Maurice Chammah
Meet the Social Media Editor for America's Prisoners
For up to 100 hours a week, Renea Royster helps prison inmates post on Facebook, meet women, and keep track of fantasy sports, among other projects.
Could Removing Brock Turner’s Judge Hurt Poor and Minority Defendants?
Public defenders say Aaron Persky isn't known for giving whites special treatment and that trying to recall judges who don't punish harshly is bad news for people of color.
Do Public Defenders Spend Less Time on Black Clients?
"Implicit bias" may not affect only judges, cops, and prosecutors, but also the lawyers defending America's poor.
Prison Without Punishment
Germany allows inmates to wear their own clothes, cook their own meals, and have romantic visits. Could that work in the United States?
A Letter to Pope Francis
You are about to enter Philadelphia's largest jail. Here is what you should know.
A Texas Inmate Dreams of Walking to Canada
The imagined journey of Steven Ray Epperson, an inmate in Austin, Texas, who spent his days walking to cope with the boredom of incarceration.
German Prisons Are Kinder, Gentler, and Safer Than the Ones in America
As a recent touring group of US officials found out, German inmates wear their own clothes, cook their own meals, and aren't put in solitary for more than eight hours at a time.
The Stiff Competition to Work in German Prisons
In Germany, where citizens actually compete with one another to work for prisons, some states require applicants to score over 100 on an IQ test to even qualify for the job.
How Germany Treats Young Criminals
In Neustrelitz Prison, administrators emphasize therapy and eschew the retributive impulse that has defined American justice for decades. Inmates even have rabbits and horses to look after.
Can German Prisons Teach America How to Handle Its Most Violent Criminals?
The preventative detention unit at Tegel Prison in Berlin offers a radically different way to approach those felons Americans might call the "worst of the worst."
What Can America Learn from Germany's Prison System?
VICE and the Marshall Project are documenting a trip by US leaders to Germany in hopes that they have the credibility and clout to make changes to America's own mess of a prison system.