The Marshall Project Gives the Big U.S. Picture
By Pam Gates
I have become a subscriber to the Marshall Project, a free news service that collects important stories about all aspects of the criminal-legal system across the country – police activity, correctional facilities, individual cases, court decisions, etc., etc. I receive several emails from them every week, with brief summaries and links to fuller accounts with thorough documentation. You can request emails in specific areas of interest only, in lieu of everything they produce.
The Marshall Project was founded by Bill Keller, who wrote the excellent book What Is Prison For?, reviewed in this newsletter in 2023. Keller’s basic premise was that correctional facilities need to be just that: facilities for correcting, not punishing, the behaviors that got people into them. He described approaches to this issue in Norway and Germany, where prisoners are treated with respect and all personnel are expected to be part of their rehabilitation team.
I have to pick and choose among my Marshall Project emails, because I can’t possibly read them all. But I think this is an excellent resource to try, at least temporarily, for anyone who wants to get a bigger picture of what’s going on all over the U.S. in the specific areas that concern those of us in MOSES. The project’s email address is: info@themarshallproject.org.