For the first time in almost three decades, the Pell Grant is once again available to incarcerated individuals enrolled in an approved prison education program. This exciting news has resulted in the ...

Nothing in prison is soft and cuddly. Prisons are concrete and steel and stocked with hard people doing hard time. Toughness is mandatory, brutality a virtue, as we resist — are forced to resist — the ...

For more than half of my life, I have not been free. I was sent to prison when I was 15 years old for second-degree murder, a crime I truly regret. I began my sentence at Thumb Correctional Facility, ...

The weight deck, where we exercise at the Washington State Penitentiary, is not hospitable to vegetation. Sunbaked gravel and decades of dumbbells dropped from prisoners’ hands make it the last place ...

This story is part of Locked Out, a special series from PJP about voting, politics and democracy behind bars. Click here to read more. When I arrived at the Central Treatment Facility of the ...

We Train Prison Journalists to Change the Narrative About Mass Incarceration Prison Journalism Project is an independent, national nonprofit organization that trains incarcerated writers to be ...

When most people in the U.S. seek professional help, they expect the provider to improve the situation. Anybody would hold the service provider accountable for ineffective care. Yet that’s not the ...

This story is a Kite, a special category dedicated to first-person reports that rely heavily on a writer’s first-hand observations and experiences. Read more about why PJP uses this category here.

Claire Tak is a storyteller and writer with a background in editorial marketing for tech companies. Her connection to the prison system began when her younger brother Isaac was sentenced to 19 years.

Video by Sarah Rogers for Prison Journalism Project The cell I’m in now is just like the one I made for you. I’d like to show you around. Let’s start with the lid, the top of the cell. When the lid is ...

There is not much I can do to control my situation at my prison. For example, I can’t choose to come and go from my cell when I want. Rather than let these restrictions defeat me, I remain optimistic ...

Below I offer a general overview of public records and how to get them. What are public records? Public records are documents, very broadly defined, that are generated by government bodies and made ...