North Carolina has exactly 100 counties, and two weeks ago, MuckRock sent a public records request to each one of them in an effort to learn more about inmates’ options for prison communication.

As part of a survey being conducted my MuckRock, seven of the state’s 23 county sheriff departments have provided their contracts, offering additional looks into agreements by Turnkey, Telmate, and Securus, one of the country’s largest providers of inmate prison communication services.

One of the largest providers of prison phone services in the United States is suing the Florida Department of Corrections for violating the procurement process in awarding a contract for inmate communications services to a competitor.

Between a federal shutdown, ongoing litigation, and new efforts to change bad policy, there’s a lot going on in the nation’s criminal justice system. Here’s what you might have missed.

Of the 159 Georgia county Sheriffs’ Departments that received our request, 63 have completed it, 14 have claimed to have no responsive documents, and another 15 are requesting payment for the materials. (You can help us pay for these fees by contributing to the crowdfund on the project page.)