Watch 3:59
Mental illness ‘is not a problem that we can arrest ourselves out of’
When Alabama closed a regional hospital, the warden of Metro Jail says that the population of people with mental illness doubled at their facility. Trey Oliver says they often see the same people over and over again, people who should…
Watch 3:52
Newark Youth Court gives juvenile offenders a jury of their peers
How should efforts to implement criminal justice reform handle minor offenses committed by juveniles? Officials in Newark, New Jersey, are trying a new approach: municipal courts, public schools and police have aligned to develop an alternative sentencing program for teenagers:…
Watch 4:06
Violent, New Orleans jail has young inmates attending high school inside
At a jail with death rates four times the national average in New Orleans, teenagers and young men are trying a new program that enrolls them into full-day high school classes for diplomas, using the same curriculum and tests as…
Watch 3:38
What it’s like to start over after spending your teen years in jail
As teenageers, Vaughn Brown and Ivan Mayo were incarcerated at Rikers Island, where they confronted danger from fellow inmates, solitary confinement and their own thoughts. The two have vowed to never go back to jail. But being branded a felon…
Jeanne Selander had never worked in a jail before she came to save the zoo at the Stock Island Detention Center in Key West.
More than 5 million U.S. children have had a parent in jail. That’s roughly seven percent of the nation’s kids 17 and under, or one in 14.
Kalief Browder, who was arrested at 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack and who spent three years awaiting trial, committed suicide Saturday, two years after his release from Rikers Island.
The U.S. accounts for just 5 percent of the world’s population, but it houses more than 20 percent of its prisoners. Now groups on opposite sides of the political spectrum are working together to overhaul the country’s criminal justice system.
