Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is suffering multiple health problems and may die in prison, say legal advocates in a request they filed today that asks the United Nations to support his release. Abu-Jamal was a Black Panther and journalist when he was convicted of the murder of a police officer.

Legal Team of Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal Appeals to the UN for Support

Lawyers are appealing to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which had urged the release of Leonard Peltier.

buff.ly

Sanaa and our other summer interns have been an excellent addition to our team, and we foresee great things in their futures. @fordhamlawnyc.bsky.social news.law.fordham.edu/blog/2026/07...

Advocating for Human Rights: Meet Sanaa Akindele ’28 JD

The Abolitionist Law Center, where Sanaa Akindele ’28 JD is interning this summer, is a non-profit law firm based in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia that supports litigation on behalf of people

news.law.fordham.edu

ALC supports HB 1042, which grants parole eligibility after 30 years served for the 1k+ people now doing LWOP for 2nd-degree, with further guidelines by the Sentencing Commission. SB 1400 would instead make our state the 3rd most punitive in US for 2nd-degree. PA doesn't need more incarceration.

Lawmakers miss deadline to rewrite Pennsylvania's second-degree murder law - Metro Philadelphia

Pennsylvania lawmakers missed a court-imposed deadline to rewrite the state's second-degree murder law after the Supreme Court struck down mandatory life without parole.

metrophiladelphia.com

"In 2004, when I was 16 years old, I spent 78 days in Savannah Regional Youth Detention Center. Twenty-two years later, I am still reeling from the effects, most often in the form of violent flashbacks."

I Spent 78 Days in a Violent Youth Jail. I Have PTSD for Life.

Vivid flashbacks, extreme anxiety and feelings of isolation continue to plague me 22 years later.

themarshallproject.org

New in books: It starts with questioning the legitimacy of the camps. In this excerpt, John Washington of Lookout News explains how we got here ... and looks toward a future where we put an end to immigrant detention.

Excerpt: How to Close a Camp

Detention was sold as both a law-and-order necessity and an economic opportunity, welding together the rac­ist politics of the drug war with the rise of private prisons.

texasobserver.org

Mumia Abu-Jamal is approaching the 45th anniversary of his incarceration. Today, he took his claim of arbitrary imprisonment for a crime he did not commit to a new tribunal: the United Nations. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Imprisoned writer Mumia Abu-Jamal seeks UN intervention after 44 years behind bars

The former Black Panther’s lawyers ask a UN panel to review his detention after US legal avenues were exhausted

theguardian.com

"We're going to be proactively looking to disseminate lessons and strategies and ways that others can apply what happened here to their own locale. This can and should serve as a model to be adapted to local conditions." – Bret Grote, legal director, Abolitionist Law Center

Pennsylvania Capital-Star@penncapital-star.com · 2w ago

Phillip Ocampo has been incarcerated in Pa. since was 18 years old. Now 50, he is one of 1,131 people serving life sentences for felony murder in the state. For much of his life, he said, he thought there was no hope. But that may be about to change. From the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale

"...if the only constitutional power left to “the people” is to sit around, waiting for a Supreme Court justice to die of old age, we live in a medieval monarchy, not a modern, dynamic constitutional system." slate.com/news-and-pol... via @slate.com @dahlialithwick.bsky.social

The Supreme Court Has Gone Off the Rails. There’s an Age-Old American Solution.

We bring you this series on popular constitutionalism—local, organic farm-to-table making of legal meaning—as a thought experiment.

slate.com

Live in Philly: We're not going back! Community leaders, victims advocates & Philadelphia residents have gathered at Salt & Light Church to speak out & condemn the PA Supreme Court for recent racist rulings aimed to perpetuate oppression, harm and marginalization of Black people. snlphilly.com/live

Live - Salt & Light

About Giving Welcome to Salt & Light Live! Tune in to the Salt & Light Experience on the go! Follow us on YouTube for previous broadcasts and more! Select the tabs above to read the bible or give onli...

snlphilly.com

Illinois law requires that the police report traffic stops to state authorities for oversight into what’s going on. Our new investigation has found that the Chicago police has been violating this requirement — keeping ***hundreds of thousands** of stops secret. boltsmag.org/chicago-poli...

Chicago Police Promised to 'Fix' Secret Traffic Stops. A Year Later, the Problem Has Only Gotten Worse. - Bolts

As Chicago’s top cop steps down, police are making fewer traffic stops. But our new investigation finds half of stops are still not being reported to oversight agencies, despite a state law mandating ...

boltsmag.org

As previously reported by WESA, the nine-member board has largely moved substantive discussions about healthcare, staffing, uses of force and the welfare of incarcerated people from monthly public meetings to subcommittee meetings not open to the public.

Advocates warn Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board may run afoul of state public meeting laws

The board has used closed-door committee meetings to discuss uses of force, healthcare, and other issues.

wesanews.org

"Prisoners in solitary confinement like Jason Wilson are basically being cooked to death.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

One Million Experiments explores snapshots of community-based projects that expand ideas about what keeps us safe. To subscribe and get info about amazing projects like The Radical Monarchs right in your inbox, go here:

One Million Experiments | Substack

One Million Experiments explores snapshots of community-based projects that expand our ideas about what keeps us safe.

substack.com

How did an inmate end up dead just minutes after being moved into general population at the Allegheny County Jail? A TribLive investigation examines the unanswered questions, security concerns and possible failures that may have allowed the fatal attack to happen.

Questions remain over fatal attack at Allegheny County Jail — and possible failures that allowed it to happen

Two months after a group of inmates beat a man to death inside the Allegheny County Jail, binding his wrists with a mesh bag and leaving his cell spattered with blood, it remains unclear how such a br...

triblive.com

We're hiring a FT paralegal for our Philadelphia office to work with our legal dept on litigation, investigation, and research tasks, communicating with incarcerated clients, managing case files, and managing intake correspondence. Salary: starts $57,500 abolitionistlawcenter.org/jobs-and-int...

A project by photographer Daniella Zalcman shows the casual prevalence of goods made by prison labor in public and private spaces. www.themarshallproject.org/2026/07/09/p...

The War on Drugs, which is 55 years old this summer, "reshaped the front end of the criminal justice system and laid the groundwork for a dramatic expansion of pretrial detention." Nicole Zayas Manzano from The Bail Project lays out the harm it continues to do.

How the War on Drugs Packed Jails - Nicole Zayas Manzano - Inquest

The impact of the War on Drugs continues to be felt in how it dramatically expanded the use of pretrial detention and bail.

inquest.org

The 5th Circuit is “one of the worst in the country, so I don’t have high hopes that this would be overturned, although I hope that there is a judge on that circuit who will look at it and say that this is an injustice.” — ALC exec dir Saleem Holbrook www.salon.com/2026/07/03/p... via @salon.com

Prairieland sentences brings war on terror home - Salon.com

Protesters at ICE's Prairieland facility recieved far harsher sentences than anyone from Jan. 6's violent mob

salon.com

In May, the PA Supreme Court ruled in Commonwealth v. Lee that mandatory life w/o parole sentences for 2nd-degree murder are unconstitutional. The PA General Assembly has until 7/24 to rectify these illegal sentences. Join us Thurs eve for updates on this legislative battle for 2nd chances.

Commonwealth v. Derek Lee Debrief #4

Please join us on Thursday, July 2 at 6:00 PM as we discuss updates on efforts to end PA's mandatory life without parole sentences for 2nd-degree murder following the PA Supreme Court's March 26th Commonwealth v. Derek Lee decision that they are unconstitutional.

bit.ly

The US Supreme Court should not have taken up the Trump administration’s case on whether the 14th Amendment actually ensures birthright citizenship, something that has been long settled. Doing so was racist overreach.

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court struck down mandatory life without parole for felony murder. 1,000+ people condemned to die for deaths they never intended. The legislature has 30 days. Ep. 492 with Nia Holston and Sean Damon @abolitionistlawcenter.org //open.spotify.com/episode/2iazbbnPvv3z4AWYuhnNL2

Every jail has a duty to protect & care for the people it is holding. Join us on Thursday as we push for transparency & human rights at the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board monthly public meeting. July 2 | 4:00 p.m. Allegheny County Courthouse, 4th Floor Gold Room 436 Grant St. Pgh

The Marshall Project@themarshallproject.org · last mo.

Local officials often aim to block the public from seeing what goes on inside a jail. But the emergency calls they make can offer a window into how people inside are treated.

Psst - we could also reduce prison sentences for men, even violent offenders, without an increase in violent crime because – and the research is clear – INCARCERATION DOESN'T REALLY DETER OR REDUCE SOCIETAL VIOLENCE.

Guardian US@us.theguardian.com · last mo.

Research shows that reducing sentences for women could save tax dollars with virtually no increase in violent crime

Gutting safety net programs does real harm to low-income households & communities—increasing poverty, trauma, and mental health issues at all ages. It's a perfect recipe to fuel "crime" rates, grease the school-to-prison pipeline, and keep jails & prisons full. www.propublica.org/article/snap...

More Than 770,000 Children Are No Longer Receiving SNAP Benefits After Trump Changes Federal Food Program

Republican backers of Trump’s signature domestic policy bill repeatedly claimed that revisions to the food benefits program wouldn’t affect the most vulnerable. But reports from a dozen states show ch...

propublica.org

Philly - join us Thurs 6/25 11 AM. Stand against anti-blackness. Stand with victims of violence & mass incarceration. Stand with the Philadelphia DA elected by our communities. abolitionistlawcenter.org/2026/06/23/j...

Jun. 25: Tell the PA Supreme Court We Won’t Go Back – Press Conference

On June 16, the PA Supreme Court handed down a decision that will block Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner from pursuing justice on behalf of incarcerated people.

abolitionistlawcenter.org

Happy Father's Day to all the incarcerated fathers and their families out there. This new @themarshallproject.org resource is a moving reminder of the shared humanity between those inside & out. We are all humans who love our kids & want what's best for them.

The Marshall Project@themarshallproject.org · 2mo ago

Prison life comes with specific constraints shaping how a parent can show up in their child’s life. We're launching Sending Kites, a new monthly column that explores different challenges faced by people with incarcerated loved ones, starting with the topic of parenting from prison.

It's always been difficult to get help inside federal prison. But it's become nearly impossible, according to federal data analyzed by The Marshall Project and NPR. The rate at which the bureau granted grievances has fallen to less than 2% in 2023, the last full year of data available.

‘Rejected’: How Federal Prisons Stonewall Grievances and Deny Care for Years

A law forces people in federal prisons to file grievances before they can sue in court. But less than 2% of filings are granted.

themarshallproject.org

We'll be with @nkcdc.bsky.social this afternoon for Remembering Lives, Reimagining Futures, a launch event for their June series exploring the state & future of Justice Reform in Philadelphia – part of A People’s Exposition at the Kensington Engagement Center! nkcdc.org/a-peoples-ex...

Something to keep in mind when you hear "If they didn't want to do the time, they shouldn't have done the crime". Built into the system is an incentive to plead guilty that is only surmounted if you have the money to mount a proper defense – rare for those caught up in the carceral system.

NACDL@nacdl.org · 2mo ago

3/7 The "trial penalty" is real: fewer than 3% of federal criminal cases go to trial. Defendants who exercise their constitutional right routinely face sentences many times longer than if they'd just pled guilty.

"I make around $4,300 a month. But once I pay to care for my two kids, my car note and insurance, and help my mom with utilities, I have nothing left. So while I’ve paid what I can on the restitution since May, I live in constant fear because I just don’t make enough money."

I Have No Way to Pay My Six-Figure Restitution

I Have No Way to Pay My Six-Figure Restitution

themarshallproject.org