Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Early in the morning outside Cook County Jail, a group of new detainees stepped out of a Chicago police wagon and walked bleary-eyed into the bright sunlight ...

When you think of a prison town, you probably think of a place like Huntsville, Texas. Or maybe Forrest City, Ark. Or Susanville, Calif. Even if you don’t know them by name, you know the type: places ...

Jails are notorious for inhumane conditions. Detainees often complain of violence, inedible food, limited programming and subpar healthcare. Lack of sunlight may be an unexpected addition to the list.

In the summer of 2019, justice reformers celebrated because the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors scrapped a controversial $1.7-billion plan to replace the county’s oldest lockup — the ...

Nearly every day in Santa Fe, N.M., people released from jail trudge along a dangerous highway to get back to town. Jails often fail to offer safe transport options for prisoners. People regularly ...

High-ranking inmates known as trusties were ordered to do guards’ bidding, former inmates and guards said, and the culture of violence in the jail went straight to the top. By Brian HoweyMukta Joshi ...

Niki Capaci had her faults, but she was first and foremost a mother and a protector, her family said. As a young girl, she had severe asthma, so while her siblings played outside, she played house.

Dozens of pregnant women locked up in county jails described excruciating pain, saying their cries for help were ignored as they miscarried or gave birth into cell toilets or on filthy jail floors.

NEW ORLEANS – They waited until after midnight to make their move. As nearly 1,400 inmates at the sprawling New Orleans jail slept, 10 men slipped quietly from their metal bunks. A worker monitoring ...

This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. Early in the evening of July 13 in an isolated cell block of the D.C. Jail, ...