Prison

A collection of some of our most important and timely stories, from an interview about news consumption habits to a feature story on how gerrymandering amplified the interests of the right.

• By Pacific Standard Staff
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• By Pacific Standard Staff
• Member Exclusive

The shuttering of a prison debate club shows the precarious nature of free-speech rights among American inmates.

• By Noah Berlatsky

Women wore, and sometimes designed, their own clothes in California prisons until the 1990s, when the state began issuing uniforms to its female inmates.

• By Libby Rainey

Across the country, jails are often used as holding pens for people who can't afford to pay bail. Local groups are working to change that.

• By Danielle Ziegelheim

While most commerce within prisons revolves around food and hygiene products, a recent report found that digital sales are the "future of commissary."

• By Mia Armstrong

Updates to stories from the Pacific Standard archive.

• By Pacific Standard Staff
• Member Exclusive

According to a new report, while the overall number of inmates in the U.S. is declining, some states are still seeing their prison populations rise.

• By Tanvi Misra

A conversation with Jasmine Heiss from the Vera Institute of Justice about a recent poll that uncovers American's souring sentiment toward incarceration policy.

• By Teresa Mathew

On the labor issues connected with using inmates as extremely low-paid workers in state and federal prisons.

• By Beth Schwartzapfel

Este artículo explica los problemas laborales relacionados con el uso de presos como trabajadores extremadamente mal pagados en las prisiones estatales y federales.

• By Beth Schwartzapfel

Two landmark Supreme Court rulings made clear that juvenile life sentences are unconstitutional. Yet hundreds remain in prison, many of them without access to educational programs.

• By Kenneth R. Rosen

People wait outside the Kobar prison in Khartoum, Sudan, on February 18th, 2018, to welcome their loved ones after the government released dozens of opposition activists.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Supporters of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel demonstrate with heart-shaped balloons during a motorcade protest on February 14th, 2018, in Berlin, Germany.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

A pile of tires burns as prison officers demonstrate in front of Villefranche-sur-Saône prison in Lyon, France, on January 15th, 2018.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Facing a shortage of space for inmates, Missouri's Greene County Jail opted to build an insta-prison in the parking lot. Is that OK?

• By Daniel A. Gross

But a tailored mindfulness program may negate the negative impact of imprisonment.

• By Tom Jacobs

The rapper's experience with probation is far from unusual for ex-prisoners.

• By Jack Denton

James Forman Jr.'s first book chronicles with compassion how the actions of black leaders sometimes hurt the very people they sought to save.

• By Brandon Tensley

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

President Donald Trump has restored consumer confidence in private prisons—but they were never in danger of failing to begin with.

• By Rick Paulas

Manning had been serving a 35-year-sentence, the longest ever imposed for whistleblowing.

• By Jack Denton

A new campaign rooted in the South is getting mothers in prisons and jails across the country home for Mother’s Day.

• By Melissa Gira Grant

Legal financial obligations can saddle a prisoner with exponentially increasing debt long after they’ve been released from prison. It can even land them back in jail. Can the cycle be broken?

• By Arvind Dilawar