The Marshall Project

We Asked Ohio’s Death Row What They Think of Governor’s Death Penalty Reversal

Like Gov. Mike DeWine, most agreed the death penalty is broken and does not deter crime, but not always with the same ...
The Marshall Project

Listening to People on Death Row About Ohio’s Death Penalty

What if death row prisoners participated in political debate? Do people sentenced to death agree with Gov. Mike DeWine? He ...
The Marshall Project

From Public Flogging to Flock Cameras: How the U.S. Justice System Evolved Over 250 Years

As the nation celebrates two and a half centuries of independence, we put together a syllabus of some essential criminal ...
The Marshall Project

A Timely Remix of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ Out of a New York Prison

Alfred Roberts was feeling a similar disillusionment at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility on January 6, 2021, as he ...
The Marshall Project

They Exposed Police Misconduct. Now They’re Paying a Steep Price.

This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters. These days, Austin ...
The Marshall Project

Why New York’s ‘Precision Policing’ Raises Civil Rights Concerns

The NYPD is leading the adoption of the “data-driven” initiative. Experts warn that some of the tactics are anything but precise.
The Marshall Project

How The Death Penalty At 50 Is Far More Broken Than We Knew

Fifty years ago, Americans set out on a polarizing mission: to find a just and fair way to punish the worst of the worst crimes by execution. In some ways, this was a surprising choice. In 1972, a ...
The Marshall Project

A Dying Dream: How Trump Targets Immigrants Who Arrived as Children

At 7 years old, JeanCarlos Fiallos Manzanares crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, hiding in the trunk of a taxi with his older sister. For more than a decade, he lived in the shadows in the ...
The Marshall Project

Rifles, Tasers and Jails: How Cities and States Spent Billions of COVID-19 Relief

After signing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) last spring, President Joe Biden touted what the economic stimulus bill would deliver: food assistance to millions of people in need, ...
The Marshall Project

Police Used Mac Dre’s Music Against Him. In Jail, He Used the Phone to Get Revenge.

Americans built more than 900 prisons between 1980 and 2004, but the story of mass incarceration is also about what disappeared in those years. As crime rose and politicians fearmongered, prison ...
The Marshall Project

I Recorded a Whole Hip-Hop Album on a Death Row Telephone

Alim Braxton, 50, has been behind bars in North Carolina since he was 19 years old. The Raleigh native went to prison in 1993 for taking two lives during a robbery spree. He went to death row in 1997, ...
The Marshall Project

‘Sing Sing’ Actor Jon-Adrian ‘JJ’ Velazquez Reflects on the Power of Prison Theater

In the three-time Oscar-nominated drama “Sing Sing,” Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez and his fellow cast members tell a story that began nearly 20 years ago in a maximum-security prison. In 2005, a group of ...