Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Wanda Bertram, communications strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative. Here she talks about the studies and the recommendations her organization is making to address the problem.

An increasing number of Americans have been imprisoned for longer and longer sentences over the past several decades, due to the government’s so-called “War on Drugs” and politicians who appeal to voters by calling for “tough on crime” policies.

These forces have led to mass incarceration in the U.S. that’s resulted in a prison population that’s now older. Three in every four people who were released from state prisons from 1991 and 2021, more than 12 million people, are over the age of 50 today. Two recent studies measure the negative health and longevity impacts of long-term incarceration later in life.

Interview with Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director research, reporting and analysis with the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center & SPLC Action.

Rachel Rivas discusses the Souther Poverty Law Center’s “Annual Year in Hate & Extremism Report,” which finds that under the Trump regime, far-right extremist groups have gained new power across the federal government, private tech sector and college campuses over the course of 2025.

Interview with Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of the Minneapolis-based national organization Vote Common Good, conducted by Scott Harris.

Pastor Doug Pagitt discusses how the resistance community he works with has been doing since the dark days of the ICE invasion in the Twin Cities in January. He talks about the Department of Justice’s recent federal criminal charges against 15 Minneapolis residents in connection with anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis-St. Paul earlier this year, accusing them of “conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers” and of allegedly “violently” impeding immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities.