In August 1996, 13-year-old Richezza Williams was found dead in a Pennsylvania cemetery, her burned and beaten body dumped in a cardboard box after she was tortured with household items, including a heated clothes hanger, cleaning chemicals, and a turkey baster.
Congressional firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said that America needs to have a "real conversation" about "prison abolition" on Monday morning. 
If elected president, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) plans to free more than a million people from America's prisons, according to a campaign plan released Sunday. 
Roughly 3,100 federal prison inmates will soon be released, the Department of Justice announced Friday, as part of implementation of federal criminal justice reform enacted into law last year. 
There are millions of people in America today with a criminal record, yet government statistics shed almost no light on their lives and experiences, an expert demographer argued in a Congressional hearing Wednesday. 
The share of the adult population in prison has fallen to its lowest point since 1997, a new report released Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows. 
The Senate passed a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill known as the First Step Act on Tuesday by a vote of 87-12. 