By Lee A. Daniels
What was the scope of the lawlessness some New Orleans police officers unleashed against people in that devastated city in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck?
How many people did officers unlawfully shoot? How many did they kill? How many others were victimized in other ways by police officers’ illegal use of force? [...]

By The Editors
In the past six months two separate bodies investigating New York State’s juvenile prisons – one a federal agency; the other, a state-appointed commission — have produced scathing reports of a system beset by longstanding calamitous problems.

By Maggie Taylor
Freddie Peacock was arrested in July 1976 and later convicted of attacking and raping a woman. Twenty-eight years after his parole in 1982, Peacock became the 250th person nationwide to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

By The Editors
The lawsuit claims that the city’s policing practices in its public housing developments – most notably, its “vertical sweeps” of buildings — “routinely” subject residents and those who visit them to illegal stops and false arrests that serve no lawful purpose.

By Ryan P. Haygood
The 2010 Census affords a unique opportunity to harness the momentum of African-American civic engagement that was forged in the 2008 Presidential election — this time, to ensure complete African-American inclusion.

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
What does a woman do after coming-of -age in Birmingham in the 1950s, after losing two friends in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four little girls in the 1960s, after helping free her very high-profile sister from the clutches of the FBI’s Most Wanted List during the height of Black Power in the 1970s? What does she do after advocating for the end to Apartheid in the 1980s, after working as a Civil Rights trial lawyer through the 1990s?

By Joseph Robinson
A decent job is a critical building block for a successful life. If it cannot be attained, how can there be hope of attaining others, like adequate housing and financial stability? At the time of their incarceration, many people with prison in their past were the family breadwinners. Their return home usually spikes expectations that the family’s financial struggles will be over. Instead, the struggles often worsen.

By Amy Alexander
In 2003, Kamala Harris became the first African-American woman to be elected District Attorney in San Francisco. Re-elected in 2007, Harris continued the innovative law enforcement work she’d begun while serving as managing attorney in the Career Criminal Unit in the SF DA’s office.

By Liz Webster
Thomas McGowan, a Texas exoneree who was released in April 2008, recently had the opportunity to meet the rape victim who had misidentified him nearly a quarter-century before.

By Desiree Cooper
With many states considering closing their prisons in order to balance their budgets, it’s time to ratchet up the national conversation about what to do with a growing number of ex-felons, especially those who are sincerely trying to re-integrate into society