Category: JDI in the News

Prison work assignments used to lure and rape female inmates. Guards sometimes walk free

  • Margie Mason and Robin McDowell
  • October 31, 2024
  • Associated Press

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — It was after midnight when she crept down the narrow, dimly lit stairs carrying a bag of dirty laundry. She crossed under a patchwork of pipes and ducts to the far back corner of the basement, as she had done many times before. That, she said, is where correctional officer James

‘People Will Die’ from Trump’s Trans Prisoner Crackdown, Experts Warn

  • Adam M. Rhodes
  • January 22, 2025
  • The Appeal

One of Trump’s first executive orders says federal prisons must house trans women in men’s facilities and directs the government to remove anti-rape protections for trans prisoners. On the first day of his second presidential term, Donald Trump severely restricted transgender prisoners’ access to safe housing and proper medical care. Trump’s series of sweeping executive

Christmas, Incarcerated

  • Tana Ganeva
  • December 23, 2024
  • Truthdig

A card-writing program brings light to what can be a dark time of the year for prisoners. On a February afternoon in 1985, Robbie Hall was walking home from her job as a janitor in an office building in Los Angeles when a man came up behind her, grabbed her, dragged her to an alley,

A Prison Rape Survivor Demands Smart, Safe and Humane Transfers

  • Johanna Mills
  • November 22, 2024
  • The Marshall Project

When the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced in April of this year that it was closing the federal women’s prison in Dublin, California, there were some people who celebrated the news. I understand why: Detention facilities are cruel and dehumanizing places. One less prison in this country — especially one as nightmarish as Dublin — feels

Colorado Prisons Just Got a Little Safer for Trans Women

  • Orion Rummler & Candice Norwood
  • June 14, 2024
  • Yes! Magazine

Taliyah Murphy, a transgender woman living in Colorado Springs, studies accounting and finance. She co-owns two small businesses with her fiancé and eventually wants to start a financial education nonprofit for marginalized people. For Murphy, starting her gender transition helped her focus on her education as she developed her career—but she faced near-impossible barriers at