Essay
Rebuilding the Ummah Behind Bars
A decade after 9/11 fractured the Islamic community at Central Prison in North Carolina, I helped rebuild it.
conditions of confinement
69 posts in ‘conditions of confinement’
In Depth
Twenty-Five Years Since 9/11
A series copublished by Inquest and Acacia magazines examining the impact of a quarter century of the War on Terror.
A closer look
“I Want to Know Who’s Responsible for This Man’s Health”
In Missouri prisons, people with cancer say lifesaving treatment is often delayed and denied by a private contractor, leaving incarcerated patients and their families to shoulder the caregiving.
first person
Virginia’s Prisons Have a Dog Problem
In the past decade, hundreds of incarcerated people have been attacked by guard dogs in Virginia’s prisons, often seriously. I'm one of them.
A closer look
The Elderly “7-Ups” Enduring Indefinite Incarceration
Nearly 200 people are serving indefinite sentences in California. These are some of their stories.
interventions
Diagnosing the Trauma of Incarceration
It’s long overdue for Post-Incarceration Syndrome to be classified as a distinct psychiatric disorder, deserving of compassion and treatment.
first person
Getting Short
To imagine closeness to freedom is to invite disappointment. To speak optimism aloud in prison is to make yourself vulnerable.
first person
Making Our Own Change
There’s a general disinterest within the prison system in the rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals. This is cruel, and it is shortsighted.
Defending Prison Journalism
No First Amendment for Prison Journalists
The law has constructed a regime in which incarcerated journalists like myself are silenced, punished, and disappeared for telling the truth about what happens behind these walls.
first person
A Certain Darkness
Solitary confinement steals bites from the mind, heart, and soul every day, without you even realizing it. Eventually these stolen bites equal a whole piece of you gone.
advocacy
“It means a lot to show people who we really are.”
Beauty Behind Bars exhibits artwork by incarcerated people from the Washington, D.C., area in community spaces. Here, the project’s leaders discuss the power of art in advocacy work.
activism
“Time Is So Precious”
Organizer Pedro Figueroa recounts working while being held in immigration detention, where he earned as little as $1 a day and helped to organize historic labor actions against for-profit prison…
first person
Bare It All
This isn’t my first strip search during my incarceration. This, however, is the first time it’s being filmed.
A closer look
Inside America’s Most Secretive Supermax Prison
Colorado’s ADX is designed to hold people under conditions of the most extreme deprivation. Despite this, the men imprisoned there continue to fight for their rights and freedom.
A closer look
Inside Georgia’s Youth Detention Crisis
Even as crime falls in Georgia, the state pours vast resources into abusive youth facilities that disproportionately harm Black children, according to our investigation.
advocacy
The Oscars in Solitary Confinement
‘The Alabama Solution’ was nominated for an Academy Award. Meanwhile, its incarcerated filmmakers are in lockdown because there’s no legal protections for imprisoned whistleblowers.
Decarceral Pathways
The Endless Punishment
A recent book contributes firsthand testimony on the violence of solitary confinement and helps frame the question of why it has proven so central to mass incarceration.
A closer look
Punishing Through Bureaucracy
An obscure policy claimed to reward me for doing the work of rehabilitation—by sending me back to a high-security prison.
first person
The Reality of Love Behind Bars
Neither of us imagined that love and prison were compatible until we met. Now the state is weaponizing our marriage.
first person
‘You Will Lose Your Teeth’
I aged into adulthood under the violent custody of New York’s Downstate prison. My journey to manhood has required me to prove I’m neither a monster nor a statistic.
A closer look
In the Dayroom
When Rikers furniture proves so unwieldy that her inside–outside book group can’t even form a circle, the author goes on a search to understand why U.S. prison furnishings are so…
In Depth
Why Are Freed People Still in My Prison?
In Texas, when someone makes parole, they will only be released once they have an approved home. Many of us have nowhere to go, and no one to help us…
A closer look
Indentured Citizens
Making incarceration profitable—for both the state and corporations—generates untold hardship not only for incarcerated people but also for their families and communities.
Defending Prison Journalism
When Reporting Is a Crime
States have restricted, surveilled, and punished prison journalism for decades, with dire consequences—for incarcerated people and for democracy.
first person
I’m in Prison. My Opera Was Performed at Carnegie Hall.
Inside Sing Sing, I turned my twenty-five-year sentence into music fit for one of the world’s greatest stages.
A closer look
Your Call Could Not Be Completed
Under Biden, the FCC made unprecedented progress toward ending price gouging for prison phone calls. Now, Trump’s FCC has undone much of it.
first person
I Walked Past Him
In prison, a cancer diagnosis might as well be a death sentence.
Defending Prison Journalism
Prison Journalism Is a Disinfecting Light. That’s Why Prisons Suppress It.
A new initiative on prison journalism from the Institute to End Mass Incarceration aims to restore prison transparency and First Amendment rights for incarcerated journalists.
first person
Never Forget Attica Day
Decades of policy failures, including a culture of impunity for correctional officers, have eroded many of the gains that the Attica uprising’s incarcerated leaders fought and died to secure.
A closer look
Medical Debt Behind Bars
Incarcerated people accrue debt for nearly all of their medical care. This makes a mockery of their right to health care—and saddles them with devastating debt upon release.