A warehouse will be converted into classrooms, a computer room, library and a small cafe for students at one prison.

Typically, issues of prison censorship have to do with what is and isn’t allowed into prisons. There are endless stories and studies on the banning of certain books and the major limitations on ...

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.

Next, we were loaded onto a modern white bus with large, tinted windows. It was the size of a touring bus, like those used for musicians and sports teams. The bus was divided into three sections, each ...

As I finished my makeshift vent cover, I became aware of the eerie silence in the building — a rarity. Then I looked around the parking space-sized cell and took inventory. On the bunk was a cracked ...

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 ...

If all of this seems overly fastidious, it is. But it is also used as a measuring stick of another person’s intelligence and social learning abilities. If we can trust you to shit in the accepted ...

When I heard, “You are granted parole,” all the pressure was released from every pore on my body. For me, it was validation of the work that I had put in. I had proven to myself that I was a better ...

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, ...

When you consider the age of New York prisons, the lack of cooling makes sense, in a way. The state has four maximum security prisons that were built in the 1800s: Auburn Correctional Facility (1818), ...

Kevin D. Sawyer is a contributing editor for PJP; a member of the Society of Professional Journalists; and a former associate editor and member of the San Quentin News team that won SPJ’s 2014 James ...

May 30, 2024 — The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and Prison Journalism Project (PJP) have today announced the winners of the inaugural Stillwater Awards. The Stillwater Awards are a joint ...