FEB 2018

In colonial Virginia, authorities could hang settlers for a crime as small as stealing grapes or killing a neighbor's chicken. The penal code in America's first colony was, in fact, so harsh its governor eventually reduced the number of capital offenses out of fear that settlers would refuse to live there. Since then, the number and severity of crimes punishable by death in the United States have fluctuated; today, the death penalty is still legal in 31 states. Here are some of the critical turning points in the history of capital punishment in America.

• By Morgan Baskin

From growing up in rural Delaware to opening the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

• By Jack Denton

Updates to stories from the Pacific Standard archive.

• By Pacific Standard Staff
• Member Exclusive

Historian Annelise Orleck traveled to Mexico, Cambodia, and Bangladesh, plus all across America, to interview low-wage workers fighting for better conditions and pay.

• By Peter C. Baker

PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.

• By Kristina Kutateli
• Member Exclusive

We spoke to Maria Qamar about what she recommends reading, watching, and listening to.

• By Katie Kilkenny

Updates to stories from the Pacific Standard archive.

• By Pacific Standard Staff
• Member Exclusive

Updates to stories from the Pacific Standard archive.

• By Pacific Standard Staff
• Member Exclusive

PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.

• By Kristina Kutateli
• Member Exclusive

Svend Erik had not intended to spend the last 37-odd years of his life permanently in Qaanaaq, stewarding critical data through decades of changes in computing and communications technologies, but he had fallen in love.

• By Elmo Keep

Haji Ali, Iraq: A view of the village—which has been ravaged by battles against ISIS—through one of its destroyed buildings.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

The playwright and actress' one-woman shows are deeply political—but she isn't here to preach.

• By Tom Jacobs

PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.

• By Kristina Kutateli
• Member Exclusive

At the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, readers and writers celebrate the lyrical beauty of rural existence.

• By Max Ufberg

How Stone Mountain—the world's largest and most immovable Confederate monument—could become a battlefield where neo-Confederates from across the country make their last stand.

• By Tony Rehagen

PS Picks is a selection of the best things that the magazine's staff and contributors are reading, watching, or otherwise paying attention to in the worlds of art, politics, and culture.

• By Kristina Kutateli
• Member Exclusive

There is no single storyline to demolition derby. Unlike a football game, there is no ground to take, no points to score. There is only mayhem and survival.

• By J.C. Hallman

Dhaka, Bangladesh: Momin Mohammad, a leather worker, brushes his teeth by a canal near his home in the city's polluted Hazaribagh neighborhood. Each day, tanneries dump 22,000 liters of toxic waste into the Buriganga, the capital city's main river and key water supply.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

As the art of close reading has declined, a cohort of experts has emerged to reverse the trend and encourage stronger reading habits.

• By James McWilliams

Researchers found fraternity membership lowers a student's grade-point average by 0.25 points (on a four-point scale), but increases future income by 36.2 percent.

• By Tom Jacobs

Sociologist Cynthia Miller-Idriss argues how brands sneak past German laws against Nazi symbols while building a community among customers.

• By Peter C. Baker

The Pentagon has paid more than $42 billion to clean up contaminated sites—mostly to private contractors—with little evidence of improvements, a ProPublica investigation found.

• By Kate Wheeling

Managed alcohol programs, which provide homeless alcoholics with housing and small amounts of booze, may seem counterintuitive, but they fit squarely within a philosophy of addiction treatment known as harm reduction—and they're working.

• By Sasha Chapin

A new book argues that America uses digital tools to sequester and punish its poorest citizens. But can we really blame technology?

• By Peter C. Baker