Our favorite journalism about the criminal legal system in 2025

And some commentary and editorial writing, too.

by Wanda Bertram

We asked staff of the Prison Policy Initiative to share the stories about the criminal legal system — other than ours — that stood out to them this year. In an eventful year, when there was a lot of essential journalism, here were some of our favorite pieces.

The Prison Next Door, Bolts

Brian Nam-Sonenstein, Senior Editor and Researcher, says:

An incredible long read by Lauren Gill about residents of Franklin County coming together to protest a new mega-prison being forced through by Arkansas state government. The coalition’s fight to stop the prison — and to protect land that residents hoped to leave to their children — highlights consequences of prison-and jail-building that we often don’t think about. In the course of the story, the budget for the prison doubles from $470 million to $825 million, and state lawmakers realize (long after locals had pointed it out) that the cost of upgrading water infrastructure for the prison could be astronomical. The lack of transparency, rushed planning, and unpredictable costs associated with Arkansas’s new mega-prison are an important reminder that prisons are political projects.

TIGER, the algorithm banning Louisiana prisoners from parole, Verite News

Wendy Sawyer, Research Director, says:

One of a wave of recent "tough on crime" reforms to Louisiana's prison system means that only incarcerated people deemed "low-risk" by an algorithm are eligible for parole release. As Richard Webster chronicles, in practice, that leads to tragedies like this story: A 70-year-old man who is nearly blind, who has been preparing for years for his chance to go home, is told he is no longer eligible because the algorithm deemed him a "moderate risk." Parole has been at the front of our minds this year as many states have taken steps to curtail it (and because we published a two-part report about it), and this law represents the worst of the regressive changes: a state culling people from parole rosters based on factors totally outside of their control.

Reporting on cities' and counties' collaborations with ICE

Jacob Kang-Brown, Senior Researcher, says:

From coast to coast, writers and reporters have helped to uncover the on-the-ground dynamics of the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda, which often bely local and state "sanctuary" policies. Some of my favorites: Inadvertent documenting the Glendale City Jail contract with ICE, which the city canceled after their reporting; WTTW exposing 17 Illinois jails whose contracts with the U.S. Marshals allowed collaboration with ICE; Unraveled reporting on the Chicago Police Department providing crowd control at raids; and Judah Schept and Jack Norton, in n+1, explaining how rural jail expansion has created new infrastructure that ICE can take advantage of.

No Exit, Inquest

Danielle Squillante, Development and Communications Associate, says:

Imprisoned people are sold the idea that if they develop a deep insight into why they committed their crime, demonstrate remorse, engage in prison programming and education, and maintain a relatively clean disciplinary history — what prisons call rehabilitation — they will become good candidates for parole. But as Bobbi Cobaugh compellingly articulates, this is a fallacy — one that sows disillusionment in the minds of imprisoned people and their loved ones. As she writes, parole boards focus heavily on static factors that incarcerated people can't change, like the crime itself, depriving incarcerated people of the second chances they earn.

In North Carolina Prisons, a Missed Opportunity in the Battle Against Opioids, Prison Journalism Project

Danielle Squillante, Development and Communications Associate, says:

As we argued in our article Addicted to punishment, prison administrations would rather invest in punitive responses to drug use than provide medication-assisted treatment, clinical treatment, and peer recovery groups — despite the fact that so many imprisoned people struggle with substance use disorders. As K.C. Johnson writes, prisons not only fail to provide treatment options for people so they can become more stable, but they also fail to curb the influx of drugs into the prisons, putting imprisoned people who use drugs at risk of overdosing. It's a crisis of their own making, one that has serious consequences for people in prison.

Scorching Cells, Reuters

Regan Huston, Digital Communications Strategist, says:

Everyone knows that summer heat can be intense, but not everyone has felt the sweltering conditions of prison cells – this immersive piece gives readers a glimpse at just how dire the situation can be. The scroll-through animations paired with thorough storytelling provide a unique approach to an often-overlooked issue.

Video explainers from MLK50's Creator In Residence, Amber Sherman

Regan Huston, Digital Communications Strategist, says:

With more people getting their news from social media, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, an outlet in Memphis, is meeting audiences where they are at by starting a "Creator In Residence" position in their newsroom. Their Creator in Residence, TikToker Amber Sherman, has an impressive following and an easy rapport with her audience, along with the support of a trustworthy outlet. Her explainers about Memphis's courts and jails — such as this one about the city juvenile court concealing its proceedings — break down complex issues in the criminal legal system.

Kentucky Parole Board series, Northern Kentucky Tribune (parts one, two, three and four)

Leah Wang, Senior Research Analyst, says:

How do parole boards work and what principles guide their decisions? We set out to answer these questions this year in our report Parole in Perspective; meanwhile, journalist R.G. Dunlop tackled the same questions — and put a human face to them — in his four-part series on parole in Kentucky. The series is about a lot more than parole, though, diving into the difficulties of aging in prison and the costs — fiscal and moral — that Kentucky has taken on by handing out so many life sentences.

Beth Shelburne's Substack Moth to Flame

Leah Wang, Senior Research Analyst, says:

Beth is an independent journalist and co-produced the stunning HBO documentary The Alabama Solution. Her Substack, like most of her reporting, focuses on Alabama, which is good because there is a lot to say about Alabama's broken and deadly prison system. She has touched on corruption and failures of accountability within ADOC, deaths in Alabama prisons and the families who grieve, and following the money behind ADOC contracts and lawsuits. But she's also a human and that element comes through between her deep investigative stories.

High-priced lawyers for Alabama DOC using AI to file motions (parts one, two, and three), AL.com

Mike Wessler, Communications Director, says:

This series by John Archibald ties together a lot of threads that show how deep the problems in the criminal legal system really are. First, it is based in Alabama, which consistently has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Next, it highlights that the state is so used to being sued for the inhumane conditions of its prisons that it has enlisted the help of a high-priced law firm to handle the issue, costing taxpayers big time. It also shows the unreasonable hurdles that incarcerated people face when seeking protection from the courts, and the ways that the system defaults to siding with prison officials over the incarcerated. And finally, it highlights the truly insidious ways that artificial intelligence is quickly creeping into the criminal legal system, almost always in ways that will make the lives of incarcerated people and their loved ones even worse.

Reported Crime May Be Falling At A Historic Rate In The US, Jeff-Alytics

Sarah Staudt, Policy and Advocacy Director, says:

We're seeing an expansion of the carceral state in 2025: ICE raids, counties forcing through massive new jails (and states building new prisons), expansions of electronic monitoring. So it's important to remember that amid all this, crime is actually at a historic low. Jeff Asher's levelheaded Substack is a great source of perspective on crime-related issues and trends. In this piece he explains that crime across several categories fell at historic rates in 2025. With everyone from big-box retail stores to the Trump administration claiming that crime is on the rise, and that this merits even more investment in incarceration, this kind of historic view is critical.

Michigan inmates struggle to get help from little-known $19M fund for prisoner needs, Detroit Free Press

Wanda Bertram, Communications Strategist, says:

In Michigan, revenue from incarcerated people's purchases on commissary and phone calls goes into a "Prisoner Benefit Fund." But the money has largely sat idle, reporter Paul Egan found. The fund held $19 million at the end of 2024, and has sometimes gone toward maintenance costs, like an $86,500 roofing project. Meanwhile, incarcerated people — who have little say in how the money is spent — have gone without basic needs like toothbrushes, deodorant, and envelopes. This is a great piece highlighting how prisons squeeze incarcerated people and their families to fund operations, laundered through the notion of a charitable fund. (For more on these "welfare funds" in prisons, see our 2024 report Shadow Budgets.)

Priced Out of Phone Calls Home, Bolts

Peter Wagner, Executive Director, says:

Phillip Vance Smith, writing from Neuse Correctional Center in North Carolina, compellingly lays out the consequences of the FCC abruptly suspending its 2024 caps on prison phone and video calling rates. Just after these caps went into effect in the spring, the agency suspended them, yanking an economic justice victory away from millions of families who would have benefited. (After publication, the FCC doubled down, with an October order gutting its 2024 rules.) Smith explains the seriousness of this defeat: People he knows will go on paying hundreds of dollars every month to communicate with a single incarcerated loved one, and those on the inside, who often cannot shoulder the cost of calls, will lose family connections over time.