We’re thrilled to share that Truthout is taking over The Appeal’s journalism. With Truthout’s powerhouse reputation for ...

The Department of Justice has terminated all funding for the National Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Resource Center, according to a letter from the National PREA Resource Center obtained by The ...

Retail theft has dominated headlines, earnings calls, and political rhetoric for the last few years. Television news shows loop seemingly endless clips of people shoplifting. CEO’s claimed that retail ...

On the first day of his second presidential term, Donald Trump severely restricted transgender prisoners’ access to safe housing and proper medical care. Trump’s series of sweeping executive orders ...

On April 14, 2021, Dr. David Fowler, Maryland’s former longtime chief medical examiner and one-time president of the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME), took the witness stand and ...

“A normal heterosexual person would not be so offended […] as to murder,” a prosecutor argued in a capital case in the late 1990s in rural Illinois. “I hope you die in prison like all the rest of your ...

The Appeal has created the first national database of prison commissary lists. Using the tool below, you can access full lists from the vast majority of U.S. states and see prices for many products ...

Today, The Appeal published Locked In, Priced Out, a project that includes a first-of-its-kind database of prison commissary lists from 46 states. This project also examines the availability, prices, ...

On the hook to repay $1.3 billion of debt this year, the nation’s largest prison telecom company, Securus, is on the verge of bankruptcy. Its failure would represent a remarkable victory for advocates ...

“That video visitation is going to work,” one Genesee County official reportedly said in 2012. “A lot of people are going to swipe that Mastercard and visit their grandkids.” Two children hug their ...

Welcome to “Ask the Appeal,” the first in an ongoing series of pieces in which we answer common questions about the criminal legal system—and how it intersects with everyday life. For our inaugural ...

When Cynthia Sommer’s husband, Todd, died in 2002, the medical examiner said a cardiac arrhythmia was responsible. But prosecutors charged Sommer with murder on the theory she had poisoned her husband ...