prisons

May 18, 2015 - The Republicans running Mississippi have the prison system in shambles, workers' compensation gutted, education on a precipice — and journalist Joe Atkins looking back to populist Louisiana Gov. "Uncle" Earl Long for solace.

March 27, 2015 - Looming over today's mass incarceration crisis are the shadows of slavery and of the brutal and profitable convict lease system that arose after slavery's end.

January 15, 2015 - The Bible instructs us to "love the stranger," but migrants probably won't be feeling much love this year in Mississippi. Gov. Phil Bryant is up for re-election, and he has built his political career in part on demonizing undocumented migrant workers.

September 26, 2014 - New numbers on the prison population in 2013 indicate that the South is making progress on reducing its prison population. But with a history of high incarceration rates and over-capacity prisons, the South still has a long road ahead.

August 30, 2013 - After a decade of efforts to end prison rape, formal audits of prisons and jails are set to take place. But the first round will be conducted by the Virginia-based American Correctional Association -- the very organization that's been criticized for failing to address the problem.

March 15, 2013 - A federal judge recently reversed the controversial conviction of Black Panther Albert Woodfox for the 1972 killing of a guard at Louisiana's Angola prison. Amnesty International has launched a campaign asking the state attorney general not to appeal in the case that has come to be known as the "Angola 3" for the number of inmates held in prolonged solitary confinement following the guard's death.

June 21, 2012 - From private prisons to immigration detention, we break down the numbers and companies in the industry.