencing reforms still curbing mass incarceration, but some eye reversals.
By
Commentary October 28, 2016
Better by Half
How New York City Cut Crime and Incarceration at the Same Time
Vincent Schiraldi and Judith A Greene
An inmate fire crew walk along Highway 120 as firefighters continue to battle the Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park in California in 2013.
Q&A August 20, 2015
Prisoners Who Fight Wildfires in California: An Insider’s Look
For $2 a day, “It’s a hairy adventure, let me tell you.”
By
What You're Saying July 24, 2015
‘Children Do Not Have the Same Capacity as Adults to Control Their Reactions.’
A selection of recent letters from our readers.
By
Feature July 2, 2015
California’s Jail-building Boom
What comes after mass incarceration? Local incarceration.
By
News March 19, 2015
Attica Reads About Attica
A story of brutality clears the prison censors.
By
President Barack Obama delivering the State of the Union address in 2011.
News January 20, 2015
‘My Fellow Americans’
Reimagining the president’s State of the Union speech.
By
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