Welcome to 2026, a busy election cycle that’ll determine control of Congress, thousands of prosecutors and sheriffs, and the ...

Morris mostly lived in solitary confinement from the time he went to prison in 1978, the year “Grease” was released, until he got out in 2017—alone 23 hours a day inside a cell the size of a parking ...

The resounding defeat of Ohio’s Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that would have undercut direct democracy in the state, received wall-to-wall coverage last week because it salvaged the prospect ...

LaDerrick Campbell has an IQ in the 60s. His defense counsel described him as “the most profoundly mentally ill client” they had ever encountered. Daniel Blank’s confession was coerced; one of the ...

Conservative judges have chipped away at voting rights and put the Voting Rights Act through renewed stress over the last decade. They’re now set to gain new allies with the incoming Trump ...

State supreme courts have come under a brighter spotlight as battlefields for some of today’s most pressing issues, from abortion rights and climate to extreme sentencing and ballot access. And ...

In 2017, Seattle implemented a democratic reform that accomplished the seemingly impossible, diversifying and growing the pool of people giving money to political campaigns, and making city races more ...

Prisons across the United States run on incarcerated labor. People behind bars cook food, sew clothes, clean facilities, manufacture goods, and even work in dangerous industries like agriculture and ...

A polling station in Los Angeles’ Union Station. Angelenos are choosing a swath of offices from Senate to DA. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) 2024 is starting off fast: Tuesday, March 5 is one of the busiest ...

This article was produced as a collaboration between Bolts and New York Focus. Five years ago, a social worker who believed in rehabilitation joined the New York State Board of Parole. During her time ...

This article is produced as a collaboration between Bolts and Mother Jones. For the first time since the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020, voters in Minneapolis and ...

Colie Long has lived behind bars longer than he did on the outside. Long, 44, was sentenced to life in prison for murder when he was just 18 years old. He used to think he’d die in lockup until last ...