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Higher ed expands in prisons as students prepare for life on the outside

Mar 6, 2024
Schools are seeking government approval to start degree programs after financial aid for incarcerated students was fully reinstated.
Brandon Warren, who runs the reentry program at Lee College Huntsville Center, created educational resources for people in prison.
Elizabeth Trovall/Marketplace

Transforming the post-incarceration experience

Jan 3, 2024
Sociologist Reuben Jonathan Miller discusses the “moral worlds” of people who’ve been convicted of violent crimes
A sign pleading for help hangs in a window at the Cook County jail complex on April 09, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

2 years after release, exonerated man fights for a settlement, aids "brotherhood" of exonerees

Oct 11, 2022
Kevin Harrington spent 17 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Now, he's waiting for a form of financial justice.
Kevin Harrington in 2020. "I don't believe there's monetary funds they can give someone for kidnapping, essentially, taking someone away from a family of loved ones and essentially stopping their life," he said.
Courtesy Daniel Harrington

The hidden side of the prison labor economy

Jun 17, 2021
Prison work programs can be selective and often train people for jobs they can't actually get on the outside, according to law professor Hadar Aviram.
Firefighting is just one of the jobs done by people who are incarcerated. The chances they will get hired as firefighters after they get out of prison are low.
David McNew/AFP via Getty Images

Biden's immigration policy could affect the private prison industry

Jan 12, 2021
As President Trump visits the Texas-Mexico border, we look at the role of private prisons in immigration detention.
The campaign of President-elect Joe Biden promised to end for-profit detention centers.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Those released from prison find reentry much harder due to COVID-19

Jul 14, 2020
Finding a job, often a challenge for people who have been incarcerated, is even more difficult because of the pandemic.
A Project Return staff member counsels a former prison inmate in the organization's parking lot.
Photo courtesy Corey Richard/Project Return

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Could we be doing more to help people on parole?

A former New Orleans parole officer reflects on what could be done better to help parolees stay out of jail and build new lives.
A truck is parked in front of a home in the historic Fauborg Marigny neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Mario Tama/Getty Image

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