From changing policy to helping people get a shot at freedom, we’re proud of the vital work The Appeal published in 2024.

After 3.5 years co-leading The Appeal as Managing Editor & Operations Director, Tara Francis Chan is stepping down at the end ...

There isn’t much Michael Simmons can do but hope and wait. The 46-year-old has spent more than two decades in Illinois Department of Corrections custody. If he’d taken the plea deal prosecutors ...

I spent years visiting prisons and courts. At every turn, facilities forced me to comply with invasive searches that left me feeling sexually violated. As an adolescent, I learned what it’s like to ...

The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday allowed portions of Idaho’s “abortion trafficking” ban to take effect. Now, Idaho may resume criminalizing adults who “harbor or transport” anyone ...

In the last few weeks, President Joe Biden pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys and his own son. But it remains unknown if he will extend that grace to the 40 men on federal death row. Today, U.S.

Twice the number of detainees at Georgia’s notorious Clayton County Jail died in 2024 compared to the previous year. In 2022, former Sheriff Victor Hill was convicted of violating the civil rights of ...

This afternoon, the head of Virginia’s Department of Corrections dismissed complaints about inhumane conditions at Red Onion State Prison— and instead told lawmakers that prisoners who intentionally ...

This article is supported by a grant from The Ridgeway Reporting Project, managed by Solitary Watch with funding from The Vital Projects Fund. In February 2021, Washington State Representative David ...

The City of Atlanta may have violated its own ordinance in its apparent attempts to undermine a pre-arrest diversion program’s pending contract with the city. After an open bidding process for ...

In December 2009, Gregory Sharkey and his friends walked past a house in Spokane, Washington. Someone from a nearby home pointed a laser at them. Annoyed, one of Sharkey’s friends, Dominic Shaver, ...