The Drug War Goes Up in Smoke The Drug War Goes Up in Smoke
A budget crisis and a prison boom make the states a vanguard for drug reform.
Jul 31, 2003 / Feature / Sasha Abramsky
The Supermax Solution The Supermax Solution
The billboard at the east entrance to the remote rural village of Tamms, Illinois, reads "Tamms: The First Super Max," and below, in lowercase letters, "a good place to live." ...
Feb 13, 2003 / Regan Good
Innocent Abroad Innocent Abroad
I went to a reception the other night to celebrate the efforts of a group called the Innocence Project, which provides legal assistance to prisoners for whom the technology of ...
Dec 23, 2002 / Joyce Maynard
A Cancer Grows A Cancer Grows
Medical treatment in women's prisons ranges from brutal to nonexistent.
Sep 11, 2002 / Feature / Cynthia Cooper
Prison’s Shameful Secret Prison’s Shameful Secret
Roderick Johnson, a 33-year-old African-American Navy veteran from a small town in rural Texas, didn't ask for it. Prison did it to him, and his life will never be the same.
Sep 9, 2002 / Feature / Silja J.A. Talvi
The Shame of Prison Health The Shame of Prison Health
Just-released inmates with infectious diseases need continuous treatment.
Jun 13, 2002 / Feature / Sasha Abramsky
Unforgiven Unforgiven
On August 21 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, a struggling oil-refinery town on the Texas border, Wilbert Rideau walked to the center of the modern courtroom, hobbled by shackles. The...
Death and Texas Death and Texas
The state's justice system crushes poor people like Ernestina Rodriguez.
Jun 28, 2001 / Feature / JoAnn Wypijewski
Hear No Evil, See No Evil Hear No Evil, See No Evil
To the Rehnquist Court, criminal justice is all too often a technical matter best left to the states.
Sep 25, 2000 / Feature / David Cole
California’s Gulag on Trial California’s Gulag on Trial
Welcome to Corcoran State Prison, 170 miles northwest of Los Angeles in the San Joaquin Valley; built at a cost of $271.9 million on what was once Tulare Lake, home of the Tachi ...
Nov 4, 1999 / Column / Alexander Cockburn