Analysis of the unjust situation inmates in the U.S. have in regards to making prison phone calls and the effect that has on their well-being.

Vikki Hankins wants nothing more in the world than to have her civil rights restored. Hankins, 43, lost the right to vote — and many others — when she went to a federal prison for selling cocaine in December 1990. She spent almost two decades behind bars for her crime. Today, Hankins is an author and an undergrad who dreams of going to law school. She got out of prison four years ago and quickly applied to have her rights — like voting, serving on a jury and becoming a lawyer — restored.

Gang violence wasn't always rampant in El Salvador. The Rev. Gerardo Mendez, who works with youth in gang-controlled areas, sat down to talk about how gangs became so powerful in this small country.

Levi Lane shuffled into the pews of the El Paso County jail court still reeking of poultry fat from his night shift at a local pet food factory. Driving home at 2 in the morning, he had been pulled over for going 43 miles an hour when the limit was 35 and arrested on the spot for outstanding traffic tickets. There in court, Judge Cheryl Davis, a part-time judge and bankruptcy lawyer, called Lane’s name. Barely looking up at him...

From a certain angle, the premise seems almost cruel: invite prisoners on death row to design their own memorials — ways for them to be remembered after they’ve been executed.

South Africans woke up on Tuesday morning to the news that Paralympian Oscar Pistorius was released from prison under correctional supervision on Monday night. Pistorius's lawyer Brian Webber told The Citizen newspaper that his client was home just after 22:00 on Monday, having been reportedly been release around 20:00.

Silvestre Segovia had vowed many times over that he would never return to solitary confinement. Languishing in the vast Texas prison system's solitary confinement wings for more than a decade had exacted a heavy emotional toll. And there was so much to discover about a new world that confronted him on a much-anticipated exit that chilly morning, Nov. 15, 2002. A loyal girlfriend waited 255 miles away. There might even be a market for the catalog...

Kim Davis, the infamous Kentucky clerk sent to jail on contempt of court charges for refusing a federal judge's order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has lost her latest appeal of the judge's decision. Davis argued that the judge's decision should only apply to the four couples who sued for the right to attain licenses and not all couples seeking licenses.

As prison populations surge in the UK, with overcrowded cells and repeat offenders, the opposite is happening in the Netherlands. The country is actually to close eight prisons because of a lack of criminals, the Dutch justice ministry has announced. Declining crime rates in the Netherlands mean that although the country has the capacity for 14,000 prisoners, there are only 12,000 detainees, reported the nrc.nl.

I am a magician. I don't pull rabbits out of hats, saw attractive young women in half, or wear a tuxedo. I practice magick, spelled with a "k" in order to differentiate it from slight of hand, and once upon a time I was sentenced to death for it. My name is Damien Echols, and in 1993 I was arrested for three counts of capital murder in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas. Nine months later I was sentenced to death, and spent almost 19 years on death row before...

The new opening to Cuba would not have happened without an old-fashioned swap. Cuban spies were being held in U.S. prisons. And the Cubans were holding an American named Alan Gross. Gross was a U.S. government contractor who was setting up Internet connections in Cuba. But the Cuban government said he was a spy. It has been nearly a year since Gross became the lynchpin for the diplomatic breakthrough.

Teodora del Carmen Vásquez was nine months pregnant when she felt a piercing pain in her abdomen. She called emergency services, but started bleeding and lost consciousness before help arrived. As she came round, police officers surrounded her and accused her of murdering her baby by inducing an abortion. Vásquez, who was 24 at the time, was handcuffed and detained. She was hastily sentenced to 30 years in prison for aggravated murder.

VICE News correspondent Danny Gold headed to El Salvador to investigate what many are now calling a war between the current government and the country's most powerful street gangs.

A woman who was buried alive by her fiancé managed to claw her way out of her shallow grave. Stacey Gwilliam, 34 thought she was going to die after she had been attacked by Keith Hughes, 39 and covered by undergrowth and branches. She said when she woke up in darkness and felt paralysed.

A Michigan man was sentenced Monday to 19 years and five months in prison for leaving his drunken girlfriend on an unheated enclosed porch overnight in freezing temperatures, PEOPLE confirms. Charles Campbell Jr., 49, previously pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.

A judge sentenced the former head of Jared Fogle’s charity to 27 years in prison Thursday afternoon. Russell Taylor pleaded guilty to 13 federal crimes during his sentencing hearing — 12 counts of child exploitation and one count of distributing child pornography. In addition to serving 27 years, a judge ordered lifetime supervised release.

The District Attorney's office released more footage Friday of a fatal deputy-involved shooting that took place in late August on the city's far northwest side. The release comes two days after a Bexar County Grand Jury voted not to indict deputies Greg Vasquez and Robert Sanchez, who shot and killed Gilbert Flores outside of his parent's home in the 24000 block of Walnut Pass. Of the two videos, the one shot by neighbors across the street appears to have a better perspective on the incident.

Two years ago, Ethan Couch seemed like the luckiest teen in the world. On June 15, 2013, the then-16-year-old drunkenly climbed behind the wheel of his pickup truck and went for a nighttime drive near Fort Worth. Crammed inside his pickup were five friends; two more sat in the back. With his blood-alcohol level three times the adult driving limit and with traces of Valium and marijuana in his system, Couch couldn’t stay on the road.

Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton have every reason to be enemies. In 1984, an intruder broke into Thompson’s apartment and raped her. She identified Cotton as the rapist in both a photo array and a live lineup. Although Cotton proclaimed his innocence, he was arrested, tried, and convicted. The prosecution’s case rested mainly on Thompson’s identification, and during the trial she testified that she was “absolutely sure”...

When Ethan Couch became a fugitive this month, the Texas sheriff calling for his arrest didn't bother to hide his disdain. In 2013, when he was 16, Couch struck and killed four pedestrians near Forth Worth while driving drunk. Prosecutors wanted Couch to serve 20 years in prison. Instead, Couch got off with rehab and probation after a defense expert argued in juvenile court that Couch suffered from "affluenza" — an inability to tell right from wrong because...