America's New Bedlam

One boat, two families; trying to escape war in Syria, desperate to start a new life in Europe. In October 2013, dozens of migrants aboard that boat died, as it travelled across the Mediterranean Sea. But some eventually made it to Malta. What happened next? 

The richest man of all time was 14th Century monarch King Mansa Musa, who reigned over Mali from 1312 to 1337. His fortune came from gold and salt, and control of trade routes. 

Since the pandemic struck, millions around the world have endured lockdowns, with many finding it hard to tolerate long periods indoors. But what if lockdown meant years on end spent entirely alone, in a single room, sometimes no bigger than a large elevator? In many US states, j ...  Show more

Host Aggie Chambre explores the crisis in Britain's prison system and asks what can be done to fix it. She goes inside a prison riddled with drugs and violence, and hears from the governor and from long-serving inmates about what's really going on. Justice Secretary Alex Chalk se ...  Show more

For the nearly 20 million Americans with a felony record, punishment doesn’t end after their prison sentence. Sociologist Reuben Jonathan Miller sheds light on the aftershocks of mass incarceration through the stories of people who’ve lived it, left it and still have to grappl ...

Close to five thousand people have died in federal prison since 2009. There are 100 federal prisons across the U.S. An NPR investigation found that a quarter of those deaths happened at one federal prison. Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina. Inmates have a cons ...  Show more