prison-industrial complex
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Two Black Men Who Spent Nearly 18 Years in a Michigan Prison for a Crime They Didn't Commit File $160 Million Lawsuit
It’s not always easy being a writer whose main focus is documenting racism and racial injustice in America. It’s a job that consistently requires the covering of sad and often infuriating stories. Among the hardest stories to cover are those that involve Black people spending years and even decades in prison for crimes they didn’t…
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'I Feel Like I'm Finna Die': Why Everyone in Alabama's Prison System Has a Death Sentence [Updated]
For a portion of his 22 years, Bernard Jemison has been incarcerated at Kilby Correctional Facility, a maximum-security penitentiary located just outside of Montgomery, Ala. According to Alabama Department of Corrections documents reviewed by The Root, in September, 1031 men were housed in a prison designed to hold 440 men, an occupancy rate of 234…
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'If Black Lives Matter, What Are You Doing About Detroit Pistons Owner Tom Gores?': Advocacy Group Calls Out NBA In Full-Page Newspaper Ad
If you cracked open the New York Times on Sunday, you might’ve been greeted by the following full-page ad: “If Black Lives Matter, what are you doing about Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores?” That’s a hell of a question. And if you ask Worth Rises, a New York-based non-profit that would love nothing more than…
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Philadelphia Man Shot by Police and Falsely Convicted of Rape Exonerated After 19 Years in Prison
Listen: Stories about Black men spending years and even decades behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit are never stories you want to hear. But there are certain stories where the degree of racism, injustice and cruel behavior on the part of law enforcement and the criminal justice system is so inconceivably egregious that even…
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Black Man Exonerated and Released From Nashville Prison After Serving 15 Years for a Murder He Didn't Commit
After spending 15 years in a Nashville, Tenn., prison, a Black man was exonerated of a brutal murder after a judge ruled that he was wrongfully convicted. CNN reports that 41-year-old Joseph Webster was released from prison Tuesday following a four-year effort by his attorneys to have his 2005 conviction overturned and the charges against…
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63-Year-Old Black Man Granted Parole After Spending Nearly 24 Years in Louisiana Prison for Stealing Hedge Clippers
In August, The Root reported that 63-year-old Fair Wayne Bryant—who was given a life sentence for stealing a pair of hedge clippers in Shreveport, La., more than 20 years ago—was denied a request to have his sentence reviewed by the Louisiana Supreme Court. Since Bryant had already spent much of his adult life behind bars…
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Louisiana Supreme Court Decides a Black Man Should Stay in Prison for the Rest of His Life for Stealing Hedge Clippers
There has been plenty of discussion about whether prison is more about rehabilitation, punishment or keeping society safe. However, for Black people especially, it often seems like there’s a fourth option: Prison is about throwing undesirable people away. More than 20 years ago, a Black man was given a life sentence for stealing a pair…
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WNBA Star Maya Moore Earns MVP Off the Court by Helping Wrongly Convicted Black Man Regain His Freedom
As a young girl, Maya Moore dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player. But after conquering the sport as an adult, and abandoning that dream in order to pursue criminal justice reform, another dream of hers has now become a reality. ESPN reports that after putting her WNBA career on pause in 2019 in order…
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The 'Forgotten Population': Yusef Salaam Speaks Out About COVID-19 and the Prison Industrial Complex
“There’s going to be a more serious health crisis as it relates to the prison industrial complex and a prison population. Whatever we are seeing in the world is going to be times ten—it’s going to be magnified in the prison industrial complex.” —Yusef Salaam, Ph.D. text In the state of New York alone, there…
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Another Black Man Wrongfully Convicted: New DNA Screening Process Puts Lydell Grant Close to Exoneration
There’s a reason I am, like many people, against the death penalty. Certainly, there are criminals who have done things heinous enough that they deserve to be put down, but the finality of it all makes the decision on whether or not someone should die something I just don’t trust the American justice system with. I…