How We Told the Story of Criminal Justice Through Visuals in 2025

In 2025, through evocative illustrations and photography, The Marshall Project’s visual storytelling tackled themes of deplorable jail conditions, judicial power, the racist origins of the juvenile justice system, love behind bars, deaths in custody and healing after gun violence.

Here are some examples of our work from the last year:

Illustration by Kaylynn Kim for Judges in Missouri Can Levy Death if Juries Deadlock. Some Say the Law Is Unconstitutional. Art direction by Marci Suela.

A collage illustration with muted green and orange tones shows details of black mold on a bathroom floor, a closeup of a cockroach, a broken toilet bowl, trash, a closeup of a person covering their nose and mouth, a closeup of a person clenching their fist, and the obscured figure of a man.

Illustration by Isabel Seliger for No Showers, Black Mold and Clogged Toilets: America’s Jails Are Disgusting. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

A photo shows a group of Black men and women holding hands, closing their eyes, and bowing their heads in prayer in a forest.

Photo by Maansi Srivastava for Finding the Racist Roots of Maryland’s Juvenile Justice System. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

Larry Moses, a Black man wearing an olive green T-shirt and pants, sits in a blue Adirondack chair, while Gloria Armour, a Black woman wearing dark patchwork jeans and a white midriff shirt with a chest cutout, leans against a door on the porch of their apartment.

Moses lifts up a gold necklace hanging around Armour’s neck, which has a ring hanging from it.

Moses stands on a deck, smiling at and carrying Armour’s great-niece, a Black toddler wearing a small white bow and braids in her hair.

A group picture shows Moses, Armour, and her smiling family and friends standing on a deck and the deck stairs.

Photos by Camille Farrah Lenain for Love Beyond Bars: Larry and Gloria. Art direction by Celina Fang.

Illustrations by Cbabi Bayoc for Remember Me. Art direction by Raghu Vadarevu.

A photo showing a dark interior of a room with a window looking out onto a school campus is overlaid on a photo of plants with green leaves against a frosted window.

Photos and collage by Alicia Vera for Dozens of Teens Who Spent Time at Abusive Florida Reform School Ended Up on Death Row. Art direction by Celina Fang.

A photo shows an older Black woman with grey hair looking into the camera for a portrait. The woman is wearing a blue jacket and a white blouse, and is standing in the middle of an outdoor plaza.

Photo by Justin Hardiman for DOJ Shakeup May Put Civil Rights Probe of 1970 Jackson State, Mississippi, Killings At Risk. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

Video by Stephanie Rose Figgins for DOJ Shakeup May Put Civil Rights Probe of 1970 Jackson State, Mississippi, Killings At Risk. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

Photos by Nate Smallwood for ‘It Was Chaos’: How an Ohio Youth Treatment Center Tried to Put an End to Rising Violence. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

A Black woman in a blouse with ruffled sleeves stands with her back to the camera facing a gravestone that has a vase of flowers set upon it.

Photos by Rahim Fortune for Who Answers for a Death in Custody? Art direction by Celina Fang.

An illustration shows Ralph Marcus, a White man wearing a white baseball cap and t-shirt, and a fingerless glove in pale blue. The illustration shows his body dissipating into oblong shapes in white, orange and red into the air. In the foreground are green plants with flowers blooming among them in orange, red and yellow.

Illustration by Diana Nguyễn for The Last Words of a Man Who Died in Prison From a Treatable Cancer. Art direction by Celina Fang.

Illustrations by Juan Bernabeu, collage by Da’Shaunae Marisa and Juan Bernabeu for An Overlooked Source of Information in Missouri Prison Deaths: The Coroner; These Families Wanted to Lay Their Loved Ones to Rest. They Had to Bring Them Home From Prison First; When Their Loved Ones Died Behind Bars, These Families Had to Sleuth for the Truth; and Their Loved Ones Died Behind Bars. These Keepsakes Are All They Have Left. Art direction by, clockwise from top left: Marci Suela, Celina Fang, Jovelle Tamayo, and Celina Fang.

Video by Michael Indriolo for The Unbearable Darkness of Jail. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

An illustration shows a grid of different jail cells with small or narrow windows, or no windows at all.

Illustration by Grace J. Kim for The Unbearable Darkness of Jail. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

A collage with ripped paper-style cutouts of silhouettes of police officers in orange and green over a black-and-white background photo of two police officers standing next to each other.

Collage by Mark Harris for Trump’s Anti-DEI Push Raises Concerns Among Black Officers in Local Police Departments. Art direction by Hannah Yoon.

An illustration shows a transparent silhouette of a person sitting down, surrounded by outlines of faces and smaller drawings of people sitting down.

Illustration by Mary Ainza for ‘Lost’ in Missouri jail cells. Art direction by Marci Suela.

An illustration shows a transparent silhouette of a mother hugging her child. Inside the silhouette, a White woman in a blue prison uniform sits on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed.

Illustration by Kailey Whitman for Motherhood Made Me Even More of a Prison and Police Abolitionist. Art direction by Marci Suela.

An illustration shows a man with medium skin tone and black hair wearing a blue prison uniform in four scenarios. Clockwise from the top left: The man raises his fists in front of a White man in a prison uniform who is yelling and pointing at him; the man sits on his bed with his head down, looking at a piece of paper; the man sits at a table in front of a woman with a ponytail and medium-dark skin tone; the man stands in an office in front of a laptop, where a woman on a screen is speaking to him. There are four quotes around the figures that read: “It’s a dangerous place here. It got to the point where I had to defend myself.” - Giovanni Lee, “Long story short, they never investigated what happened. They just found me guilty.” - Lamont Clark, “You all had my fate sealed before I even got in the room.” - Edward Navone, and “I’m about to go home. They ended up maxing me out, giving me my whole time.’”- Giovanni Lee

Illustration by Julia Kuo for How Ohio’s Reagan Tokes Law Keeps People in Prison Longer. Art direction by Jovelle Tamayo.

Illustrations by Olivia Kim and Lucid Clairvoyant for An Illustrated Resource Guide for Families of Homicide Victims in St. Louis. Art direction by Marci Suela. Booklet design by Mara Corbett.

A man wearing blue pants and a white T-shirt dangles from and holds onto the threads of an American flag against a city skyline.

Illustration by Owen Gent for What, to the American Incarcerated Person, Is Your Fourth of July? Art direction by Hannah Yoon.

An illustration shows two correction officers holding down an incarcerated man wearing an orange jumpsuit while nurses stand outside in the hallway.

An illustration shows an infirmary room with a hospital bed with orange blood splattered on it; a chair, a desk with a computer on it; a sink and a countertop; and broken glass on the floor.

Illustrations by Dion MBD for When Prison Nurses Must Choose Between Loyalty to Abusive Guards and Devotion to Patients and In Some New York Prisons, Infirmaries Are Dens of Hidden Violence. Art direction by Hannah Yoon.

An illustration shows a Black woman in a cream-colored prison uniform looking at a silhouette of a guard.

Illustration by Laura Lannes for At My Texas Prison, Solitary Confinement All But Guarantees Sexual Exploitation by Guards. Art direction by Marci Suela.

Rahsheek Hill protested at Greene Correctional Facility on the one-year anniversary of his brother’s death.

Photo and videos by Angus Mordant for In New York Prisons, Lack of Medical Care Led to Preventable Deaths. Art direction by Hannah Yoon and Celina Fang.

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How We Told the Story of Criminal Justice Through Visuals in 2025

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