mass incarceration
August 11, 2022 -
As climate change-fueled heat waves become more frequent and intense, many incarcerated people endure dangerous triple-digit temperatures for long periods. Efforts are underway in some states to bring relief from the heat — and to challenge the underlying constitutional provisions that allow prisoners to be treated as subhuman.
January 27, 2022 -
A formerly incarcerated person who went on to become a public defender in Nashville, Haynes made headlines when she ran for Congress in 2020. Now a voting rights advocate with the Sentencing Project, she has a new book out about fixing the brutality of the criminal justice system titled "Bending the Arc" and recently talked about it with Facing South.
June 17, 2021 -
The Communities Not Prisons coalition has stalled Alabama's plan to work with private prison companies to expand the state prison system, which the U.S. Justice Department has charged with unconstitutional human rights abuses. The victory was won by organizing across geographic, race, and class lines — and by targeting the banks involved.
October 5, 2020 -
Republicans in Georgia have maneuvered to stop competitive elections for some judicial and prosecutorial positions, passing a law in 2018 that gives Gov. Brian Kemp the power to fill certain vacancies. A federal judge struck down the law, but now the case is with the state Supreme Court.
June 26, 2020 -
In 1978, Southern Exposure, the print forerunner of Facing South, interviewed Ingle, one of the founders of the Southern Coalition for Jails and Prisons, for an issue on prisons. Ingle continues his prisoner advocacy work today in Nashville, Tennessee, and Facing South recently talked with him about the sea changes he's witnessed in that time in both the U.S. prison system and the prison reform movement.
May 21, 2020 -
Even before the novel coronavirus outbreak, social justice advocacy groups like Color of Change were fighting for free phone calls for the incarcerated. COVID-19 has raised the stakes.
March 27, 2020 -
As the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic begins making its way into crowded U.S. jails, prisons, and detention centers, prison reform advocates are calling on officials to take action to protect the vulnerable.
