Money makes all the difference in prison

May 23, 2019
It can't buy freedom, but it bought one inmate some life-improving phone calls.
FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI/AFP/Getty Images

Japan’s prisons are holding more older inmates

Feb 5, 2019
Japan’s population is aging rapidly. We’ve been looking into some of the ramifications of Japan’s aging population with our partners at the BBC. But living longer doesn’t necessarily mean living well. In Japan there is a bit of an old-age crime wave born out of desperation and poverty. Almost 20 percent of Japan’s prison population […]
An entrance of Tokyo's Fuchu Prison, Japan's biggest male-only correctional house.
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images

Study finds about half of formerly incarcerated people have only a GED or high school diploma

Oct 31, 2018
The study comes from the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonpartisan group that examines mass incarceration.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Study finds about half of formerly incarcerated people have only a GED or high school diploma

Oct 31, 2018
The study comes from the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonpartisan group that examines mass incarceration.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

California bail industry grapples with fallout from a new law

Sep 27, 2018
Starting next year, a judge, not ability to pay bail, will decide who remains jailed in the state before trial.
Bail companies posted nearly $1.75 billion in surety bonds with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County from May 2016 to May 2017, a recent report found. Above, an employee at Gotham Bail Bonds near downtown Los Angeles walks to her desk.
Benjamin Gottlieb/Marketplace

Farm-to-table comes to a Louisiana jail

Feb 8, 2018
"Meals and food is the basic way that we show love and respect for one another," said the jail's warden, Catherine Fontenot. "And that’s what we need to show with people who have offended us the greatest."
one program that trains Licensed Vocational Nurses who work in rural areas for the state correctional system to be Registered Nurses
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Montana inmates learn job and life skills while raising cattle on prison ranch

Feb 7, 2018
But food coming from a prison isn't necessarily a selling point.
An inmate attaches milkers to cows' teats.
Eve Abrams/Marketplace

For public good, not for profit.

In the fight against bail, a new group brings resources

Jan 19, 2018
Judges have long required people accused of crimes to pay bail. A new group called The Bail Project is seeking to bail lower-income people out of jails in cities across the country.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch says bail is necessary sometimes if somebody is a flight or safety risk. 
Jason Rosenbaum/ for Marketplace

When in prison, the costs are steep and the pay is close to nothing

Aug 21, 2017
Data compiled by the Prison Policy Initiative shows that the average incarcerated worker in state and federal prison now earns 86 cents per day, a 7 cent decrease from 2001 when inmates earned 93 cents for a day’s work.
A California State Prison-Solano inmate uses a hand tool to pack decomposed granite while installing a drought-tolerant garden in the prison yard in Vacaville, California. 
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Prisons try to curb addiction with a drug that heroin-proofs your brain

Jun 2, 2017
Inmates leaving Erie County Prison get a shot of Vivitrol before they are released.
Dennis Rodgers, 29, is serving a sentence in the Erie County Prison stemming from drug abuse. A candidate for Vivitrol, he says, “This is a good shot to be completely clean.”
Erika Beras