by Paul Wright

This month’s cover story on the ongoing implosion of the Alabama prison system is just the latest installment of a long running saga of death, brutality, corruption and neglect that typifies the Alabama criminal justice system, coupled with the indifference and incompetence of the political …

On March 18, 2026, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) told state lawmakers that the state must immediately move to open a new new prison to account for a projected growth in prisoner numbers, according to The Colorado Sun.

Gov. Polis’ demand came as Colorado grapples with a …

by Chuck Sharman

On March 9, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri awarded a total of $667,000 to a group of Muslim state prisoners pepper-sprayed by Department of Corrections (DOC) guards while engaged in religious prayer at the Eastern Reception, …

by Chuck Sharman

A $950,000 settlement received approval from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on January 28, 2026, resolving claims against the City of Norfolk by the Estate of Philemon S. Vinson, alleging that his suicide in the city lockup should have been …

Former Maine prison official Gerald Merrill, 64, pleaded guilty on March 16, 2026 of theft and accepting a bribe after stealing $2.4 million in stolen funds. As part of Merrill’s plea agreement, signed several days before a jury trial was scheduled to take place, he will spend up to …

by Shakeil Price

This article was originally published in Prison Journalism Project

In 1917, a group assembled by the New Jersey Legislature to investigate prison conditions found that the buildings at West Compound in the New Jersey State Prison (NJSP) were “wholly unsuited for the …

by Chuck Sharman

The Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) of Massachusetts approved a settlement on March 9, 2026, resolving a lawsuit filed the month before by members of a nonprofit advocating for incarcerated voter rights and a pair of recently released state prisoners, who accused Secretary of the Commonwealth …

by Jo Ellen Knott

The Alaska Beacon reported that the state’s “cost-cutting” downsizing measures backfired when a costly riot broke out at the Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward. On January 24, 2026, a massive brawl involving 50 prisoners erupted at Spring Creek, the state’s only maximum-security prison. …

by Matt Clarke

On February 12, 2026, the Commissioners Court of Harris County, Texas, voted 3-1 to approve paying CGL Management Group, LLC, a justice-system consulting firm, $1.2 million to conduct a study of the county’s jail and produce two reports with carceral and noncarceral recommendations by the …

by Chuck Sharman

On December 1, 2025, the Chief Executive of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County put the last signature on a resolution authorizing a $1 million payout to settle claims filed by the estate of Nicholas Michael Colbert, a detainee who committed suicide at the County lockup in Cleveland …

by Chuck Sharman

A state court in New York granted class certification on February 16, 2026, to a suit challenging suspension of the state’s Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act in prisons operated by the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). However, the …

by Jo Ellen Knott

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) confirmed a third measles case at the Doña Ana County jail, bringing the state’s total to 13 so far this year, all occurring within Southern New Mexico carceral facilities. According to Searchlight New Mexico, the second case …

For many Muslims, the holy month of Ramadan—which, this year, stretched from mid-February to late March—is observed by fasting from sun up to sunset, communal prayer, studying the Quran and other ceremonies. While religious accommodation behind bars is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Land …

by Victoria Law

This article was originally published in The Appeal.

After 34 years in prison, 67-year-old 1Cat Reed is suffering from sarcoidosis in the lungs, thyroid disease, sciatica, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes, which she blames on decades of starchy prison food. …

by Chuck Sharman

On March 13, 2026, lawmakers sitting on Idaho’s Joint Legislative Oversight Committee (JLOC) ordered the state Office of Performance Evaluation (OPE) to assess state prison officials’ response to allegations of staff sexual misconduct. The move came on the heels of a damning report by Investigate …

On March 19, 2026, commissioners in Harris County renewed a $38 million contract to send detainees out of Texas to private facilities controlled by companies like CoreCivic. For years, the Harris County Jail has outsourced detainees in order to free up space; the new contract allows the jail to …

by Chuck Sharman

The story repeats with depressing regularity. It begins with a man struggling with drug dependency, acquired from a prescription for pain medication. Depressed, he makes suicidal threats. His frightened partner calls sheriff’s deputies. They take him to the county lockup. There, his family blithely trusts …

by Chuck Sharman

Former Ohio prisoner Ronald Ayers was awarded $1,000 by the state Supreme Court on June 18, 2025, when it found that an official with the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) wrongly denied his public records request, granting a writ of mandamus ordering her …

by Matt Clarke

On February 12, 2026, Texas Attorney General (TAG) Ken Paxton issued an opinion clarifying the scope of a statute requiring the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) to appoint an outside agency to investigate the death of a prisoner in a county jail, § 511.021(a), …

by Chuck Sharman

When Ladarion Hughes struck a plea deal and was sentenced to time served in December 2021, he had been held over two years since his July 2019 arrest, mostly in Texas’ Smith County Jail, except for a brief stay in a state psychiatric hospital. Yet …

by Chuck Sharman

Missouri has made clear its disregard for its state prisoners as much through what it doesn’t do as what it does, according to new research that found dozens of unreported deaths, as well as a pending suit in state court challenging excessive heat in solitary …

by Matt Clarke

On February 11, 2026, a D.C. federal judge issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the Trump administration from transferring 20 federal prisoners whose death sentences had been commuted to life-in-prison by former President Joe Biden (D) in December 2024 to the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado …

On March 18, 2026, officials in Oklahoma County approved a motion to dissolve the jail trust that was placed in charge of administering the county jail in downtown Oklahoma City.

Officially titled the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority, the trust was created in 2019 to address longstanding issues …

by Matt Clarke

On January 6, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reinstated a civil rights lawsuit brought by the parents of an Iowa jail detainee who committed suicide after reporting that he was in an acute mental health crisis with suicidal ideation.

by Chuck Sharman

Nevada’s Board of Examiners agreed on January 13, 2026, to payouts totaling $997,500, settling a trio of lawsuits filed by state prisoners. The Board, which consists of Gov. Joe Lombardo (R), Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) and Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, approved settlements in …

Two women allegedly used drones and plastic crows filled with contraband in an attempt to smuggle contraband into the United States Penitentiary, Pollock (USP Pollock) in Grant Parish, Louisiana. Melanie Worthington, 38, and Kassy Cole, 41, were arrested on March 9, 2026, after Grant Parish deputies intercepted the “birds,” …

by Chuck Sharman

In a stark warning to federal prisoners on November 25, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declared that federal courts will not disaggregate a combined sentence to apply credits offered under the First Step Act (FSA), 18 U.S.C. § 3632. If …

On March 10, supervisors of the Shasta County Jail in Redding, California voted unanimously in favor of a three-year, $25 million contract with Mediko Correctional Healthcare to take over the jail’s medical and mental health services.

The jail, beginning on July 1 of this year, will stop contracting …

by Michael Thompson

American prison populations are aging rapidly while studies have continued to show that prisoners have significantly lower life expectancies than those outside of prisons. In Illinois, some 23% of state prisoners are over the age of 50. That is a huge jump from just 4% …

by Jeffrey Shockley

This article was originally published by Prison Journalism Project.

Located at the edge of rural western Pennsylvania, State Correctional Institution, Mercer, has long been considered one of the calmer prisons in the state system.

But beneath that reputation, a quiet crisis …

by Michael Thompson

Michigan’s only women’s prison “is infested with mold,” according to U.S. District Judge Stephen J. Murphy III. Three women incarcerated at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, Hope Zentz, Paula Bailey, and Krystal Clark, are suing the Michigan Department of Corrections (DOC) over the conditions at …

On March 23, 2026, five prisoners at Georgia’s Dooly State Prison in Unadilla required medical attention after a fight broke out at one of the prison’s dormitories. The Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) has so far declined to provide any information on when the fight happened or the identities …

by Matt Clarke

Pregnant women in jails are a long-neglected and overlooked population. Federal law does not require detailed statistical tracking of jail pregnancies.

“What it symbolizes is that women who don’t count, don’t get counted,” said American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists fellow Carolyn Sufrin, who …

by Chuck Sharman

The U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai’i granted dismissal on September 10, 2025, to a group of mentally ill state prisoners and pretrial detainees who settled a class-action lawsuit challenging the mental healthcare they received while confined by the state Department of Corrections …

The Montana state Department of Corrections (DOC) announced on March 23, 2026 that it will no longer send prisoners to a private prison in Arizona. Instead, it will send the roughly 600 out-of-state prisoners to a facility in Mississippi controlled by the same profiteer.

Montana, like other states …

by Michael Thompson

Kansas has a mechanism in place that allows it to fine the medical provider contracted to serve the Department of Corrections (DOC). From just January through September of 2025, Centurion, the DOC’s private medical contractor, was fined $1 million. In fact, the five months with …

by Chuck Sharman

Washington will remain one of just a dozen states without oversight or even enforceable standards for jails, after legislation to rectify the problem died on January 30, 2026, killed by lawmakers lobbied by a group representing counties and another representing police chiefs and sheriffs. That …

by Chuck Sharman

Pennsylvania’s Bucks County executed a settlement agreement on December 20, 2025, paying $950,000 to resolve claims filed by the parents of Kimberly Stringer, a mentally ill detainee who was repeatedly pepper-sprayed by guards in the county lockup while displaying signs of active mental illness during …

by Matt Clarke

The Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) recently published “Unlocking Safe Water in Texas Prisons,” a report on the lack of transparency exhibited by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) when it pumps and treats its own drinking water and apparent provision of unsafe drinking …

by Chuck Sharman

When a prisoner is held in a state facility to await sentencing on federal charges, does that confer federal immunity on the lockup? That was the question presented to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the appeal of David Daoud Wright, …

With an anticipated 650,000 tourists visiting Kansas City, Missouri this summer for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the city rushed to construct a municipal jail in seven months. The jail is scheduled to open on June 1 of this year and, according to the Kansas City Defender, the …

by Chuck Sharman

On March 4, 2026, the Board of Commissioners of Kansas’ Sedgwick County approved a $10.3 million payout to settle claims filed by the survivors of a 17-year-old who died under a pile-on of guards at the County Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center (JIAC) in Wichita …

by Chuck Sharman

On January 9, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York granted approval to a settlement agreement by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), resolving claims by three nonprofits providing …

by Abbey Kim

This article was originally published in Arkansas Advocate.

County jails in Arkansas hold some of the state’s most vulnerable people, including many experiencing mental health crises.Hundreds are detained in county jails awaiting psychiatric treatment or evaluation, according to data from the …

by Chuck Sharman

In a verdict reached on March 4, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania awarded $1.5 million to the surviving sons of Louis Jung, Jr., 50, who died after receiving only sporadic treatment for his Type 1 diabetes …

by Michael Thompson

Mississippi has had recurring problems from the private healthcare providers they have hired for their prisons. The problems accumulating with VitalCore Health Strategies, their current provider, have pushed the state into hiring a law firm to monitor the contract.

Mississippi’s Department of Corrections (DOC) …

On March 26, 2026, the Idaho Department of Corrections (DOC) announced that it would be transferring hundreds of prisoners out of state to a private prison in Arizona. The transfer is intended to reduce overcrowding at the 10 prisons controlled by the DOC, according to a statement released by …

Since 2023, nearly all of the more than 90,000 prisoners locked up by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) have been assigned a tablet that can make calls, receive messages, and access other apps. But currently, a massive shift is underway that is disrupting these services for …

A report recently published by the Wisconsin Policy Forum found that most of the state’s county jails, as well as all of its state prisons, provided medication used to treat opioid use disorder. But the study, which was conducted via a survey that facilities responded to, also uncovered that …

In early March, the administration of President Donald Trump (R) announced that it planned to offer a no-bid contract to an engineering and electronic services company to run the United States’s largest immigrant detention center, where one detainee was killed and at least two others have died in recent …

by ReuvenBlau and KennedySessions

This article was originally published in The City.

After visiting her son on Rikers Island last June, Benjamin Kelly’s mother dialed 311 in a panic.

He was hallucinating about an insect crawling up his nose, dead bodies in …

Since early March 2026, Oklahoma has begun to allow prisoners to buy vapes and pouches from prison commissaries. While some jails have okayed these nicotine products, Oklahoma is only the second state prison system to do so after the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections allowed their purchase in 2019. This …

Wait times for prisoners in Connecticut who need to see a specialist for treatment can often extend for months. And as more prisoners linger without care, the backlog of patients only grows. As of mid-March 2026, at least 1,500 prisoners across the state were waiting on an appointment with …

The Frontier, a non-profit investigative news outlet in Oklahoma, recently found that seven detainees died from preventable causes in Tulsa’s municipal jail over a three-year period. These deaths occurred due to causes such as overdoses, suicides, an infection, and at least one restraint-related incident. The jail, which is …

With California’s declining prison population and a growing state budget deficit, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), a nonpartisan agency that provides policy advice to the state lawmakers, has recommended closing the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad.

While the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDRC) is already slated …

In the latest update to efforts to reform the long-troubled Rikers Island jail complex in New York City, Manhattan federal court judge Laura Swain issued an order to the jail’s new overseer, Nicholas Deml, to fix the jail in seven years or less.

The 28-page order gave Deml …

Alabama: On February 13, 2026, Jarvis Moore, a former guard at the Morgan County Jail, turned himself in to face seven counts of felony extortion lodged against him following an August 2025 investigation. According to WAFF in Huntsville, Sheriff Ron Puckett accused Moore of threatening prisoners and stealing …

In 2025, officials with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office failed to investigate at least seven reported cases of sexual assault that occured at Otay Mesa immigration detention center, a facility run by private prison profiteer CoreCivic that locks up nearly 1,500 federal immigration detainees.

As reported by …

After a yearlong fight by advocates to prevent private prison profiteer CoreCivic from reopening its prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, city commissioners approved a special use permit on March 10, 2026, allowing the company to proceed.

Two people were arrested and multiple people ejected during the hour-long public comment …