How LA Became America's Gang Capital: Crips, Bloods and the Mexican Mafia
A prison gang on top, street sets underneath, and colors that traveled the country. The layered history of how Los Angeles earned its worst nickname.
Texas Gangs, Explained: Tango Blast, the Prison Gangs and the State's Tier System
Most of Texas's biggest gangs were born inside its prisons. A guide to Tango Blast, the Texas Mexican Mafia, Barrio Azteca, MS-13 and the rest of the state's threat list.
Gary Webb and Dark Alliance: What He Got Right, What He Got Wrong, and What It Cost
On August 18, 1996, the San Jose Mercury News began publishing a three part series called "Dark Alliance," and put the whole package, twenty thousand words with scanned court documents and audio, on its website at a time when almost no newspaper journalism lived online. The series argued
Cults in American History
America has produced more destructive cults than any other Western democracy. This section covers thirteen articles on seven groups — Jonestown Waco Heaven's Gate NXIVM and more — plus the mechanics of how cults control people.
Prison and Punishment in American History
The US incarcerates more people than any country on earth. This section traces two centuries of deliberate choices — about who gets locked up, how they're punished, and what it costs.
Wrongful Convictions: When the System Gets It Wrong
3400 documented wrongful convictions since 1989 — and that is only the cases that got reviewed. Black defendants are seven times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder.
Famous Exonerations: The Innocent People America Locked Up
More than 3400 people have been exonerated in the US since 1989. Randall Dale Adams spent 12 years on death row. The Norfolk Four were convicted despite DNA that excluded all four.
The Innocence Project: Fighting to Free the Wrongly Convicted
The Innocence Project has freed 375 wrongly convicted people since 1992 — including 21 from death row. Their data shows faulty forensic science contributed to nearly half the cases.
The Central Park Five: How New York Railroaded Five Teenagers
Five teenagers were interrogated for up to 30 hours in 1989 and convicted of a rape the DNA excluded them from. The actual perpetrator confessed in 2002. No one was held accountable.
A History of Punishment: How America Learned to Kill Its Prisoners
Every method in this series was introduced as an improvement. Public hanging gave way to the electric chair. The chair gave way to lethal injection. The act never changed — only the visibility.
Convict Leasing: The System That Made Prisons Profitable
After 1865 Southern states leased Black prisoners to coal mines and lumber camps that worked them to death. Annual mortality at some Alabama operations exceeded 30 percent.
Chain Gangs: Slavery by Another Name
Chain gangs put shackled Black men on Southern roads from the 1870s through the 1950s — and again in the 1990s when Alabama brought them back for the press photos.