In December 2024, guards at Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica, New York, beat 43-year-old Robert Brooks to death in the facility’s infirmary. In March 2025, during a three-week strike, guards beat Messiah Nantwi, 22, to death at Mid-State Correctional Facility. Seven guards pleaded guilty to manslaughter or lesser charges, one was convicted of murder, and two were acquitted.
On July 10, South Dakota officials marked the completion of a new $87 million women's correctional facility in Rapid City. The Level III-security facility is designed to house up to 300 women and includes three 96-bed housing units and a separate 12-bed mother-infant program building. The facility will also support education, Prison Fellowship Ministries programming and workforce preparation. In September of 2025, Gov. Larry Rhoden signed SB 2 to provide funding for a new 1,500-bed men's prison to replace the 140-year-old South Dakota State Penitentiary.
2025 saw an increasingly overt assault on human rights. Human rights education played a crucial role as a foundation for localized resistance and change. It strengthened human rights knowledge and supported individuals and communities with new ways of thinking and acting. It co-creates pathways for learners to understand, challenge and transform the human rights landscape around them.
Glenn and John are disappointed by the problems that plague Black America. John points out that a black victimhood narrative emergent in the mid-1960s remains with us, despite our gains. Martin Luther King’s dream that his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character is admirable.
Prisoner J.M. was beaten and sexually assaulted by guards at a federal penitentiary in California in 2023. He was transferred to another prison. He is suing the Bureau of Prisons. The Marshall Project and NPR found that less than 2% of grievances filed in federal prison in the last year were granted.
Rey was deported from the U.S. to Mexico. He was staying at Sara's sister's house in Juárez for two months. He lacked legal status in Mexico, he didn't have work papers, and the Cuban consulate did not provide any services to deportees. Human Rights Watch recently published a report documenting the dire conditions faced by Cubans in Mexico.
Owen Hanson served 10 years in prison for working for a Mexican drug cartel. He was released thanks to the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform measure passed by President Donald Trump in 2018. Hanson earned a master's degree while in prison and speaks to student-athletes about the dangers of drugs and crime.
Robert Tulloch was 17 when he and a friend killed a pair of married Dartmouth College professors 25 years ago. He was sentenced to life without parole for first-degree murder in the 2001 stabbing deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory life sentences without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles and applied that decision retroactively.
Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper criticizes Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature's response to crime. He accuses them of not fully implementing voter-approved crime reforms and embracing policies that weaken accountability. He also criticizes California's domestic violence laws and expanding mental health diversion system.
Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, is the oldest person to be executed in Florida's death chamber in modern times. Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, has spent nearly four decades on death row after being sentenced in the murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986. He is scheduled to die on July 28. Dennis Sochor, convicted of killing 18-year-old Patricia Gifford just hours into 1982, would be a week older if his execution is carried out on Tuesday.
In December 2024, guards at Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica, New York, beat 43-year-old Robert Brooks to death in the facility’s infirmary. In March 2025, during a three-week strike, guards beat Messiah Nantwi, 22, to death at Mid-State Correctional Facility. Seven guards pleaded guilty to manslaughter or lesser charges, one was convicted of murder, and two were acquitted.
On July 10, South Dakota officials marked the completion of a new $87 million women's correctional facility in Rapid City. The Level III-security facility is designed to house up to 300 women and includes three 96-bed housing units and a separate 12-bed mother-infant program building. The facility will also support education, Prison Fellowship Ministries programming and workforce preparation. In September of 2025, Gov. Larry Rhoden signed SB 2 to provide funding for a new 1,500-bed men's prison to replace the 140-year-old South Dakota State Penitentiary.
2025 saw an increasingly overt assault on human rights. Human rights education played a crucial role as a foundation for localized resistance and change. It strengthened human rights knowledge and supported individuals and communities with new ways of thinking and acting. It co-creates pathways for learners to understand, challenge and transform the human rights landscape around them.
Glenn and John are disappointed by the problems that plague Black America. John points out that a black victimhood narrative emergent in the mid-1960s remains with us, despite our gains. Martin Luther King’s dream that his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character is admirable.
Prisoner J.M. was beaten and sexually assaulted by guards at a federal penitentiary in California in 2023. He was transferred to another prison. He is suing the Bureau of Prisons. The Marshall Project and NPR found that less than 2% of grievances filed in federal prison in the last year were granted.
Rey was deported from the U.S. to Mexico. He was staying at Sara's sister's house in Juárez for two months. He lacked legal status in Mexico, he didn't have work papers, and the Cuban consulate did not provide any services to deportees. Human Rights Watch recently published a report documenting the dire conditions faced by Cubans in Mexico.
Owen Hanson served 10 years in prison for working for a Mexican drug cartel. He was released thanks to the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform measure passed by President Donald Trump in 2018. Hanson earned a master's degree while in prison and speaks to student-athletes about the dangers of drugs and crime.
Robert Tulloch was 17 when he and a friend killed a pair of married Dartmouth College professors 25 years ago. He was sentenced to life without parole for first-degree murder in the 2001 stabbing deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory life sentences without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles and applied that decision retroactively.
Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper criticizes Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature's response to crime. He accuses them of not fully implementing voter-approved crime reforms and embracing policies that weaken accountability. He also criticizes California's domestic violence laws and expanding mental health diversion system.
Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, is the oldest person to be executed in Florida's death chamber in modern times. Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, has spent nearly four decades on death row after being sentenced in the murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986. He is scheduled to die on July 28. Dennis Sochor, convicted of killing 18-year-old Patricia Gifford just hours into 1982, would be a week older if his execution is carried out on Tuesday.