“Before 2020, there had been three federal executions in 60 years. Then Trump put 13 people to death in six months.”
incarceration
Posted inEditor's Pick
Day One at Rikers Island
“In order to navigate the experience, you have to normalize the dehumanization. You have to buy into it in order to survive.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
In Her Defence
“After suffering decades of abuse, Helen Naslund was sentenced for killing her husband on their Alberta farm.”
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Eric Borsuk, Aaron Gell, Laurie Penny, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Will Rees.
Posted inEditor's Pick
She Never Hurt Her Kids. So Why Is a Mother Serving More Time Than the Man Who Abused Her Daughter?
Oklahoma incarcerates more women than almost any other state. Under its punishing, under-the-radar “failure to protect” law, mothers — even those who are victims of domestic violence — can be sent to prison because of their supposed failure to keep their children out of harm’s way. In this devastating read, Samantha Michaels tells the story […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Innocence Isn’t Enough
Christopher Dunn has been in prison for over 30 years for a murder in St. Louis that he and others say he didn’t commit. Even though new evidence has emerged in favor of Dunn, the state of Missouri says he must stay in prison — because he wasn’t sentenced to death. He continued, “This Court does […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Future for Susanville
Prisons such as the California Correctional Center in Susanville, California, drive the local economy in the rural town, and its residents are just as tied to these facilities as the incarcerated ones. Piper French offers a nuanced portrait of the town, as locals in support of CCC, incarcerated organizers on the inside, and urban abolitionist […]
Posted inNonfiction
‘Raphael Couldn’t Have Painted Something More Beautiful’
The couple who saved an imprisoned artist’s life — and the extraordinary gift he gave in return.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Under the Wheel
“I have always been drawn to stories about people who try to escape — escape their neighborhoods, their families, their histories — and who instead become what they were running from.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.
“What happened on that Friday and in the days after, when police rounded up even more kids, would expose an ugly and unsettling culture in Rutherford County, one spanning decades. In the wake of these mass arrests, lawyers would see inside a secretive legal system that’s supposed to protect kids, but in this county did […]