The AppealOpinion

Despite Increased Profits, Private Prison Companies Want to Cage Even More People

CoreCivic and GEO Group’s investors expressed frustration that ICE’s record immigration detention numbers aren’t high enough.
The Appeal

Sarah Beebe

Imprisoned people are forced to drink and bathe with water they describe as over-chlorinated, slimy, and foul-smelling.
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ICE-Cold Cash: Private Prison Companies and Executives Have Donated Millions to Members of Congress

Over the same five-year period, GEO Group’s PAC (Political Action Committee) outspent CoreCivic and MTC, donating more than $280,000 to current members of Congress. CoreCivic donated more than ...
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New York’s Imprisoned Women Brave Risks to Sue Sexual Abusers Under New Law

Content Warning: This story contains depictions of sexual harassment and abuse. Kim Brown says she met a lieutenant at New York’s Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 1996 or 1997 when she was sent ...
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Virginia Becomes the First Southern State to Abolish the Death Penalty

Abolition advocates are celebrating a milestone for racial justice. Virginia, the state that has executed more people than any other in the nation, has abolished the death penalty. The legislation ...
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Cops Used the Shoplifting Panic to Buy Tons of New Equipment

Retail theft has dominated headlines, earnings calls, and political rhetoric for the last few years. Television news shows loop seemingly endless clips of people shoplifting. CEO’s claimed that retail ...
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Risk Assessment: Explained

Over the past decade, a growing number of cities, counties and states have recognized the profound injustice of a cash bail system, in which people who can afford bail walk free while those who can’t ...
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In U.S. Courts, Anti-LGBTQ+ Bias Can Be a Death Sentence

“A normal heterosexual person would not be so offended […] as to murder,” a prosecutor argued in a capital case in the late 1990s in rural Illinois. “I hope you die in prison like all the rest of your ...
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The Movement to Decriminalize Psilocybin, Explained

The latest frontier in drug reform has been the loosening of legal restrictions on psilocybin—the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms.” Psilocybin reform is an important development for at least ...
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U.S. Police Dogs Originated from Slavery—and Must Be Abolished

The Thirteenth Amendment purported to abolish chattel slavery, along with what an 1883 Supreme Court decision called its “badges and incidents.” But the amendment left some infamous carve-outs: Namely ...
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The Struggle Against A Stadium’s Construction Became A Battle for the Soul Of Los Angeles

This commentary is part of The Appeal’s collection of opinion and analysis. In Los Angeles, residents of historically Black and Latinx neighborhoods are being pushed out of their homes as the ...