Stories by Silja J.A. Talvi
Silja J.A. Talvi is an investigative journalist and the author of Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System (Seal Press: 2007). Her work has already appeared in many book anthologies, including It's So You (Seal Press, 2007), Prison Nation (Routledge: 2005), Prison Profiteers (The New Press: 2008), and Body Outlaws (Seal Press: 2004). She is a senior editor at In These Times.
Mexican drug cartels have easy access to thousands of American gun dealers just on the other side of the border.
Posted on Mar 18, 2009
This is the right political moment for Obama to enact major progressive reforms in all avenues of the drug war and our justice system.
Posted on Mar 6, 2009
For incarcerated women, there is little justice to be found.
Posted on Dec 10, 2008
Dr. Riki Ott has a special response to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's heavy push for oil drilling in the Arctic.
Posted on Dec 1, 2008
U.S. workers' lives are beginning to look a lot like they did 100 years ago when 14-hour days were the norm.
Posted on Nov 13, 2008
Californians have chance with the NORA initiative to reject decades of fear mongering and try alternatives to jail for drug abuse.
Posted on Nov 1, 2008
The U.S.-financed War on Drugs has had savage results in Mexico, and now its president wants to decriminalize pot, cocaine and heroin possession.
Posted on Oct 14, 2008
Part II of an investigative report on the unsolved homicide that haunts a Bush nominee for a U.S. District Court seat.
Posted on May 6, 2008
The unsolved murder of Estelle Richardson in her prison cell haunts the nation's top private prison litigator as he vies for a judgeship.
Posted on May 5, 2008
The "war on drugs" has led to an explosion in the female incarceration rate.
Posted on Feb 13, 2008
A justice system reporter explains how she fell in love with a jail-bound man and how their relationship was strained by his prison sentence.
Posted on Feb 2, 2008
The stun-gun-wielding housewife is coming to a suburb near you.
Posted on Jan 31, 2008
1,200 activists and experts converged on New Orleans for the Drug Policy Alliance conference, where AlterNet won a prize for its drug war coverage.
Posted on Dec 11, 2007
With 19,000 deaths attributed to staph infections annually, there's cause for serious alarm. So why aren't we talking about our nightmarish prison system, the biggest incubator of them all?
Posted on Dec 4, 2007
A new book on the tragic suicide of investigative reporter Iris Chang reminds us that no one is equipped to bear this world's madness all on our own.
Posted on Nov 13, 2007
Women in jail can suffer slow and painful deaths for treatable and simple illnesses simply as a result of the horrific state of prison health care.
Posted on Nov 1, 2007
Once you've been arrested for the harsh anti-marijuana laws on the books, you can be denied everything from food stamps to voting rights to the right to adopt a child.
Posted on Jul 31, 2007
The next generation of "non-lethal" weapons pose human rights threats that their benign title hides.
Posted on Feb 3, 2007
America's culture of locking up its citizens has gone too far -- three percent of Americans are under some form of correctional supervision, and we may finally be at the beginning of a trend toward real criminal justice reform.
Posted on Jan 26, 2007
Long touted as a safer alternative to handguns for law enforcement, tasers are potentially deadly weapons that have a growing history of abuse by police and security guards.
Posted on Nov 18, 2006
In New Mexico, public-private prison hybrids--paid for by the state and run by corporations--are making a few people rich and a lot of people unhappy.
Posted on Sep 11, 2006
American culture is full of narcissists of all shapes and stripes -- George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Paris Hilton and any number of other public figures leap to mind.
Posted on Aug 15, 2006
A new book dissects the emotional and psychological scars of slavery on the African American psyche.
Posted on Mar 25, 2006
A new TV series ignores the reality that cold-hearted women who are out for themselves are only a tiny fraction of those doing time for murder.
Posted on Dec 14, 2005
The 'war on drugs' has evolved into a war on weed. Billions of dollars spent, tens of thousands incarcerated, and marijuana is still as popular as ever.
Posted on Sep 12, 2005
Even though many critics believe the Patriot Act was a sucker-punch to the Bill of Rights, Congress plans to make many of its provisions permanent.
Posted on Aug 8, 2005
The nation's biggest private prison corporation is forging strong ties with a fundamentalist Christian ministry, blurring the line between church and state and harkening a new turn in corrections toward Christian-based programming.
Posted on Mar 10, 2005
At the American Correctional Association's 2005 Winter Conference, the bottom line is paramount.
Posted on Feb 10, 2005
The vice presidential debate highlighted the administration's willful ignorance over the demographics of the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Posted on Oct 6, 2004
Prison is the rough new rite of passage for many black men.
Posted on Aug 16, 2004
African-American men are now more likely to get a prison record than a college degree.
Posted on Jul 9, 2004
The rush to privatize water is underway across the world. In the new documentary 'Thirst,' filmmakers Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow set out to explore the consequences.
Posted on Jun 23, 2004
A woman who gave birth to a stillborn child is convicted of murder, setting a dangerous precedent.
Posted on Dec 4, 2003
Gary Ridgway should have been caught a long time ago. His choice of victims had everything to do with why he wasn't.
Posted on Nov 12, 2003
Seattle voters pass a marijuana initiative, adding another voice to the growing national chorus saying 'no' to the Drug War.
Posted on Sep 18, 2003
As feminism reshapes itself, increasing numbers of girls and women find themselves exploring their own boundaries.
Posted on Aug 28, 2003
Mass incarceration is showing itself for the simplistic, short-sighted method of social control that it is.
Posted on Aug 27, 2003
Fifty years after the most politicized execution of the 20th century, Robert Meeropol carries the torch of dissent. And 2003, he says, is looking more like 1953 every day.
Posted on Jun 18, 2003
The feds want young people to believe smoking marijuana leads to violent behavior, teen pregnancy and terrorism, but the message isn't working.
Posted on Apr 18, 2003
The Tulia 46 may finally see justice served -- but the damage of the national drug war isn't anywhere near being undone.
Posted on Apr 3, 2003
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