At a prison in the Catskill Mountains, where I used to be incarcerated, some men were trying to buck the trend.

On February 8, 2022, about an hour before the 6:30 a.m. morning count, an announcement rang out over the loudspeakers at New Jersey State Prison. It was an emergency code, a “Code 53,” indicating a ...

Nothing in prison is soft and cuddly. Prisons are concrete and steel and stocked with hard people doing hard time. Toughness is mandatory, brutality a virtue, as we resist — are forced to resist — the ...

For more than half of my life, I have not been free. I was sent to prison when I was 15 years old for second-degree murder, a crime I truly regret. I began my sentence at Thumb Correctional Facility, ...

The weight deck, where we exercise at the Washington State Penitentiary, is not hospitable to vegetation. Sunbaked gravel and decades of dumbbells dropped from prisoners’ hands make it the last place ...

There is not much I can do to control my situation at my prison. For example, I can’t choose to come and go from my cell when I want. Rather than let these restrictions defeat me, I remain optimistic ...

May 30, 2024 — The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and Prison Journalism Project (PJP) have today announced the winners of the inaugural Stillwater Awards. The Stillwater Awards are a joint ...

Since 1980, the number of incarcerated fathers in the U.S. has increased fourfold, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In total, there’s nearly 630,000 dads in ...

Dying in prison is becoming more common for people without a death penalty or life sentence. Prison Journalism Project’s special project on aging in prison highlighted that fact earlier this year. And ...

Prior to my incarceration, me and my wife’s combined income had been about $2,000 per month. We had no savings, so after my retirement we lived month-to-month on fixed income payments. But it was ...

Everything was cold, gray and hard. The lights were too bright or too dim, but always tinted in a yellow haze. It would have been easy to mistake being processed in a Los Angeles jail as a dream — no, ...

Next, we were loaded onto a modern white bus with large, tinted windows. It was the size of a touring bus, like those used for musicians and sports teams. The bus was divided into three sections, each ...