As I served a life sentence, I had given up on love. Then I met Paige.

As a person incarcerated in Texas, I know that rotten food and poor medical care are not unique to Delaney Hall.

I learned to cultivate plants behind bars. Sharing the fruits of my labor with the local community was one of the proudest moments of my life.

What censorship of prison newspapers can tell us of where the military news outlet may be headed

The overwhelming majority of women in solitary have survived intimate partner violence. This means prisons are torturing abuse survivors.

A self-described “artivist” — both artist and activist — Orlando Smith uses pencil and paper to chronicle the senselessness of the criminal legal system and to indict abuses of power in the United Sta...

Under California law, I would be handed over to ICE and probably sent to El Salvador to face life in CECOT. And so I have stopped seeking parole.

In recognition of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Kwaneta imagines how Dr. King would react to the state of his legacy—and his movement

Facing my 17th holiday behind bars, here’s how I connect and seek joy.

In my 20 years of incarceration, I’ve been strip-searched at least 500 times. Each was an act of humiliation and sexual violence

The “pinkwashing” of prisons ramps up in Vermont, where local officials are pushing for the construction of a “gender-responsive” facility

More than 80% of children charged as adults in state court are not white, data shows

After being incarcerated for murdering her partner, Ruth Kamande studied the legal system to understand her own case. Now she is fighting to reform Kenya’s laws

A new report exposes the devastating truth: America is prosecuting the most abused and neglected children in adult courts and locking them up instead of healing their trauma.

These trees were the only living beings that I could touch without fear.

This convergence of carceral violence, climate violence, and authoritarian detention regimes deepens the harm against aging bodies.

Dozens of pregnant women locked up in county jails described excruciating pain, saying their cries for help were ignored as they miscarried or gave birth into cell toilets or on filthy jail floors.

States have restricted, surveilled, and punished prison journalism for decades, with dire consequences—for incarcerated people and for democracy.

Kenneth “Swift Justice” Traywick began his protest days after allegedly being pepper-sprayed by an officer in retaliation for his advocacy.

Gov. Jeff Landry eliminated parole for prisoners arrested after Aug. 1, 2024, and tightened eligibility rules for those already in prison. Then he set all of that aside for one group: undocumented imm...

Thousands of incarcerated people in Connecticut want to enroll in higher education — and financial aid is available — but limited space and resources in the state’s prison system have prevented the programs from expanding to meet the demand.

Prison Heat by Xandan Gulley I sit in a 6’ x 9’ concrete and steel cell, 24 hours a day, in solitary confinement. The heat drains me physically, leaving me exhausted, dehydrated, and petrified. The ve...

June 3, 2025. I can’t breathe. I wake up in an eight-man cube at JCS Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan. I pull the air inside my lungs and heave. “You OK?” An inmate says in the cube, holding...

How higher education helped a prison inmate develop confidence and rediscover his humanity.

SW editor-in-chief Juan Haines reviews Pete Earley's book about the unbearable conditions of isolation at the infamous federal ADX supermax.

Kimberly Hricko entered prison in 1999, when inmates still wore street clothes and ordered from JCPenney. In 2025, a piece of cardboard is contraband.

How I found my voice as a storyteller while incarcerated and now help others become prison journalists

Only about 25 percent of housing units in Florida's prisons are equipped with AC.

Being an Eagles fan is about more than just rooting for a team. It's a bond that can build friendships between outwardly unalike people

The Solitary Confinement Issue. Window into Solitary Stories of solitary confinement by 17 formerly 
incarcerated

These trees were the only living beings that I could touch without fear.

California's REPAIR Act shows there's a better way to manage restitution, for both incarcerated people and survivors.

Mental health needs are prevalent in prisons. One incarcerated writer shares their experience with the mental health care system in a Texas prison.

In Texas women’s prisons, there is a "Fight Night" custom, where the officers choose inmates to fight each other in what they call "the gauntlet."

Two years into the California Model, which was implemented to decrease violence and stress inside facilities, violence is up and stress is through the roof.