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PINJ has paid particular attention to the Allegheny County Jail throughout the pandemic, tracking the deaths of those in custody as well as the conditions incarcerated individuals have been forced to endure.
View all of our coverage on the Allegheny County Jail by clicking here.
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Advocating for accommodations has been a constant, but largely quiet, struggle for college students with disabilities since the Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990.
Read from our award-winning series, Leveling the Playing Field, here.
Books
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Novel, “Chain-Gang All-Stars” Is Singular Story-Telling for Our Time
by Jody DiPerna From the first page of his brilliant novel, “Chain-Gang All-Stars,” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah brings the reader into a prison system of the future based entirely on history to lay bare harrowing truths about the carceral system. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has created a world in the not so distant future wherein incarcerated people…
Keep reading“The Songs of Betty Baach” Is a Modern High Lonesome Ballad with a ray of hope
by Jody DiPerna Glenn Taylor’s home state of West Virginia inspires his fiction. He tells stories of the resilience, struggle and joy of working people. There are labor battles, timbering, and coal mining; there is murder, environmental calamity and activism. Taylor grew up in Huntington and now lives in Morgantown, where he teaches at West…
Keep readingNew Book “This Is My Jail” Digs Deep on the History of Jails in America
by Jody DiPerna Melanie Newport is an historian who teaches urban history and criminal justice history at the University of Connecticut at Hartford. Her book, “This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration” has just been released by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Melanie Newport wanted to understand the history of…
Keep readingEducation

Education in Pittsburgh was upended in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly closed schools. Since then, as multiple virus waves have swept the nation, students have been in and out of physical classrooms, learning sometimes online, sometimes in person, sometimes not at all. How will they rebound?
Commentary
Exiles Living in a Church
By Kristin Kovacic, Belt Magazine It certainly isn’t cool, or edgy, or funny–the things people say about what it must be like to live in a church. It’s relentless. . . . Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord: they shall praise thee for ever and ever.—Psalm 83 St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist…
Keep readingIn Pittsburgh, local journalism is worth the fight
Having two major news sources in the city owned by notoriously anti-worker management can’t be good. For local journalism to be good, local journalism jobs need to be good. By Noelle Mateer, Belt Magazine Local journalism is the best journalism, and I know this because I’ve seen its opposite. I grew up in Pennsylvania, went…
Keep readingPa.’s criminal legal system increases overdose deaths and makes recovery impossible | Opinion
By Sean Fogler and Carla Sofronski , Pennsylvania Capital-Star In 2021, over 5,300 Pennsylvanians lost their lives to a preventable drug overdose. Pennsylvania policy makers and local government officials have led the charge in fueling this historic public health crisis. While there are many factors contributing to this horrific toll, Pennsylvania’s criminal legal system stands…
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Social Justice