To Hold but Not to Have: California's Marijuana Laws Get Weird When You're in Jail
It's not illegal for inmates to have marijuana, but it's still a felony if they try to smoke it.
Prisons
Nobody Should Be Placed in Solitary Confinement—Not Even Paul Manafort
Paul Manafort isn’t deserving of torture. Neither was Kalief Browder.
The State Can't Keep Drugs Out of Prisons. How Was It Ever Going to Keep Them Out of America?
This is the nature of government. It can't stop the flow of illicit substances in a sealed and militarized building that's under its total control.
Jail Guards Joked That ReGina Thurman Had 'Jail-litus' and Threatened Her As She Died
Fellow inmates did more to help ReGina Thurman than her guards and nurses.
Guantanamo Bay Prison Commander Fired Weeks Before Scheduled Departure
Navy Rear Admiral John Ring's legacy will likely be defined by his funding requests to build a new prison for aging inmates.
Bernie Sanders Is Right: We Should Let the Boston Marathon Bomber Vote
Incarcerated people are already paying their debt to society. What good does it do the rest of the population to take away their right to have a say?
What Inmates, the Amish, and Imperial Chinese Law Teach Us About Relying on the State
David Friedman’s Legal Systems Very Different from Ours explores the costs and benefits of various legal systems across time.
Prison Guards Are '#FeelingCute' About Threatening To Assault Inmates for No Reason
"Feeling cute, might just gas some inmates today, IDK."
How Even Legal Marijuana Use Can Land You in Jail
Failed drug tests can send people on probation or parole back into prison cells.
U.S. Prisoners Have Lost a Combined 20,000 Years of Life to False Convictions
Annual exoneration report shows growth in amount of time served and increasing levels of official misconduct.
Texas Inmate With a Wool Allergy Has Spent 10 Years Trying To Get a New Blanket
He's now representing himself in a lawsuit.
Will Utah Ban the Shackling of Inmates in Labor?
A bill to stop the dangerous practice reaches the next step.
Michigan Governor Pardons Drunk Driver, Leaves Thousands of Prisoners Waiting for Their Second Chance
Gov. Rick Snyder's clemency record could have been a lot better.
Gitmo Preps for an Upgrade
This monument to the war on terror is still open, and it's costing taxpayers a fortune.
The Supreme Court's Recent Religious Liberty/Death Penalty Decision is Bad -- But Not Quite as Bad as Many Think
The justices were wrong to reject a religious discrimination claim in a case where a person sentenced to death was not allowed access to a Muslim cleric at the moment of death. But the decision was not the result of anti-Muslim bigotry.
New York City Reaches a $3.3 Million Settlement with Kalief Browder's Family
It has been nearly four years since the young man passed away.
How Scientology Recruits Inside Florida Prisons
Criminon says it's a secular program to rehabilitate inmates, but critics say it's a recruiting pitch for Scientology.
Prison Guards Orchestrate Media Campaign To Complain About Inmates Getting Edible Food for Christmas
Federal shutdown politics leads to really bad journalism about exactly two meals.
Ex-Sheriff David Clarke, Defender of Harsh Prisons, Whines about Manafort's Jail Treatment
Meanwhile, meet a psychologically scarred man who disfigured himself while serving 22 years in solitary in Illinois.
Prison Food Is a National Tragedy
Jails and prisons are punishment enough without throwing dangerous and unhealthy food into the mix.
Has Anti-Racism Become as Harmful as Racism? John McWhorter vs. Nikhil Singh
Watch the Oxford-style debate hosted by the Soho Forum.
Manipulation and Sheer Boredom at Heart of Compelling Prison Escape Docudrama
Showtime recreates infamous 2015 caper from upstate New York.
For Female Inmates, Talking Back is More Likely to End in a Trip to Solitary
Women prisoners are more likely to receive solitary confinement and other harsh punishments for minor infractions like "reckless eye-balling."
U.S. Prisons Held At Lest 61,000 Inmates in Solitary Confinement Last Year
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor: "Keeping prisoners in 'near-total isolation' from the living world [...] comes perilously close to a penal tomb."
Pennsylvania's New $4 Million Prison Mail System Brings Privacy Concerns
Civil liberties lawyers worry that sensitive documents could end up in the wrong hands.
Kanye West Doesn't Want to Bring Back Slavery. He's Trying to Abolish It for Good.
The 13th Amendment outlaws slavery, but not for prison inmates.
20 Years in Prison for Florida Man Who Swiped $600 Worth of Cigarettes
He has prior felony convictions, but 20 years still seems harsh.
After 27 Years, Golf Drawings Helped Clear a Convict of Murder
Valentino Dixon has been proclaiming his innocence for decades. After a golf magazine brought attention to his case, people started to listen.
A Banned Magazine Is Trying to Take Florida Prison System to the Supreme Court
Florida prisons completely ban Prison Legal News magazine. Now the publication is asking the Supreme Court to "vindicate the First Amendment."
Elizabeth Nolan Brown Talks About Her Blockbuster Backpage Story on Sirius XM
Matt Welch interviews Brown (and others, including ex-Reasoner Lauren Krisai) from 9-12 ET.
Prison Inmates in at Least 17 States Are Going on Strike Today
"For some of us it's as if we are already dead, so what do we have to lose?"
Louisiana Attorney General Wants State to Hurry Up on Executions—Even If That Means Using 'Hanging, Firing Squad, or Electrocution'
The death penalty may surface as a key issue in the upcoming gubernatorial election in Louisiana.
Prison Rape Reports Are Rising
After national reporting standards were implemented, substantiated sexual assault claims rose by 63 percent.
NAACP Sues Connecticut to Stop 'Prison Gerrymandering'
Incarcerated prisoners are counted where they're jailed for representation purposes, even though they usually cannot vote.
New Calls for the Supreme Court to Reconsider Qualified Immunity
Some unusual amicus briefs filed in support of cert. in Allah v. Milling
This Congresswoman Thinks First-Time Illegal Border Crossing Should Be a Felony
Rep. Diane Black has proposed legislation reclassifying the offense.
Is Criminal Justice Reform Leaving Small and Rural Communities Behind?
A new report shows that the recent trend of reducing prison populations is heavily an urban phenomenon.
When You're Done Reading This Issue of Reason, You Might Want to Burn It
We offer how-tos, personal stories, and guides for all kinds of activities that can and do happen right at the borders of legally permissible behavior.
Federal Prisons Scaling Back Accommodations for Transgender Inmates
New amendments to rules default to placing prisoners on the basis of their "biological sex."
Will Congress Pass This Absolute Unit of a Prison Reform Bill?
The FIRST STEP Act would result in the immediate release of about 4,000 federal inmates, advocates say.
Open Season on Russian Oligarchs, Prison Porn Ban Heads to Court, How the Media Got the Pulse Massacre Wrong: Reason Roundup
Plus: YouTube shooter bought and registered gun legally.
Discovery of Police Corruption Freed Dozens of Imprisoned Americans in 2017
Government misconduct a big driver of exonerations last year.
Report: Imprisoning Drug Users Doesn't Stop Drug Use or Prevent Overdoses
Somebody tell the president.
