Author name: Leon El-Alamin

After spending 28 years behind bars, Allen Burnett headed straight to the ocean upon his release. “I just stood there for a moment,” he says. “I wanted to take in the air.”

For much of his life, Burnett never believed he would experience that kind of freedom.

The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that people who are 19 or 20 years old at the time they commit first-degree murder cannot automatically receive life sentences without parole. In its opinion, a five-justice majority said such a mandatory punishment is excessively harsh when it does not take into account the person’s youth, possible rehabilitation, and other mitigating circumstances.

The number of young adults being sentenced to life imprisonment or indeterminate terms has risen sharply over the past decade, according to reporting from The Independent. In 2024, 50 offenders between ages 18 and 20 received life or open-ended sentences, compared with 30 in 2014. A growing share of young people in prison are now serving life terms, with many facing sentences as long as — or longer than — the number of years they have lived.

Michigan State Police have launched a homicide investigation after an inmate was found dead inside a prison cell. The Michigan Department of Corrections reported that 40-year-old Joshua McGehee was discovered unresponsive on March 27 at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia.

A Detroit man was freed Tuesday, March 31, after spending 27 years incarcerated for a murder he maintains he did not commit. A judge vacated his conviction and dismissed all charges, clearing the way for his relea

After years of waiting, Flint residents are beginning to receive the first wave of settlement payments related to the city’s water crisis. The distribution follows a federal judge’s recent approval of partial payouts, marking a long-anticipated step forward after prolonged uncertainty.

According to MSP spokesperson Special Lt. Pat Agema, an investigation remains underway as of March 30, and no charges have been issued at this time. While officials have not disclosed the cause of McGehee’s death pending autopsy results, the case is currently being treated as a suspected homicide.

A federal appeals court has ruled that Michigan prison officials cannot be held constitutionally responsible for the mishandling of a scabies outbreak at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility. In a 2–1 decision on March 26, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s ruling and held that senior prison officials are protected by qualified immunity from federal constitutional claims related to their failure to identify and properly treat the outbreak that afflicted women with persistent itching, rashes, and infections from 2016 to 2019

Women incarcerated at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility have released a solution-focused open letter urging Governor Whitmer to grant clemency to at least 100 women before the end of her term. In the letter, they propose adopting the Women’s Clemency and Resentencing Initiative, a three-phase reform plan created by incarcerated women.

A group of Howard University students recently volunteered with Flint Community Schools as part of a program focused on supporting communities in need.