Black girls were about three times as likely as white girls to be referred to juvenile court, and 20% more likely to be detained than white girls. American Indian/Alaska Native girls were 50% more likely to be locked-up.

A federal lawsuit in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a report by the ACLU of New Hampshire, document the practice of jailing people unable to pay their court debts, violating the due process rights of the poor by failing to provide them with legal counsel and ability-to-pay hearings.

Progressive Arizona congressman Raúl Grijalva expressed dismay that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) signed an $11 million contract with GEO Care because its parent company, GEO Group, profits off detaining women and children in horrific conditions. Yet, remarkably, Grijalva is the sponsor of a bill, which contains specific exemptions allowing companies

A new report details how families pay a high price for the incarceration of a relative—a price “felt most deeply by women, low-income families and communities of color.”  It examines the various ways families and former prisoners “pay” for their incarceration, even after they are released. The report, “Who Pays? The True Cost Of

Last week, the New York City Council sent eight bills to Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s desk aimed at bringing greater transparency to the city’s jails. The wave of legislation was introduced this past spring and its passage marks the latest efforts by the city to reign in the brutal culture of violence and impunity that has reigned inside its jails for years.

Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has introduced legislation to abolish aspects of the prison industrial-complex. However, despite being touted as a private prison abolition bill, it would still leave some areas of corrections open to contractors. On September 17, Sanders joined Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)

As compromised as Congress is when it comes to dealing with their Wall Street donors, they have nothing on financial regulators who often end up later working for the people and companies they are supposed to be regulating. Now regulators are allowing Wall Street to hide derivatives trades overseas to circumvent Dodd-Frank.

A study by a consultant hired by GM has led to a nearly ten fold increase in the number of deaths linked to the faulty switches. The new estimate, released on August 21 by a consulting group led by famed attorney Kenneth Feinberg, puts the number of deaths from the defected ignition switches at 124. Previously, GM said it only knew of 13 deaths.

On August 19th, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent wherein Kent admitted that Coca-Cola funded scientific studies that attempted to shift blame for the growing obesity crisis off diet and onto exercise. Kent said the scheme to fund questionable studies was meant to take attention away from the beverage company he runs but was “not working” and that this behavior by Coca-Cola “does not reflect our intent or our values.”

Former Park Avenue Bank President Charles Antonucci has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Antonucci will also pay $54.6 million in restitution and forfeit $11.2 million.

On August 19, Monica Sud, a woman from California, filed a class action lawsuit against Costco Wholesale Corporation claiming that the retailer knowingly sold prawns produced by slave labor and never disclosed these practices to customers like herself who bought the products without knowing they were produced by illegal labor.

On August 17, Citigroup agreed to pay $180 million to settle charges from the SEC that two of the megabank’s hedge funds defrauded investors. According to the SEC, Citigroup’s hedge funds “made false and misleading representations to investors” about how risky investing in the funds were.