Mississippi Prisons Claim 25 Lives in 3 Months
While there’s “no foul play suspected” in most of the deaths, there’s plenty foul about drinking contaminated water and breathing black mold. Subscribe to our page and support our work…
Rikers Island Prisoners Strike for Soap, Cleaning Wipes
Journalist Kim Kelly has been in contact with a prisoner inside Rikers Island. She talks with TRNN’s Eddie Conway about why immediate further action is needed to protect people from…
Hegemonic Policing: The COVID-19 Law Enforcement Strategy
The Police Accountability Report talks with two victims of mass incarceration and police brutality, and reveals a distinct theory of how American policing has evolved to dangerous ends. Subscribe to…
The unending COVID-19 disaster in Maryland prisons
In this episode of “Rattling the Bars,” we get an inside and outside view of the ongoing, slow-moving disaster happening in Maryland prisons, which have failed to adequately protect inmates,…
‘We want Rikers closed and no new jails in its place!’
COVID-19 turned what were already inhumane conditions at Rikers Island, New York’s most notorious jail, into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Prisoners, activists, and legal advocates are demanding it be closed…
Virginia revokes early release for inmates with good behavior
Lawmakers in Virginia have approved a draconian budget measure from Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin that takes aim at inmates’ eligibility for early release. The new law prevents so-called “violent offenders”…
Chris Hedges on trauma & teaching writing in prison
Since 2013, Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and host of The Chris Hedges Report, has taught college courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history at East Jersey State Prison (aka…
NY prisons ban care packages containing food
The prison-industrial complex has many ways of turning the incarceration of human beings into a profitable business model. In New York state, new regulations targeting care packages for prisoners show…
How Maryland is preventing prisoners from getting college degrees
UPDATE (7/1/2022): One day after this segment aired, prison authorities announced that they had “reconsidered†their earlier decision, clearing the way for Atiba to earn his degree. Education is one…
Keeping incarcerated mothers and their families together
As Wendy Sawyer and Wanda Bertram recently wrote for the Prison Policy Initiative, “Over half (58%) of all women in US prisons are mothers, as are 80% of women in…
Prison food is much worse than you think
“Prison food in the United States is a public health and human rights crisis,†the Maryland Food & Prison Abolition Project states on their website. “By weaponizing the experience of…
US Sentencing Commission could act to reduce prison time for thousands | RTB
On April 27, 2023, the United States Sentencing Commission submitted to Congress amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines that would recommend lower sentences for certain defendants. If these changes are…
48-year political prisoner reviews John Oliver’s report on solitary confinement | Rattling the Bars
The topic of solitary confinement was the focus of a recent episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on HBO. Thanks to the hard work of activists organizing against solitary…
Cash bail is an abomination of justice | Rattling the Bars
While the underlying logic of the cash bail system in the US may sound convincing on paper, in practice it has become a means of denying justice to, and destroying…
These former prisoners are fighting mass incarceration | Rattling the Bars
*Editor’s note: At 00:56, host Mansa Musa misspeaks when quoting a report and says that 55 million people are in the system of mass incarceration; the correct number is 5.5…
How Maryland discriminates against women prisoners | Rattling the Bars
Jessup, Maryland is home to the state’s only women’s prison, the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women, commonly known as “The Cut”. For years, advocates fought for a women’s pre-release center,…
Trump and how America treats the rich vs. the poor | Rattling the Bars
Former President Donald Trump is facing 34 felony counts in New York State and an additional 37 felony federal charges. None of this prevents him from freely campaigning for President…
They were released from Guantanamo. But the horrors didn’t end | Rattling the Bars
The revelations of widespread torture of detainees at the illegal US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, rattled the American conscience during the Bush Jr. administration. Two decades later, detainments at…
Addiction and prison in Alaska | Rattling the Bars
Mass incarceration as we know it today owes much of its existence to the political rationale created by the War on Drugs. Although proffered as a solution to the public…