Let’s End Torture in U.S. Prisons

Let’s End Torture in U.S. Prisons

Solitary confinement is exactly what it sounds like. A prisoner is kept in a small cell — usually 6 feet by 10 — alone, for 23 hours a day. For one hour a day, he or she may be taken into a small cage outside, with the opportunity to walk in circles before being taken...
An Assault on Justice

An Assault on Justice

Two federal prison guards in Florida recently agreed to plead guilty for beating a prisoner and then covering it up. One officer faces up to three years in a federal prison, while the other is looking at a year. The Justice Department issued a press release that cast...
Let’s Put Prison Sentences on Probation

Let’s Put Prison Sentences on Probation

You may have heard there’s a growing political movement against mass incarceration. Someone should clue in the judges. In the past 30 years, federal judges have turned to imprisonment — as opposed to probation — as the punishment of choice for even minor crimes,...
How the Government Made Me a Dissident

How the Government Made Me a Dissident

I sometimes say the government turned me into a dissident — after I spent 14 years at the CIA and two more at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I only say it half-jokingly. While I’m proud of winning this year’s PEN Center’s First Amendment award, I never...
The Prison-Industrial Complex Takes Another Hit

The Prison-Industrial Complex Takes Another Hit

“Too many people are behind bars that don’t belong there,” declared a group demanding that America do away with its throw-’em-all-in-jail mass imprisonment policies. For nearly 50 years, politicians and prosecutors have pushed a no-mercy,...