But the prison labor system is also rotten to the core… By Nathan J. Robinson.

That’s enough to cover the annual cost of attending Harvard University and still have plenty left over for pizza and beer.

The world can learn from how Norway treats its offenders

Following the high-profile case of Anthony Weiner, the U.S. Attorneys' Offices have successfully prosecuted another case under the Project Safe Childhood initiative. A former Secret Service officer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for conducting sexual conversations with a minor and attempting the exchange of explicit images.

With existing immigration detention quotas and Trump’s mass deportation plans, immigrants will be unnecessarily detained in deplorable conditions. By Azadeh Shahshahani and Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia.

No prison demographic is growing as fast as the elderly. Of the 6.7 million people under correctional supervision in 2015 (“more than were enslaved in antebellum America and more than resided in the Gulag Archipelago at the height of Stalin’s misrule,” Adam Gopnik recently pointed out in the New Yorker), over 10 percent were geriatric (55 years or older)—a 400 percent demographic increase since 1993, according to a 2013 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

For 40 years, poor communities of color have experienced the wrath of the war on drugs. Ever since Colorado and Washington made the unprecedented move to legalize recreational pot last year, excitement and stories of unfettered success have billowed into the air. Colorado's marijuana tax revenue far exceeded expectations, bringing a whopping $185 million to the state, and tourists are lining up to taste the budding culture (pun intended). Several other states are now looking to follow suit and legalize. 

GOP state Rep. John Raney admitted that the $4 billion company Geo Group wrote the legislation. By David Dayen.

For almost 100 years, Coíba was inhabited only by criminals and political prisoners. Now it's one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. By Sarah Gibbens.

The former Patriots tight end, serving a life sentence for murder, committed suicide in prison Wedneday morning, the Department of Correction said.

For almost forty years, Kerry Max Cook did everything to clear his name after being convicted of a horrifying murder in Tyler. So when he was finally exonerated, why did he ask for his conviction back? By Michael Hall.

A prison work programme has backfired, after two inmates in the US state of Ohio built computers from PCs they were supposed to be dismantling for recycling. The unsupervised inmates later hid the PCs in the ceiling of a training room. Investigators found software, pornography and articles about making drugs and explosives on the machines. The discovery came after IT staff flagged unusual levels of internet activity on a contractor's account.

A new book argues that, in the effort to fix the prison epidemic, we are addressing the wrong things and missing the true problem. By Adam Gopnik.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he wants to close the troubled Rikers Island prison within 10 years.

Fourteen of 29 inmates are still on the run after they made an audacious escape by tunneling underneath a Mexican prison wall, authorities said.

Four prison guards who are alleged to have killed a schizophrenic inmate by effectively boiling him to death have escaped charges. Darren Rainey was forcefully held in a scalding hot shower for hours after he smeared faeces on himself at the Dale Correctional Institution in Miami, Florida, in 2012. Rainey, 50, had refused to stand under the shower but was told by Officer Roland Clarke that he could not leave until he washed.

It is brutal. It is torture by definition. It destroys the mind, body, and soul. It is outrageously expensive. It doesn’t work. And this is what solitary confinement feels like, from 35 prisoners who have lived through it. By Nathaniel Penn.

After nearly half a dozen women complained about having to remove their bras to visit the Maine State Prison, the Maine Department of Corrections said Monday that it would change the policy immediately. The Bangor Daily News inquired about the practice last week, and on Monday morning department Commissioner Joseph Fitzpatrick said that he will work to standardize the prison’s vetting of female prison visitors and no longer require them to remove their bras, as some have been required to do recently.

As drones become more accessible, Channel 9 has learned that more smugglers are using them to sneak contraband into prisons. Inmates are able to receive phones to order hits on witnesses or rivals, and to keep running criminal organizations. They can also get weapons from the drones. Even a small drone is fairly noisy, so it may seem far-fetched that criminals can pull this off without guards finding out. But smugglers and inmates know the lay of the land and they’re finding that window of opportunity when no one's watching.

When I saw that the cell phone designed for rectal smuggling was called "Beat the Boss," I assumed "The Boss" was a synonym for "The Man," but it turns out it's a reference to a specific product: Xeku's Body Orifice Security Scanner (BOSS), a "hygienic cavity search" chair that scans prisoners for rectal contraband.