The Appeal

Albany attorney and former prosecutor Matt Toporowski says he’s running for DA to “change the culture” of the office, which he says focuses on winning at the expense of doing justice.https://theappeal.org/politicalreport/interview-matt-toporowski-albany-district-attorney-election/ …

COVID-19 has upended life for children and teens in residential treatment centers across the country. “It’s difficult not being able to see my family...I’d much rather be with them than here—at least if they got sick, I’d get sick.”https://theappeal.org/children-residential-treatment-centers-covid-19/ …

The family of Keith Davis Jr., who was shot by Baltimore police in 2015, says he should be released from prison due to lingering health issues. “We don’t even have the death penalty in Maryland and leaving...men like Keith in there—we’re reactivating it.”https://theappeal.org/shot-by-police-covid-19-behind-bars/ …

Last month, The Appeal covered conditions at the Bristol County facility, where Sheriff Thomas Hodgson’s treatment of incarcerated people and ICE detainees—he once offered them as labor to build Trump’s border wall—has long drawn fierce criticism.https://theappeal.org/lawsuit-ice-massachusetts-coronavirus/ …

Four members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation are calling for an investigation into an uprising at the Bristol County jail. ICE detainees say they were pepper-sprayed and denied access to lawyers for protesting lax COVID-19 safety protections.https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/more-lawmakers-join-in-call-for-bristol-county-jail-uprising-probe/article_7640a673-9ec9-57cb-9b4d-44fe0f5cb11f.html …

A student in the prison education program that beat a Harvard debate team in 2015 explains the importance of liberal arts education in prison: "You can’t really have a sense of community and how important a community is without being able to empathize.”https://theappeal.org/justice-in-america-episode-30-a-conversation-with-rodney-spivey-jones-and-max-kenner/ …

Alums of the Bard Prison Initiative, a rigorous college prison program in New York, have a recidivism rate of just 2 percent—a fraction of the state average.https://theappeal.org/college-programs-in-prison-show-the-value-of-educating-every-american/ …

Keith Davis Jr., shot in the face by Baltimore police in 2015, was later convicted of a murder he says he didn’t commit. Now, he’s serving a 50-year prison sentence—and still dealing with lingering health issues resulting from the shooting.https://theappeal.org/shot-by-police-covid-19-behind-bars/ …

Although most politicians do not support government-funded healthcare, their constituents do. A new national poll shows that, regardless of party affiliation, a majority of voters believes the federal government should pay for care during COVID-19.https://theappeal.org/the-case-for-universal-healthcare-during-a-pandemic/ …

"Last week, my 9-year-old son offered me the $53.47 he’d saved from recycling neighbors’ cans to put toward our rent. I couldn’t have been more proud of him, but it also broke my heart. No child should ever feel this kind of responsibility.”https://calmatters.org/commentary/coronavirus-cost-me-my-job-without-rent-forgiveness-it-will-cost-me-my-home/ …

Patricia Mendoza, a California single mother, on why she’s participating in a rent strike: "To make the government realize how much we need their protection, we must work together...Big corporations are getting help. Where’s the help for the rest of us?”https://calmatters.org/commentary/coronavirus-cost-me-my-job-without-rent-forgiveness-it-will-cost-me-my-home/ …

Opioid overdoses and COVID-19 are ravaging a rural Ohio jail where many incarcerated people are ICE detainees. "I don’t know if they could keep the jail open if they didn’t have the immigration detainees...Clearly, it was about money for [the county].”https://progressive.org/dispatches/county-jail-battles-covid19-and-opioid-crisis-brown-200501/ …

How the onset of COVID-19 and social distancing boosted efforts to protest the proposed construction of a new women’s prison in rural Washington state.https://theappeal.org/coalitions-efforts-amid-coronavirus-derail-plans-for-new-womens-prison/ …

Universal basic income proposals are picking up steam during the COVID-19 economic downturn. Data from a California city that began an experimental UBI program last year show that people are using these monthly payments to meet essential needs.https://theappeal.org/universal-basic-income-stockton-pandemic/ …

In Hillsborough County, Florida, jails are crowded with people who are unable to pay cash bail, fines, and fees, subjecting lower-income people to elevated risk of COVID-19 simply because they can’t afford to buy their way out.https://theappeal.org/florida-coronavirus-bail-fines-fees/ …

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has cut $1.3 billion from the budget in response to COVID-19, including a summer youth employment program that would have offered 75,000 jobs. But he has kept the NYPD’s budget of nearly $6 billion largely intact.https://theappeal.org/cuomo-de-blasio-carceral-kings/ …