Black girls were about three times as likely as white girls to be referred to juvenile court, and 20% more likely to be detained than white girls. American Indian/Alaska Native girls were 50% more likely to be locked-up.

A federal lawsuit in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a report by the ACLU of New Hampshire, document the practice of jailing people unable to pay their court debts, violating the due process rights of the poor by failing to provide them with legal counsel and ability-to-pay hearings.

Progressive Arizona congressman Raúl Grijalva expressed dismay that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) signed an $11 million contract with GEO Care because its parent company, GEO Group, profits off detaining women and children in horrific conditions. Yet, remarkably, Grijalva is the sponsor of a bill, which contains specific exemptions allowing companies

A new report details how families pay a high price for the incarceration of a relative—a price “felt most deeply by women, low-income families and communities of color.”  It examines the various ways families and former prisoners “pay” for their incarceration, even after they are released. The report, “Who Pays? The True Cost Of

Last week, the New York City Council sent eight bills to Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s desk aimed at bringing greater transparency to the city’s jails. The wave of legislation was introduced this past spring and its passage marks the latest efforts by the city to reign in the brutal culture of violence and impunity that has reigned inside its jails for years.

Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has introduced legislation to abolish aspects of the prison industrial-complex. However, despite being touted as a private prison abolition bill, it would still leave some areas of corrections open to contractors. On September 17, Sanders joined Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)

Formerly incarcerated youth in Cook County, Chicago, were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders at a rate higher than that of the general population, according to new research. The research also found Black former juvenile inmates had lower prevalence rates for psychiatric and substance abuse disorders over time than compared to whites and Hispanics, despite the fact that they constitute a disproportionately larger segment of the incarcerated population.

According to a federal class action lawsuit filed in Alabama this month, the city of Alexander is incarcerating people who are unable to pay court fees and fines in a modern-day debtors prison. The suit argues the practice not only constitutes false imprisonment, but also violates inmates’ Fourth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the Constitution.

When Jesse Jacobs reported to the Galveston County Jail to serve a 30-day sentence for a DUI, he did so knowing that if everything went well, he would be out in 12 to 15 days. Six days later, he was dead. Jacobs was one of the nearly 1000 people who die each year in America’s jails, according to statistics released by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. Like Jacobs, four in every ten of these people die in their first seven days in jail.

Young black men detained in Cook County, Chicago, face a higher mortality rate than the general population of the county, according to a bulletin published by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) as part of their “Northeastern Juvenile Project.”