News Category: The Marshall Project

Several U.S. states, including Pennsylvania and California, are piloting or expanding prison units modeled on Nordic approaches that prioritize rehabilitation over punishment, featuring elements like plants, fish tanks, and vocational training. Pennsylvania announced it will expand its “Little Scandinavia” unit from SCI Chester to three additional facilities after a study showed only one physical altercation …

This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Sign up for future newsletters. The food on the trays doesn’t even look like food. In photos smuggled out of Georgia’s prisons, what passes for a meal is either grossly inadequate …

This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters here. For decades, Louisiana had the nation’s highest rate of incarceration. And — given that the U.S. is among the most carceral countries on the planet — …

When Andrew Phillips took a job as a corrections officer at Georgia’s Smith State Prison in 2021, he was desperate for work. Shortly after he started, he noticed a problem. The prison housed about 1,500 men, and each shift was supposed to have 30 officers to guard them, but most days there were half that, …

At a Georgia state House of Representatives hearing on prison conditions in September, a corrections officer called in to testify, interrupting his shift to tell lawmakers how dire conditions had become. On a “good day,” he told lawmakers, he had maybe six or seven officers to supervise roughly 1,200 people. He said he had recently …