The Virginia Department of Corrections' new policy will see all incoming mail (photos included) photocopied for delivery to inmates and the original mail shredded.

Federal regulators no longer are pressing to cut the costs of most prison phone calls, backing away from a years-long effort to limit charges imposed by a handful of private companies on inmates and their families.

At the age of 91, Dr. Lois J. Farquharson is believed to be the oldest woman incarcerated in Pennsylvania.  She uses a wheelchair and experiences memory lapses from mild dementia.  Jane Keller, who has visited her monthly in prison for over twenty-five years, describes her as “compassionate, intelligent, well-educated, witty and gifted.”  Keller, a Quaker […]

From FightToxicPrisons.org First, a huge thanks to the people who came out to the Civic Media Center earlier this month to help send a mass mailing from the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons out to over 500 prisoners across the country, specifically focused on follow-up with prisoner strike support (particularly in FL.) They day after […]

During this time of joy and celebration, millions of families are separated by mass incarceration.  One way to help is by donating to the nonprofits that fight to unite them. To get you started, we here at Nation Inside thought we’d highlight some particularly dynamic grassroots groups. If you’re looking to make tax-deductible donations before […]

IT will be interesting to see what recommendations are made by a task force that's been working on criminal justice reform since July. One thing that seems evident is that Oklahoma's list of “85 percent” crimes won't be getting much shorter. These crimes require offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences before they can be considered for parole. The original list of crimes, which were the product of a 1997 bill called the Truth in Sentencing Act, related to violent offenders and numbered in the single digits.

The Texas prison system, known as TDCJ, has become a litmus test for dealing with toxic environmental conditions for prisoners. Earlier this year, prisoners from the Wallace Pack unit and their advocates on the outside succeeded in compelling a judge to order clean water to people held in that facility, which has faced years of […]