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Looking Back
April 30, 2015
‘No Human Is Wise Enough to Decide Who Should Die’
The life and death of Robert Utter, former state Supreme Court justice and death penalty opponent.
By
Ken Armstrong
News
June 11, 2015
Why New York Dropped Corizon
It’s not just the big profits and dead inmates.
By
Maura Ewing
The Lowdown
June 25, 2015
What Will You Look Like 20 Years From Now?
For forensic artists, a sketch is more than just gray hair and wrinkles.
By
Simone Seiver
Commentary
November 13, 2018
The Inspiring Life and Career of Devah Pager
An appreciation of the Harvard sociologist who meticulously documented racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.
Bruce Western
News Inside
March 28, 2019
Introducing News Inside
The Marshall Project launches a print publication that will be distributed in prisons and jails.
By
Lawrence Bartley
Life Inside
April 14, 2016
The War on Drugs Isn't Even Working in Prison
Frequent urine tests, controversial scanners, and false positives.
By
Kenneth E. Hartman
News
June 18, 2015
Can German Prisons Teach America how to Handle Its Most Violent Criminals?
How Germany does prison, day three.
By
Maurice Chammah
News
December 21, 2017
Reimagining Prison with Frank Gehry
Prison as college campus. Prison as wellness center. Prison as monastery.
By
Bill Keller
News
May 1, 2018
How Prosecutor Reform Is Shaking Up Small DA Races
The goals of the effort are trickling down, even if the money isn’t.
By
Joseph Neff
Life Inside
April 27, 2017
I Escaped My Manic Demons, but My Clients Usually Can’t
A social worker struggles to keep the mentally ill poor out of jail.
By
Kristen Anderson
Life Inside
September 28, 2017
The Hardest Phone Call a Prosecutor Has to Make
Law school doesn’t prepare you for delivering bad news to victims and their families.
By
Jean Peters Baker
Commentary
February 9, 2016
Does Predictive Policing Lead to More Police in Black Communities? Readers React
What you had to say about our latest story on predictive policing.
By
Maurice Chammah
News
September 21, 2016
Do Prison Strikes Work?
Amid a current prison work stoppage, here are five strikes and how they turned out.
By
Christie Thompson
Coronavirus
April 14, 2021
These Parents Had to Bond With Their Babies Over Zoom — or Lose Them Forever
During the pandemic, video chats replaced in-person visits between parents and their children placed in foster care. The effects could linger for years.
By
Eli Hager
Life Inside
November 25, 2019
I Got To Leave Prison For A Few Hours—It Broke My Heart
“When the van pulls back up to the rear gates of the prison... it's almost a relief.”
By
Byron Case
Life Inside
April 26, 2018
How I’m Preparing for Parole After 27 Years in Prison
“With my new lease on life, I still remember the one I took.”
By
Lawrence Bartley
Commentary
November 15, 2017
A ‘Routine’ Stop Almost Ended My Career Before It Started
Sometimes there’s danger in speaking out against perceived police misconduct.
Johnathan S. Perkins
News
April 20, 2021
NYPD Hate Crime Data Fails to Capture Harassment Against Asians 65 or Over
“There is a whole wave of attacking elderly people in different ways," one New York legislator says.
By CHRISTINE CHUNG, THE CITY, and
Weihua Li
Death Sentences
April 8, 2022
The Return of the Firing Squad?
With a scarcity of lethal injection drugs, South Carolina has brought back an archaic execution method. In other states, men on death row are asking for it.
By
Maurice Chammah
Life Inside
March 18, 2020
What Coronavirus Quarantine Looks Like in Prison
“I cannot help but linger on the faces of the elderly prisoners and think about how they are unlikely to survive this.”
error in byline
News
April 11, 2016
The State That is Taking on the Prison Guards Union
For decades, New York state’s corrections officers union has held the power in disciplinary decisions.
By
Michael Winerip
,
Michael Schwirtz
and
Tom Robbins
Analysis
February 22, 2017
The Case of Duane Buck
Was he sentenced to death “because he is black”?
By
Maurice Chammah
Case in Point
September 22, 2016
Is a Life in Solitary “Cruel and Unusual?”
In Pennsylvania, the heart of solitary confinement reform, an intellectually disabled inmate says he’s been held in wretched isolation for 36 years.
By
Andrew Cohen
Feature
September 28, 2023
How Wealth and Privilege Helped One Man Hide His Serial Abuse
Life seemed golden for Leon Jacob. Then he hired a hit man to kill his ex-girlfriend. His classmate exposes how the system repeatedly failed to stop him.
By
Stephanie Clifford
News
January 24, 2018
The Ultimate Insider Art
On Tennessee’s death row, the old aphorism applies: art is long, life is short.
By
Jeremy Olds
Feature
May 15, 2017
Sixty-eight Years Later, Apologies in Lake County
For the lives ruined, for justice denied, sorry.
By
Gilbert King
Feature
September 3, 2018
A Turbulent Mind
Andrew Goldstein’s crime set in motion a dramatic shift in how we care for the violent mentally ill. Including for himself—when he’s released this month.
By
John J. Lennon
and
Bill Keller
Feature
March 6, 2015
Inexcusable Absences
Skipping school is a problem. But why is it a crime?
By
Dana Goldstein
Feature
December 16, 2015
An Unbelievable Story of Rape
An 18-year-old said she was attacked at knifepoint. Then she said she made it up. That’s where our story begins.
By
Ken Armstrong
and
T. Christian Miller
Feature
June 24, 2015
The Surprisingly Imperfect Science of DNA Testing
How a proven tool may be anything but.
By
Katie Worth
Feature
November 27, 2018
Why Is Karl Taylor Dead?
Our prisons are our mental wards. One fatal case in New York shows where that can lead.
By
Tom Robbins
Feature
November 6, 2017
Can Prosecutors Put the Same Gun in the Hands of More Than One Shooter?
They can, and they do.
By
Ken Armstrong
Looking Back
September 14, 2021
Revisiting the Attica Riot in Real-Time 50 Years Later
The infamous 1971 prison revolt ended with a bloody police siege. We retell the story, minute-by-minute.
By
Tom Meagher
and
Pedro Burgos
Feature
March 24, 2021
A Bestselling Author Became Obsessed With Freeing a Man From Prison. It Nearly Ruined Her Life.
After the success of her novel Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen spent years trying to prove a man’s innocence. Now she’s “absolutely broke” and “seriously ill,” and her next book is “years past deadline.”
By
Abbott Kahler
Photographs by
DeSean McClinton-Holland
Life Inside
September 22, 2022
The Art of Bidding, or How I Survived Federal Prison
When Eric Borsuk went to prison with his two best friends, they found their ‘bid’ — their purpose — together. Then one day, everything changed.
By
Eric Borsuk
Election 2020
April 8, 2020
2020: The Democrats on Criminal Justice
The candidates who vied with Joe Biden to challenge President Trump in November—including Kamala Harris—staked out positions on bail reform, marijuana, immigration and more. Here’s where they stood.
By
Katie Park
and
Jamiles Lartey