prison

CoreCivic applied this week to receive a special use permit from Leavenworth to reopen its prison as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee center, called the Midwest Regional Reception Center. A federal judge previously called CoreCivic's facility “an absolute hell hole.”

Current and former employees at Jefferson City Correctional Center say the nursing shortage is causing unrest. They blame the state's contractor, Centurion Health.

For years, the Missouri Department of Corrections was not actually keeping track of the people who died in state prisons — with partial counts, missing names and flat-out wrong information being standard procedure. That is, until a Marshall Project reporter started asking questions.

For years, the Missouri Department of Corrections cobbled together death records from multiple sources. New data reveals, for the first time, that hundreds of people died in state prisons between 2018 to 2024.

Judy Henderson spent 35 years in prison for a murder conviction, despite maintaining that she was innocent. Freed by the Missouri governor, Henderson's new autobiography “When the Light Finds Us,” documents the cruelty of the state's prisons and what it took her to keep going.

Last month, the Kansas Department of Corrections suddenly canceled subscriptions purchased by outside parties for those in state custody. The move confounded newspaper publishers and concerned press freedom advocates.

As the heat index hit 105 degrees, lawyers requested swift cooling measures in a Missouri prison with no A/C. One man shares the dangerous conditions inside while people await a judge’s ruling.

Families of incarcerated people in Kansas were long able to take out a newspaper subscription in a person’s name and have it delivered to a state facility. The Kansas Department of Corrections changed that policy without notice, claiming safety concerns but causing confusion.

The working group established by Gov. Mike Kehoe to look at the regulations governing parole has met twice since a public hearing in June. Neither the public nor the media was notified of either meeting.

More than 30% of formerly incarcerated Missourians return to prison within three years. It can be hard for these individuals to find a path to reentry, but one group seems to have landed on a solution that’s beginning to keep offenders out of prison for good.

A Black transgender woman sued the Missouri Department of Corrections, claiming officers kept her isolated for six years based on a policy that singles out people with HIV. Missouri is now changing its policy as a result of that settlement.

Kansas City’s Transition Center has trained experts in conflict resolution, job training and wellness. Classes are giving hope to an increasing number of repeat offenders that they can make long-term changes and stay out of prison.