Tag Archives: Prisons
‘The Penal System Today is Slavery’: Lawmakers Finally Start to Talk About Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons
The 13th Amendment left a loophole for prisoners to be forced to work without pay. Texas remains one of five states that exploits the carveout for state profit.
Inmates in Texas make license plates, grow crops, tend to cattle, make soap and clothing, refurbish buses and computers, build furniture and more. They’re req...Read More
Author Shane Bauer on How the Racist Roots of Private Prisons Still Permeate the System
“I was struggling with this feeling that I was becoming this different person in prison — a person I didn’t like.”
Falsified reports, inadequate medical care, severe understaffing and a plethora of illicit drugs and weapons: These are the grim realities of America’s modern...Read More
Texas Prisons Lead the Nation in Long-Term Solitary Confinement
Nearly a third of Texas prisoners in restrictive housing have been there for six years or longer, according to a new national survey.
The growing bipartisan consensus around solitary confinement — that it’s inhumane and overused across the criminal justice system — has led to its sharp d...Read More
College Degree Options Are Disappearing for Women in Texas Prisons
In Texas, four-year degree programs for imprisoned women are expiring, even as more of them end up in the prison system.
The only bachelor’s degree programs available to women incarcerated in the Texas prison system are ending. By 2020, Texas A&M University-Central says it w...Read More
New Report Finds — Surprise — Indigent Defense Attorneys Shouldn’t be Under the Control of the State Prison System
The Texas prison system controls an agency tasked with defending poor inmates accused of crimes inside Texas prisons. What could possibly go wrong?
A new report by a committee of the State Bar of Texas aims to draw attention to a glaringly obvious conflict of interest at a little-known indigent defense syst...Read More
The Road to Huntsville
My days on "the chain" — the prison bus to Huntsville — are long over, but they're still with me.
My days on "the chain" — the prison bus to Huntsville — are long over, but they're still with me....Read More
Social Media Ban Could Curb Free Speech Behind Bars
Prison reform activists say a new social media policy inside Texas prisons could keep both prisoners and advocates from talking about life on the inside....Read More
The Draw of Death Row
With “dark tourism” on the rise, Huntsville’s prison museum is thriving.
The gift shop offers shirts honoring the electric chair: "Home of Old Sparky," and the museum's visitors get a 'selectively edited' history of corrections....Read More
Raising the Bars
What's next for Texas criminal justice reform?
Here's what Texas lawmakers can, and should, do for criminal and racial justice in the state in the wake of Sandra Bland's death while in police custody....Read More