Since new rules went into effect to make prisons safer for prisoners, reports of sexual assault behind bars have increased 180 percent, according to a recent report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The numbers point to increased reporting of prison rapes—a positive sign—but concerns remain about how corrections officials handle the growing number of abuse allegations.

Washington followed 19 other states to end capital punishment last week as the death penalty experiences a nationwide decline in use. The state Supreme Court unanimously struck down capital punishment last Thursday as unconstitutional, racially biased, and arbitrary.

Washington’s eight prisoners currently on death row will have their sentences commuted to life in prison with no parole, The Seattle Times reported.

The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan opioid bill last week that authorizes new tools and $8.5 billion to combat the nationwide crisis of overdose and death fueled by synthetic drugs such as fentanyl.

Pushback to anti-panhandling laws is growing, even in places with comparatively scant homelessness, like Iowa. Thousands of cities have “no soliciting” laws, and last month the American Civil Liberties Union challenged three Iowa communities on the grounds that ordinances against panhandling infringed on homeless residents’ freedom of expression.

Officials in two states are facing backlash for making inmates shelter in place during mandatory evacuations ahead of Hurricane Florence’s landfall last week.

Police last week raided the home of a New Jersey couple suspected of funding their own lifestyle with a GoFundMe campaign they set up for homeless man.

The raid is the latest in a sad saga surrounding the $402,000 Kate McClure raised online for Johnny Bobbitt, a homeless veteran who helped her last year when she ran out of gas on an interstate highway near Philadelphia.

A New Jersey judge last week ordered a woman to hand over more than $400,000 she raised last year to help a homeless veteran who gave her his last $20 for gas money.

In a suit filed last week, the veteran, Johnny Bobbitt, accused Kate McClure and her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, of fraud and conspiracy, claiming they were holding the money and using it to fund an extravagant lifestyle. The couple said Bobbitt did not have a bank account and could not be trusted with the entire amount due to a drug addiction.