This collaborative effort between National Public Radio (NPR) and Picture Projects offers an intimate portrait of the US criminal justice system, involving inmates, legal and law enforcement professionals, victims, and families. This site features two stories, but also offers a number of photos, additional audio commentary, transcripts, and background information. Other resources include a...

Released by Human Rights Watch, this report examines the recent history of capital punishment of mentally retarded offenders in the United States, offering "the first comprehensive human rights-based analysis of such executions." The report reveals that 25 US states still permit the execution of offenders with mental retardation and that at least 35 such offenders have been executed since 1976....

Despite a non-binding Congressional resolution condemning the action, President Clinton gave final approval yesterday to the Bureau of Prisons for the release of eleven members of a militant Puerto Rican nationalist group who agreed to renounce violence in return for clemency. Two others, already out of prison, will have their fines reduced if they respond positively to the deal by this evening....

The US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics recently updated this massive database to include selected data through 1996. Lotus spreadsheets (.wk1) are available in 55 subjects covering crimes and arrests, criminal justice, and general demography. The data is "aggregated...from a wide variety of published sources" and presented in this format to facilitate further analysis. Data is...

This spotlight feature from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service is a helpful primer and reference resource on drug courts. Although they differ by jurisdiction, drug courts share the common goal of reducing recidivism through supervised treatment and rehabilitation rather than prison terms. At the site, visitors will find a summary of drug courts which links to a number of related...

What is life really like behind bars? Get an inside look into criminal justice with this weekly literary series from The Marshall Project (a nonprofit journalism platform dedicated to criminal justice), that gathers "first-person essays from those who work or live in the criminal justice system." This resource features short nonfiction essays from various perspectives of stakeholders in the...

Since NORC at the University of Chicago was founded in 1941, the independent research organization has been collecting data and developing analytic tools to inform public policy on a range of topics, from economics to education to sustainability. This special section on Criminal Justice offers readers access to some of NORC's most notable work, for, as the site mentions, "A fair and effective...

The Department of Justice placed online in November 1999 the complete text of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 1998-1999 lecture series. The collection includes papers by Max Kleinman on "getting deterrence right," Felton Earls on "the importance of men and fathers in socializing children and building the community," and Sissela Bok on the media's influence in shaping the public perception...

This collaborative effort between National Public Radio (NPR) and Picture Projects offers an intimate portrait of the US criminal justice system, involving inmates, legal and law enforcement professionals, victims, and families. This site is the homepage for a new series from the producer of the acclaimed Teenage Diaries radio series. The Prison Diaries series is based on audio journals kept by...

The podcast Serial has been entrancing audiences since it first launched in 2014, and as of this writing, it is the most popular podcast of all time. Each season of this innovative podcast tells a different story from the criminal justice system, and one of the many things that sets Serial apart is the way it lets listeners in on the process of investigative journalism. In its groundbreaking first...