Additional Reading

PART I: CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT

Chapter 1. Prison, Jail, and Prisoners’ Rights: An Introduction

The Reach of the Criminal Justice System: Various Institutions and Punishments

Lawrence Bartley, I Am Not Your Inmate, The Marshall Project (Apr. 12, 2021)
Shawn D. Bushway, Incapacitation, in 4 Reforming Criminal Justice: A Report by the Academy for Justice 37 (2017)
Gabriel J. Chin, The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Incarceration, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1789 (2012)
Comment, Black Muslims in Prison: Of Muslim Rites and Constitutional Rights, 62 Colum. L. Rev. 1488 (1962)
John T. Elliff, The United States Department of Justice and Individual Rights, 1937–1962 (1987) (originally written in 1967 as Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University)
Peter K. Enns et al., What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated?: Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS), 5 Socius 1, 5–6 (2019)
Wynne Muscatine Graham, The Forgotten History of Prison Law: Judicial Oversight of Detention Facilities in the Nation’s Early Years, 138 Harv. L. Rev. 1715 (2025)
Blair Hickman, Inmate. Prisoner. Other. Discussed, The Marshall Project (Apr. 3, 2015)
Laura A. Maruschak et al., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children, 2016 (Mar. 2021)
Reuben Jonathan Miller, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration (Feb. 2021)
Ryan Francis Pollock, Note, The Eyes-On Doctrine, 134 Yale L.J. 200 (2024)
Prison Policy Initiative, Report: Halfway Houses, and appendix (Sept. 2020)
Daniel S. Nagin, Deterrence, in 4 Reforming Criminal Justice: A Report by the Academy for Justice 17 (2017)
National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction
Judith Resnik, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy (2025)
David M. Shapiro, Solitary Confinement in the Young Republic, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 542 (2019)
Maddy Troilo, Prison Policy Initiative, Locking Up Youth with Adults: An Update (Feb. 27, 2018)
Ram Subramanian et al., Vera Institute of Justice, Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America (Feb. 2015)

What is Incarceration For?

K.G. Armstrong, The Retributivist Hits Back, in Theories of Punishment 19–40 (Stanley E. Grupp ed. 1971)
Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon; Or, The Inspection-House (1791)
Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham (John Bowring ed. 1843)
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Alan Sheridan, trans. 1979)
Taja-Nia Y. Henderson, Property, Penality, and (Racial) Profiling, 12 Stan. J. Civ. Rights & Civ. Lib. 177 (2016)
Erik Luna, ed., Reforming Criminal Justice: Punishment, Incarceration, and Release (2017)
Robert Martinson, What Works? Questions and Answers About Prison Reform, The Public Interest (Spring 1974)
Karl Menninger, The Crime of Punishment (1968)
Alexander Paterson, Paterson on Prisons: Being the Collected Papers of Sir Alexander Patterson (1951, S.K. Ruck, ed.)
David Roodman, The Impacts of Incarceration on Crime, Open Philanthropy Project (Sept. 2017)
Emily Widra & Wanda Sawyer, Prison Policy Initiative, Who is Jailed, How Often, and Why (Nov. 27, 2024)
Franklin E. Zimring & Gordon Hawkins, Incapacitation: Penal Confinement and the Restraint of Crime (1988)

Prison Abolition

Allegra M. McLeod, Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice, 62 UCLA L. Rev. 1156 (2015)
Dorothy E. Roberts, The Supreme Court 2018 Term, Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (2019)
Podcast: Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition (Jun. 10, 2020)

Prisoners’ Rights Litigation

Alison Brill, Note, Rights Without Remedy: The Myth of State Court Accessibility After the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 30 Cardozo L. Rev. 645 (2008)
Arthur B. Caldwell & Sydney Brodie, Enforcement of the Criminal Civil Rights Statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 242, in Prison Brutality Cases, 52 Geo. L.J. 706 (1964)(no free online version available; via Hein Online here)
Ira P. Robbins, The Cry of Wolfish in the Federal Courts: The Future of Federal Judicial Intervention in Prison Administration, 71 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 211 (1980)
David J. Rothman, Decarcerating Prisoners and Patients, 1 Civ. Liberties Rev. 8 (1973)
Margo Schlanger, Beyond the Hero Judge: Institutional Reform Litigation As Litigation, 97 Mich. L. Rev. 1994 (1999)
Margo Schlanger, Civil Rights Injunctions Over Time: A Case Study of Jail and Prison Court Orders, 81 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 550 (2006)
Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (2016)
William Bennett Turner, When Prisoners Sue: A Study of Prisoner Section 1983 Cases in the Federal Courts, 92 Harv. L. Rev. 610 (1979)
Note, Beyond the Ken of the Courts: A Critique of Judicial Refusal to Review the Complaints of Convicts, 72 Yale L.J. 506 (1963)

Chapter 2. Conditions of Confinement

Chronic Punishment: The unmet health needs of people in state prisons, Prison Policy Initiative (Jun. 2022)
Benjamin G. Cloyd, Haunted by Atrocity: Civil War Prisons in American Memory (2010)
Sharon Dolovich, The Coherence of Prison Law, 135 Harv. L. Rev. Forum 302 (2022)
Sam McCann, What is Cruel and Unusual Punishment?, Vera (Dec. 2024)
Margo Schlanger, Restoring Objectivity to the Constitutional Law of Incarceration, ACS Issue Brief (Sept. 2018)
Heather Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (2017)
Homer Venters, Life and Death in Rikers Island (2019)
COVID-19 behind bars
- Sharon Dolovich, Mass Incarceration, Meet COVID-19, U.Chi. L. Rev. Online (Nov. 16, 2020)
- Brendan Saloner, COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in Federal and State Prisons, 324 JAMA 602 (2020)

Leah Wang, Why Prisoners Get The Doctors No One Else Wants, Taylor Elizabeth Eldridge, The Appeal (Nov. 8, 2019)

Chapter 3. Solitary Confinement

History of American Solitary Confinement & General Information

Association of State Correctional Administrators & Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School, Reforming Restrictive Housing: The 2018 ASCA-Liman Nationwide Survey of Time-in-Cell (Oct. 2018)
Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States, and its Application in France 1 (1833)
Amy Fettig, Are We Reaching a Tipping Point in the Campaign to End Solitary Confinement? (2020) [Begins on Page 2]
Amy Fettig, Why I Worked on the Mandela Rules (2020)
Jules Lobel, Mass Solitary and Mass Incarceration: Explaining the Dramatic Rise on Prolonged Solitary in America’s Prisons, 115 Nw. U. L. Rev. 159 (2020)
Keramet Reiter, The Most Restrictive Alternative: A Litigation History of Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons, 1960-2006, 57 Studies in Law, Politics, and Soc’y 71 (2012)
Chase Riveland, Nat’l Inst. of Corr., Supermax Prisons: Overview and General Considerations, 1 (1999)
American Friends Service Committee, Lessons of Marion: The Failure of a Maximum Security Prison (1985)
David Shapiro, Solitary Confinement in the Young Republic, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 542 (2019)

Contemporary Accounts

Timeline of solitary confinement reform steps
Todd Ashker, describing California reform campaign
Michael Barajas, The Prison Inside Prison, Texas Observer (Jan. 21, 2020)
Leann K. Bertsch, Reflections on North Dakota’s Sustained Solitary Confinement Reform, in Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways toward Reform 325 (Jules Lobel & Peter Scharff Smith, eds, 2020)
Alan Duke, “Forgotten” inmate gets $15.5 million settlement from N.M. county, CNN (Mar. 8, 2013)
Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga & Brooke Abrams, Solitary Confinement in New Mexico: A Review of Policies, Practices, and Inmate Experience in Isolation (ACLU of New Mexico, 2019)
6×9: a virtual experience of solitary confinement – 360 video, The Guardian (Apr. 27, 2016)
Mary Hudetz, Solitary confinement suits cost NM counties millions, Las Cruces Sun News, (Mar. 6, 2017)
Jules Lobel & Peter Scharff Smith, eds., Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways toward Reform (2020)
Keramet Reiter, 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement (2016)
Rick Raemisch, Colorado Ends Prolonged, Indeterminate Solitary Confinement, in Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways toward Reform 311 (Jules Lobel & Peter Scharff Smith, eds, 2020)
Alexander A. Reinert, Solitary Troubles, 93 Notre Dame L. Rev. 927 (2018)
John Stinneford, Is Solitary Confinement A Punishment, 115 Nw. U. L. Rev. 9 (2020)

Standards & Statements Relating to Solitary Confinement

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Bar Association
ACLU Stop Solitary Campaign (2011)
American Correctional Association
American Institute of Architects
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) resolution
American Psychiatric Association
- Position Statement on Restrictive Housing of Incarcerated Adults with Serious Mental Illness
- APA Resolution Opposing Involuntary Individual Isolation of Youth in Juvenile Justice Settings
Consensus Statement from the Santa Cruz Summit on Solitary Confinement and Health
National Commission on Correctional Health Care

Chapter 4. Programming, Work, Reentry

Ryanne Bamieh, Note, The New Abolition: The Legal Consequences of Ending All Slavery and Involuntary Servitude, 50 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 245 (2024)
Sachini N. Bandara et al., Leveraging the Affordable Care Act to Enroll Justice-Involved Populations in Medicaid, 34 Health Aff. 2044 (2015)
Ingrid A. Binswanger et al., Release from Prison—A High Risk of Death for Former Inmates, 356 New Eng. J. Med. 157 (2007)
Robert Bozick et al., Does Providing Inmates with Education Improve Postrelease Outcomes? A Meta-Analysis of Correctional Education Programs in the United States, 14 J. Exp. Crim. 329 (2018)
Jennifer Bronson et al., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Drug Use, Dependence, and Abuse Among State Prisoners and Jail Inmates, 2007-2009 (Jun. 2017)
Jennifer Bronson & Marcus Berzofsky, Dep’t of Justice, Indicators of Mental Health Problems Reported by Prisoners and Jail Inmates, 2011-12 (Jun. 2017)
Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, ACLU (Jun. 2022)
Collateral Consequences Research Center, Legislative Update (last accessed Aug. 2, 2025)
Roxanne Daniel & Wendy Sawyer, What you should know about halfway houses, Prison Policy Initiative (Sept. 2020)
Adam A. Davidson, No Exceptions: The New Movement to Abolish Slavery and Involuntary Servitude, U. Chi. L. Rev. (2025)
Nazish Dholakia, After 30 Years, The First Program to Offer Pell Grants to Incarcerated Students Has Launched, Vera (Mar. 2024)
FAMILIES USA, Medicaid Eligibility for People Leaving Incarceration is Smart Policy (Jul. 12, 2016)
Federal Student Aid, Approved Prison Education Programs
Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program
Kaiser Family Foundation, Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map (Aug. 2, 2025)
Jackson Taylor Kirklin, Title VII Protections for Inmates: A Model Approach for Safeguarding Civil Rights in America’s Prisons, 111 Colum. L. Rev. 1048 (2011)
Marcus Lane & Sam McCann, People Need Transportation Access After Release from Jail and Prison, Vera (Oct. 5, 2023)
Alex Lichtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South (1996)
Adam Looney & Nicholas Turner, Brookings Institute, Work and Opportunity Before and After Incarceration (Mar. 2018)
Jessica Mack & Gloria Choi, From Harassment to Retaliation: The Shocking Injustice in Federal Prison Reentry, Remedy Project (Mar. 7, 2024)
Marshall Project, Prison Money Diaries: What People Really Make (and Spend) Behind Bars (Aug. 2022)
Sam McCann, How “Collateral Consequences” Keep People Trapped in the Legal System, Vera (Nov. 2023)
Ryan Moser, Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation, JSTOR (Nov. 2023)
Nat’l Ass’n of Ctys., Health Coverage and County Jails Suspension vs. Termination (Dec. 2014)
Nat’l Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Convictions (last accessed Aug. 2, 2025)
N.Y. Temporary State Commission on Management and Productivity in the Public Sector, The Restitution Center Concept as a Part of the Criminal Justice System (Jun. 1977)
Patrick Oakford et al., Vera Institute of Justice, Investing in Futures: Economic and Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison (2019)
Devah Pager, The Mark of a Criminal Record, 108 Am. J. Soc. 937 (2003)
Michael L. Smith, State Constitutional Prohibitions of Slavery and Involuntary Servitude, 99 Wash. L. Rev. 523 (2024)
Jordan Carlee Smith, Inmate Populations in a Disaster: A Labor Force, a Vulnerable Population and a Hazard, LSU Master’s Thesis (2016)
Shaun Traywick, Alabama Voters Banned Prison Slavery — But Prisoners Say It Hasn’t Stopped, truthout (Jun. 2025)
Anna Wolfe & Michelle Liu, Working Towards Freedom, Mississippi Today (Jan. 9, 2020)
Gary Zajac et al., An Examination of Rural Prisoner Reentry Challenges, Pennsylvania State University (2013)

Chapter 5. Sexual Abuse

General Information

Amnesty International, “Not Part of My Sentence”: Violations of the Human Rights of Women in Custody (1999)
Tanyika Brime, We Can Do Better: The State of Custodial Misconduct by Correctional Staff in New York, 15 Cardozo J.L. & Gender 303 (2009)
Anthea Dinos, Custodial Sexual Abuse: Enforcing Long-Awaited Policies Designed to Protect Female Prisoners, 45 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 281 (2001)
Stephen Donaldson, A Million Jockers, Punks, and Queens, Lecture at Columbia University (Feb. 4, 1992), in Prison Masculinities (Don Sabo et al. eds., 2001)
Human Rights Watch, All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons (1996)
Amy Kapczynski, Same-Sex Privacy and the Limits of Antidiscrimination Law, 112 Yale L.J. 1257 (2003)
Melissa A. Kowalski et al., An Analysis of Statutes Criminalizing Correctional Officer Sexual Misconduct with Inmates, 100 Prison J. 126 (2019)
Teresa A. Miller, Keeping the Government’s Hands Off Our Bodies: Mapping a Feminist Legal Theory Approach to Privacy in Cross-Gender Prison Searches, 4 Buff. Crim. L. Rev. 861 (2001)
Teresa A. Miller, Sex & Surveillance: Gender, Privacy & the Sexualization of Power in Prison, 10 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L.J. 291 (2000)
Heather M. Moss, Correctional Facilities, 9 Geo. J. Gender & L. 609 (2008) (no free online version available; via Hein Online here)
Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Deterring Staff Abuse of Federal Inmates (Apr. 2005)
PREA Resource Center
Brenda V. Smith, Sexual Abuse of Women in United States Prisons: A Modern Corollary of Slavery, 33 Fordham Urb. L.J. 571 (2006)
Brenda V. Smith, American University, Washington College of Law, End Silence: The Project on Addressing Prison Rape
U.S. Attorney’s Office Press Release, Ninth and Tenth FCI Dublin Correctional Officers Charged with Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates (Jun. 26, 2025)

Statistics on Victimization & PREA Implementation

Bureau of Justice Statistics, Allen Beck et al., Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails as Reported by Inmates, 2011-2012 (May 2013)
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Allen Beck et al., Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2012 (June 2013)
Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), in 2022 U.S. Dep’t of Just., Criminal Victimization, 2022 (Sept. 2023)
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sexual Victimization Reported by Adult Correctional Authorities 2012-15 (Jul. 2018)
Centers for Disease Control, National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2015 Data Brief–Updated Release (Nov. 2018)
Bureau of Justice Assistance, Prison Rape Elimination Act [grant recipients]

Trans and Non-Binary Prisoners

Jessica A. Clarke, They, Them, and Theirs, 132 Harv. L. Rev. 894 (2019)
The Conversation, British Prisons Must Now Recognize Gender Fluid and Non-Binary Inmates (Nov. 16, 2016)

PART II: CIVIL LIBERTIES

Chapter 6. Freedom of Expression & Religion

General Information

Andrea Armstrong, Racial Origins of Doctrines Limiting Prisoner Protest Speech, 60 Howard L.J. 221 (2016)
Evan Bianchi and David Shapiro “Locked Up, Shut Up: Why Speech in Prison Matters,” 92 St. John’s Law Review (2018)
Mei-Ling McNamara, U.S. States Move to Stop Prisons Charging Inmates for Reading and Video Calls, The Guardian (Jan. 13, 2020)
George Peter Jr., First amendment under attack in Illinois’ prisons: the price of dissent, American Prison Writing Archive

Art in Prison

Nicole Fleetwood, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020)

Prisoner Writing

Joy James, ed., The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings (2005)
H. Bruce Franklin, ed., Prison Writing in 20th-Century America (1998)
Tyler Wetherall, How Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison Made Life Bearable for Both of Us (Jun. 2019)

Prisoner Videos

The Visiting Room Project (Video interviews of men serving life without parole in Louisiana’s Angola prison)

Chapter 7. Access to the Courts

American Library Association: Prison Libraries
Douglas Ankney, Attorney-Client Privilege Under Attack in Jails Across the Nation, Prison Legal News (May 2, 2019)
Caleb Bedillion, Mississippi Says Poor Defendants Must Always Have a Lawyer. Few Courts Are Ready to Deliver., The Marshall Project (Jul. 2023)
Lynn S. Branham, Limiting the Burdens of Pro Se Inmate Litigation: A Technical-Assistance Manual for Courts, Correctional Officials, and Attorneys General (1997)
Stephen B. Bright, Neither Equal Nor Just: The Rationing and Denial of Legal Services to the Poor When Life and Liberty Are at Stake, 1997 Ann. Surv. Am. L. 783 (1997)
Jill Schachner Chanen, Banned in the Bighouse, A.B.A. J. 26 (March 1998)
Léon Digard & Elizabeth Swavola, Justice Denied: The Harmful and Lasting Effects of Pretrial Detention, Vera (2009)
Michael S. Hamden, North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services: A Model for Other States?, 40 Crim. L. Bull. No. 2 (2004)
Ryan Kost, After Jail Deaths and No Justice, This Kentucky Lawyer Tried to Make a Difference, The Marshall Project (Dec. 2024)
Rachel Poser, Why It’s Nearly Impossible for Prisoners to Sue Prisons, The New Yorker (May 2016)
Evan R. Seamone, Fahrenheit 451 on Cell Block D: A Bar Examination to Safeguard America’s Jailhouse Lawyers from the Post-Lewis Blaze Consuming Their Law Libraries, 24 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 91 (2006)
Gregory Sick et al., Reading the Prisoner’s Letter: Attorney-Client Confidentiality in Inmate Correspondence Inmate Correspondence, 109 J. Crim. L & Criminology 559 (2019)

Chapter 8. Procedural Due Process

Alabama’s Women Prisoners Moved to Louisiana to Ease Overcrowding, Prison Legal News (Sept. 15, 2003)
John Boston & Daniel E. Manville, Prisoners’ Self-Help Litigation Manual (4th ed. 2010)
Council of State Government, Justice Center
- Confined and Costly (2019)
- Confined and Costly (2025)
Justice Lab, Columbia University, Racial Inequities in New York Parole Supervision (Mar. 2020)
Emma Kaufman, The Prisoner Trade, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1815 (2020)
Beth Schwartzapfel, Want to Shrink the Prison Population? Look at Parole., The Marshall Project (Feb. 2019)

Chapter 9. Searches

Margo Schlanger, Jail Strip-Search Cases: Patterns and Participants, 71 Law & Contemp. Problems 65 (2008)
Martin R. Gardner, Hudson v. Palmer—Bright Lines But Dark Directions for Prisoner Privacy Rights, 76 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 75 (1985)

PART III: PARTICULAR PRISONER POPULATIONS

Chapter 10. Race and National Origin Discrimination

General Information

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (2012)
Jack Bass, Taming the Storm, The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., and the South’s Fight over Civil Rights (1993)
S. Jonathan Bass, He Calls Me By Lightning: The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty (2017)
Charles Crawford, Ted Chiricos, & Gary Kleck, Race, Racial Threat, and Sentencing of Habitual Offenders. 36 Criminology 481 (2006)
Judith Resnik, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy (2025)
Jason P. Robey, Michael Massoglia & Michael T. Light, A Generational Shift: Race and the Declining Lifetime Risk of Imprisonment. 60 Demography 977 (2023)
Alexander F. Roehrkasse & Christopher Wildeman, Lifetime Risk of Imprisonment in the United States Remains High and Starkly Unequal Scientific Advances (Dec. 2, 2022)
GAO, Noncitizens in the U.S.: Public Information on Federal Incarcerations (GAO-24-107598) (Sept. 3, 2024)
Philip Goodman, Race in California’s Prison Fire Camps for Men: Prison Politics, Space, and the Racialization of Everyday Life, 120 Am. J. Socio. 352 (2014)
Philip Goodman, “It’s Just Black, White, or Hispanic”: An Observational Study of Racializing Moves in California’s Segregated Prison Reception Centers, 42 Law & Soc’y J. 735 (2008)
Keith Humphreys & Ekow N. Yankah, Prisons are getting Whiter. That’s one way mass incarceration might end., The Washington Post (Feb. 26, 2021)
Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (2016)

Statistics

Council on Criminal Justice, William J. Sabol, Thaddeus L. Johnson, & Alexander Caccavale, Trends in Correctional Control by Race and Sex (Dec. 2019)
Hamilton Project, Rates of Drug Use and Sales, by Race; Races of Drug-Related Criminal Justice Measures, by Race (Oct. 2016)
The Sentencing Project, Ashley Nellis, The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons (2016)
The Sentencing Project, One in Five Series
The Sentencing Project, Mass Incarcerations Trends (2024)
Zhen Zeng, U.S. Dep’t of Just., Jail Inmates in 2022: Statistical Tables (Dec. 2023)

Chapter 11. Women Prisoners

General Information

Advocacy and Research Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People, Anti-Shackling, Pregnancy, and Incarceration State Laws (2025)
American Medical Association, An “Act to Prohibit the Shackling of Pregnant Prisoners” Model State Legislation (2015)
Kerry Blakinger, Can We Build a Better Women’s Prison? Washington Post Magazine (Oct. 28, 2019)
John Caniglia, Growing Up Behind Bars: How 11 States Handle Prison Nurseries, Cleveland Plain Dealer (Mar. 4, 2018)
Jessica A. Clarke, They, Them, and Theirs, 132 Harv. L. Rev. 894 (2019)
Kelsey Dodson, What It’s Like to Have Your Period in Prison, Prison Journalism Project (Sept. 2025)
Zoe Greenberg, In Jail, Pads and Tampons as Bargaining Chips, The New York Times (Apr. 2017)
Lorie S. Goshin et al., Perinatal Nurses’ Experiences with and Knowledge of the Care of Incarcerated Women During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period, 48 J. Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing 27 (2019)
Rosemary Herbert, Women’s Prisons: An Equal Protection Evaluation, 94 Yale L.J. 1182 (1985)
Alex Ronan, Menstruation Can Become Humiliation in Prisons, The Cut (Jun. 2015)
K. Thomas et al., Anti-Shackling Legislation and Resource Table (Jan. 2024)
Priscilla A. Ocen, Unshackling Intersectionality, 10 Du Bois Rev. 471 (2013)
Priscilla A. Ocen, Punishing Pregnancy: Race, Incarceration and the Shackling of Pregnant Women, 100 Calif. L. Rev. 1239 (2012)
Note, The Sexual Segregation of American Prisons, 82 Yale L.J. 1229 (1973)
Carolyn Sufrin et al., Pregnancy Outcomes in U.S. Prisons, 2016–2017, 109 Am. J. Pub. Health 799 (May 2019)
Survivors of Sexual Abuse at FCI Dublin, Rights Behind Bars (Mar. 8, 2024)
UK Aid & Penal Reform International, Short Guide: UN Bangkok Rules on women offenders and prisoners (2013)
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Handbook on Women and Imprisonment, 2d ed. (2013)
U.S. Att’y’s Office, N.D. Cal., Press Release, Ninth and Tenth FCI Dublin Correctional Officers Charged with Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates (Jun. 25, 2025)

Statistics

Jennifer Bronson & E. Ann Carson, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Prisoners in 2017 (Apr. 2019)
Council on Criminal Justice, Women’s Justice: By the Numbers (Jun. 30, 2025)
Derek Mueller, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bureau of Just. Stat., Preliminary Data Release—Prisons, 2023 (Dec. 2024)
U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bur. of Justice Stats., National Former Prisoner Survey 2008 (May 2012)
Wendy Sawyer, Prison Policy Initiative, The Gender Divide: Tracking Women’s State Prison Growth (Jan. 9, 2018)
Zhen Zeng, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bureau of Just. Stat., Jail Inmates 2023—Statistical Tables (Mar. 2025)

Chapter 12. LGBTQ Prisoners

General Information

Sasha Aslanian & Darcy Speer, Transgender Women Are Nearly Always Incarcerated in Men’s Prisons, Putting Many in Danger, NBC News (Feb. 25, 2020)
Center for American Progress & Movement Advancement Project, Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice System Fails LGBT People (Feb. 2016)
Kelsie Chesnut & Jennifer Peirce, Vera Ins. of Just., Advancing Transgender Justice: Illuminating Trans Lives Behind and Beyond Bars (2024)
Sharon Dolovich, Strategic Segregation in the Modern Prison, 48 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1 (2011)
Adam Liptak, Inmate Was Considered “Property” of Gang, Witness Tells Jury in Prison Rape Lawsuit, N.Y. Times (Sept. 25, 2005)
- ACLU Press Release: Roderick Keith Johnson Speaks Out About Verdict In Prison Rape Case (Oct. 19, 2005)
Angie Leventis Lourgos, “I’m Safe Here”: Transgender Inmate Describes Life at Illinois Women’s Prison After Rare Transfer Based on Gender Identity, Chicago Tribune (Jan. 29, 2019)
Nat’l Ctr. for Transgender Equality, LGBTQ People Behind Bars (2018)
Russell K. Robinson, Masculinity as Prison: Sexual Identity, Race, and Incarceration, 99 Cal. L. Rev. 1309 (2011)
Beth Schwartzapfel, 3 Things to Know About Prison Violence Against Transgender People, The Marshall Project (Nov. 2024)

Statistics

Ilan H. Meyer et al., Incarceration Rates and Traits of Sexual Minorities in the United States: National Inmate Survey, 2011–2012, 107 Am. J. Public Health 267 (2017)
Sandy E. James, et al., Nat’l Ctr. for Transgender Equality, The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (2016)
Mara Keisling et al., Nat’l Ctr. for Transgender Equality & National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (2011)
Allen J. Beck et al., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12: National Inmate Survey (May 2013)
Allen J. Beck, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12: Supplemental Tables: Prevalence of Sexual Victimization Among Transgender Adult Inmates (Dec. 2014)

Chapter 13. Disability

Samuel R. Bagenstos, The Past and Future of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, 34 Cardozo L. Rev. 1 (2012)
Tessa Bialek & Margo Schlanger, Effective Communication with Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Blind, and Low Vision Incarcerated People, 26 J. Gender, Race & Just. 133 (2023)
Robert D. Dinerstein & Shira Wakschlag, Using the ADA’s “Integration Mandate” to Disrupt Mass Incarceration, 96 Denv. U. L. Rev. 917 (2019)
Equity for Whom? How Private Equity and the Punishment Bureaucracy Exploit Disabled People, Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (Nov. 2024)
Brittany Glidden & Laura Rovner, Requiring the State to Justify Supermax Confinement for Mentally Ill Prisoners: A Disability Discrimination Approach, 90 Denv. U. L. Rev. 55 (2012)
Human Rights Watch, Old Behind Bars: The Aging Prison Population in the United States (2012)
Human Rights Watch, Callous and Cruel: Use of Force against Inmates with Mental Disabilities in US Jails and Prisons (2015)
Human Rights Watch, Ill-Equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness (2003)
Jamelia N. Morgan, The Paradox of Inclusion: Applying Olmstead’s Integration Mandate in Prisons, 27 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol’y 305 (2020)
Elliot Oberholtzer, Police, courts, jails, and prisons all fail disabled people, Prison Policy Initiative (Jan. 2017)
Steven Raphael & Michael A. Stoll, Assessing the Contribution of the Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill to Growth in the U.S. Incarceration Rate, 42 J. Legal Stud. 187 (2013)
Rights of Prisoners Under Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act, 163 A.L.R. Fed. 285 (originally published in 2000; updated to present) (no free online version available; access via Westlaw; Lexis)
Margo Schlanger, Challenging Federal Government Impunity: The Case of Disability Law, 105 B.U. L.Rev. 1949 (2025)
Margo Schlanger, Prisoners with Disabilities, in 4 Academy for Justice: Punishment, Incarceration, and Release (2017)
Margo Schlanger, How the ADA Regulates and Restricts Solitary Confinement for People with Mental Disabilities, Am. Const. Soc’y Issue Brief (May 2016)
Hans Toch, Humpty Dumpty in the Prison, 16 Corr. Mental Health Rep. 51 (2014)
U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Possible Federal Sources of Assistance to Federally Assisted Programs or Activities (indexes to federal support that triggers coverage by the Rehab Act)

PART IV: LITIGATION AND REMEDIES

Chapter 14. Injunctive Litigation

History and Effects of Injunctive Litigation

ACLU National Prison Project, Status Report: The Courts and Prisons (March 1, 1987), reprinted in 1 Prisoners and the Law App. B-3 (Ira Robbins, ed.) (1989 version available here)
Dan Berger, Mariame Kaba & David Stein, What Abolitionists Do, Jacobin (Aug. 2017)
Richard T. Boylan & Naci H. Mocan, Intended and Unintended Consequences of Prison Reform, 30 J. L. Econ. & Org. 558 (2014)
Owen M. Fiss & Doug Rendleman, Injunctions (2d ed. 1984)
Joshua Guetzkow & Eric Schoon, If You Build It, They Will Fill It: The Unintended Consequences of Prison Overcrowding Litigation, 49 Law & Soc’y Rev. 401 (2015)
Linda Harriman & Jeffrey D. Straussman, Do Judges Determine Budget Decisions? Federal Court Decisions in Prison Reform and State Spending for Corrections, 43 Pub. Admin. Rev. 343 (Jul. 1983)
Judith Resnik, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy (2025)
Dorothy E. Roberts, The Supreme Court 2018 Term, Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (2019)
Margo Schlanger, Inmate Litigation, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 1555 (2003)
Margo Schlanger, Beyond the Hero Judge: Institutional Reform Litigation as Litigation, 97 Mich. L. Rev. 1994 (1999)
William A. Taggart, Redefining the Power of the Federal Judiciary: The Impact of Court-Ordered Prison Reform on State Expenditures for Corrections, 23 Law & Soc’y Rev. 241 (1989)
Michael L. Zuckerman, When the Conditions Are the Confinement: Eighth Amendment Habeas Claims During COVID-19, 90 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1 (2021)

Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act

Robert Dinerstein, The Absence of Justice, 63 Neb. L. Rev. 680 (1984)
Robert Dinerstein, Rights of Institutionalized Disabled Persons, in W.L. Taylor & R.C. Govan, eds., One Nation Indivisible: The Civil Rights Challenge for the 1990s (1989)
Karen E. Holt, When Officials Clash: Implementation of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (1998)

Prison Litigation Reform Act and Injunctions

Elizabeth Alexander, Getting to Yes in a PLRA World, 30 Pace L. Rev. 1672 (2010)
Alison Brill, Note, Rights Without Remedy: The Myth of State Court Accessibility After the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 30 Cardozo L. Rev. 645 (2008)
John Boston, The Prison Litigation Reform Act: The New Face of Court Stripping, 67 Brook. L. Rev. 429 (2001)
Contract with America: The Bold Plan by Rep. Newt Gingrich, Rep. Dick Armey, and the House Republicans to Change the Nation 53 (Ed Gillespie & Bob Schellhas eds., 1994)
Kiira J. Johal, Note, Judges Behind Bars: The Intrusiveness Requirement’s Restriction on the Implementation of Relief Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 114 Colum. L. Rev. 715 (2014)
Margo Schlanger, Trends in Prisoner Litigation, as the PLRA Enters Adulthood, 5 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 153 (2015)
Margo Schlanger, Prisoners’ Rights Lawyers’ Strategies for Preserving the Role of the Courts, 69 U. Miami L. Rev. 519 (2015)
Margo Schlanger, Plata v. Brown and Realignment: Jails, Prisons, Courts, and Politics, 48 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 165 (2013)

Chapter 15. Damages: Causes of Action and Defenses

John Boston, The Prison Litigation Reform Act: Considerations in Individual Litigation, in Practicing Law Institute, Prison Law 2010
Dan B. Dobbs, Paul T. Hayden and Ellen M. Bublick, The Law of Torts (2d ed. 2010)
Paul Figley, Ethical Intersections and the Federal Tort Claims Act: An Approach for Government Attorneys, 8 U. St. Thomas L.J. 347 (2011)
Pamela S. Karlan, Disarming the Private Attorney General, 2003 U. Ill. L. Rev. 183 (2002)
Barry A. Lindahl, Modern Tort Law: Liability and Litigation, Ch. 7 (Employer Liability for Torts of Employees), §§ 7:7 to 7:16 (2d ed. 2019)
Bradford C. Mank, Suing Under § 1983: The Future after Gonzaga University v. Doe, 39 Hous. L. Rev. 1417 (2003)
James E. Pfander, Alex Reinert, & Joanna C. Schwartz, The Myth of Personal Liability: Who Pays When Bivens Claims Succeed, 72 Stan. L. Rev. 561 (2020)
Press Release, Over 100 Survivors of Staff Sexual Violence at FCI Dublin Reach Historic $115M Settlement with Bureau of Prisons (Dec. 18, 2024)
Margo Schlanger, Trends in Prisoner Litigation, as the PLRA Enters Adulthood, 5 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 153 (2015)
Margo Schlanger, Inmate Litigation, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 1555 (2003)
Joanna C. Schwartz, Police Indemnification, 89 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 885 (2014)

Chapter 16. The Litigation Process

Process of Litigation

Richard H. Frankel & Alistair E. Newbern, Prisoners and Pleading, 94 Wash. U.L. Rev. 899 (2017)
Rachel Poser, Why It’s Nearly Impossible for Prisoners to Sue Prisons, The New Yorker (May 2016)
Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2014, Highlights from the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their Skills, Work Experience, Education, and Training (Nov. 2016)
Alexander A. Reinert, Measuring the Impact of Plausibility Pleading, 101 Va. L. Rev. 2117 (2015)
Alysia Santo, Suing from Prison, The Marshall Project (Feb. 2015)
Louis Schexnayder & Andrew Cohen, His Appeal in Louisiana Was a Sham Proceeding. But the High Court Won’t Review the Case, The Marshall Project (Dec. 2019)
Margo Schlanger, Inmate Litigation, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 1555 (2003)
Rory K. Schneider, Illiberal Construction of Pro Se Pleadings, 159 U. Pa. L. Rev. 585 (2011)

Grievance Systems & Administrative Exhaustion

John Boston, The PLRA Handbook: Law and Practice Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (2022)
Lynn S. Branham et al., Am. Bar Assoc. Criminal Justice Section, Limiting the Burdens of Pro Se Inmate Litigation: A Technical-Assistance Manual for Courts, Correctional Officials, and Attorneys General (1997)
Lynn S. Branham, The Prison Litigation Reform Act’s Enigmatic Exhaustion Requirement: What It Means and What Congress, Courts and Correctional Officials Can Learn from It, 86 Cornell L. Rev. 483 (2001)
Kitty Calavita & Valerie Jenness, Appealing to Justice: Prisoner Grievances, Rights, and Carceral Logic (2014)
Donald P. Lay, Exhaustion of Grievance Procedures for State Prisoners Under Section 1997e of the Civil Rights Act, 71 Iowa L. Rev. 935 (1986)
Michigan Law Prison Information Project, Prison and Jail Grievance Policies: Lessons from a Fifty-State Survey (Oct. 2015)
Dora Schriro, Correcting Corrections: Missouri’s Parallel Universe, in Sentencing and Corrections: Issues for the 21st Century (May 2000)

Prison Litigation Reform Act

ABA, Criminal Justice Section, Report to the House of Delegates, Rep. 102B (2007)
ACLU National Prison Project, The Top Ten Non-Frivolous Lawsuits Filed by Prisoners (Feb. 11, 1996)
Andrea Fenster & Margo Schlanger, Slamming the Courthouse Door: 25 years of evidence for repealing the Prison Litigation Reform Act, Prison Policy Initiative (Apr. 2021)
Human Rights Watch, No Equal Justice: The Prison Litigation Reform Act in the United States (2009)
Jon O. Newman, Foreword: Pro Se Prisoner Litigation: Looking for Needles in Haystacks, 62 Brook. L. Rev. 519 (1996)
Margo Schlanger, Inmate Litigation, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 1555 (2003)
Paul Wright & Dan Pens, Prison Legal News’ Top Ten Non-Frivolous Prisoner Lawsuits, in The Celling of America 58 (Daniel Burton-Rose with Dan Pens & Paul Wright eds., 1998)

Chapter 17. Private Prisons and Prison Contractors

The Sentencing Project, Private Prisons in the United States (Oct. 24, 2019)
Brett C. Burkhardt, Who is in private prisons? Demographic profiles of prisoners and workers in American private prisons, 51 Int’l J. L. Crime & Just. 24 (Dec. 2017)
Kate Sablosky Elengold & Jonathan D. Glater, The Sovereign Shield, 73 Stan. L. Rev. 969 (2021)
Micaela Gelman, Note: Mismanaged Care: Exploring the Costs and Benefits of Private vs. Public Healthcare in Correctional Facilities, 95 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1386 (2020)
Tracy Huling, Building a Prison Economy in Rural America, Prison Policy Initiative (2002)
Beth Schwartzapfel, A Prison Medical Company Faced Lawsuits From Incarcerated People. Then It Went ‘Bankrupt.’, The Marshall Project (Sept. 2023)

Chapter 18. Criminal Prosecution of Prison/Jail Staff

History of Civil Rights Prosecutions

Robert K. Carr, Federal Protection of Civil Rights: Quest for a Sword 29 (1947)
Robert K. Carr, Screws v. United States: The Georgia Police Brutality Case, 31 Cornell L. Rev. 48 (1945)
Robert J. Kaczorowski, The Politics of Judicial Interpretation: The Federal Courts, Department of Justice and Civil Rights (1985)
Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2004)
Charles Herman Pritchett, The Roosevelt Court: A Study in Judicial Politics and Values, 1937–1947 (1958)
Henry Putzel Jr., Federal Civil Rights Enforcement: A Current Appraisal, 99 U. Pa. L. Rev. 439 (1951)
Harry H. Shapiro, Limitations in Prosecuting Civil Rights Violations, 46 Cornell L.Q. 532 (1961); 5 U.S. Comm’n on Civil Rights Report 45–62 (1961)

Modern Prosecution Practices, Doctrine, etc.

Mike Allen, Eric Holder’s Parting Shot: It’s Too Hard to Bring Civil Rights Cases, Politico (Feb. 27, 2015)
Arthur B. Caldwell & Sydney Brodie, Enforcement of the Criminal Civil Rights Statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 242, in Prison Brutality Cases, 52 Geo. L.J. 706 (1964) (no free online version available; via Hein Online here)
Brian R. Johnson & Phillip B. Bridgmon, Depriving Civil Rights: An Exploration of 18 U.S.C. 242 Criminal Prosecutions, 2001–2006, 34 Crim. J. Rev. 196 (2009)
Frederick Lawrence, Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law 136 (1999)
Frederick M. Lawrence, Civil Rights and Criminal Wrongs: The Mens Rea of Federal Civil Rights Crimes, 67 Tul. L. Rev. 2113 (1993)
Daniel C. Richman, Kate Stith, & William J. Stuntz, Defining Federal Crimes (2018)
U.S. Att’y’s Office, N.D. Cal., Press Release, Ninth and Tenth FCI Dublin Correctional Officers Charged with Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates (Jun. 25, 2025)

Additional Sources

Kevin Bliss, More Than 200 Convicted of Corruption at Baltimore Department of Corrections; More Charges Announced, Prison Legal News (Jun. 2020)
Federal Judicial Center, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Integrated Database
Danielle E. Gaines, 25 State Corrections Officers Indicted for Excessive Use of Force, Maryland Matters (Dec. 2019)
Missouri Prison Officials Sued for Punishing Inmates Who Seek to Disclose Misconduct; Speak to Lawyers, MacArthur Justice Center (Sept. 2017)

Chapter 19. State Constitutional Law

General

Aleks Kajstura, If the Census Bureau Truly Values Accuracy, it Should Count Incarcerated People at Home, Prison Policy Initiative (Oct. 2024)

Voting

Brennan Center for Justice, Criminal Disenfranchisement Laws Across the United States (Updated May. 13, 2025)
Sam Levine, Inmates Are Getting Registered To Vote In One Of The Country’s Biggest Jails, Huffington Post (Aug. 2, 2019)
Jeff Manza, Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy (2006)
Kevin Muhitch & Nazgol Ghandnoosh, The Sentencing Project, Expanding Voting Rights to All Citizens in the Era of Mass Incarceration (Mar. 2, 2021)
Michael B. Mushlin, Rights of Prisoners, § 16:11: Voting Rights Generally (2019 ed.)
Penal Reform Int’l, The Right of Prisoners to Vote: A Global Overview (Mar. 2016)
Prison Policy Initiative, Prison Gerrymandering Project
- Quick-reference chart: State reforms ending prison gerrymandering
Brianna Remster and Rory Kramer, Shifting Power: The Impact of Incarceration on Political Representation, 15 Du Bois Rev. 417 (2019)
The Sentencing Project, Six Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016 (Oct. 2016)
The Sentencing Project, Expanding the Vote: Two Decades of Felony Disenfranchisement Reform (2018)
Christopher Uggen et al., The Sentencing Project, Locked Out 2024: Estimates of People Denied Voting Rights Due to a Felony Conviction (Oct. 10, 2024)

Media and Public Access

Heather Thompson, What is Hidden Behind the Walls of America’s Prisons, The Conversation (Jun. 4, 2017)

Standards

American Correctional Association (ACA), Performance-Based Standards for Adult Local Detention Facilities (4th ed. 2004)
National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), Standards for Health Services in Prisons and Jails (2025)
American Public Health Association (APHA), Standards for Health Services in Correctional Institutions (3d ed. 2003)
American Psychiatric Association (APA), Psychiatric Services in Correctional Facilities (3d ed. 2016)
American Bar Association (ABA), Standards for Criminal Justice: Treatment of Prisoners (3d ed. 2011)

Oversight

Giovanna Shay, Ad Law Incarcerated, 14 Berkeley J. Crim. L. 329 (2009)
Office of the Indep. Juvenile Ombudsperson, Ill. Dep’t of Juvenile Justice, “How Are the Children?” 2018 Annual Report (2019)
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Civilian Oversight Commission, homepage

Reports

U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Reports—Federal Bureau of Prisons

Chapter 20. Accountability: Voting, Standards, and Oversight

William Berry, Cruel State Punishments, 98 N.C. L. Rev. 1201 (2020)
Brennan Center for Justice, Disenfranchisement Laws