prison conditions

March 3, 2022 - While reporting on the human rights crisis in Alabama's prisons, journalist Beth Shelburne began corresponding with incarcerated men in the state about their fight to read. She recounts their ongoing battles against censorship inside an irrational system where books and magazines are treated like dangerous contraband.

April 20, 2020 - With the COVID-19 pandemic raging through correctional facilities, many states have ordered the release of nonviolent offenders in local jails or prison inmates at greater risk from the virus. But states in the Deep South have been slow to act. Meanwhile, Louisiana is moving its COVID-19-stricken prisoners to the notorious Angola penitentiary — an hour's drive from a hospital with a ventilator.

January 30, 2020 - Decades of crowding, understaffing, poor medical care, and intolerable living conditions have reached a tipping point in Mississippi as incarcerated men at Parchman and prison reform advocates cry out for action during a grievous humanitarian crisis.