We're liveblogging this weekend from The Texas Tribune Festival's Law & Order track, which includes panels on exonerated inmates, forensic science, prosecutorial misconduct and the future of juvenile justice.

The cost to treat Texas inmates with hepatitis C is expected to soar by as much as 380 percent next year. Legislators, already facing a strained budget, will have to find millions more dollars to pay for this care.

During the 1990s, many Texans believed prison construction would help boost the economies in rural areas. Today, ongoing staffing shortages in rural units are causing legislators and other officials to reconsider that assumption.

A coalition of influential Texas organizations is pushing back against the proposed privatization of a state psychiatric hospital by GEO Care, a subsidiary of a prison operations group that has a troubled history in Texas. 

A program started in Hawaii that closely oversees criminal offenders' probation periods is starting a test run in Texas. The experiment, which is getting federal funds, will help determine how the program translates to the mainland.

In the case of a 64-year-old former Texas inmate with high blood pressure and other health conditions, a federal appeals court ruled that extreme temperatures can violate prisoners' constitutional rights. 

Michael Morton’s 2011 exoneration brought to a crescendo calls for change in the way that prosecutors are regulated in Texas. Morton, prosecutors and criminal justice reform advocates talk about why prosecutorial errors happen and how they can be prevented.

While advocates worry particularly about heat conditions in a prison unit with recent water shortages, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering arguments in a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice alleging that the sweltering living quarters constitute cruel and unusual punishment. 

As summer temperatures rise, so do worries about conditions in state prisons. The Texas Civil Rights Project on Tuesday filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Texas prison officials on behalf of the family of an inmate who died last summer.

State officials are unsure how Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision on mandatory life sentences for juveniles will affect the 27 people in Texas who were incarcerated for life without the possibility of parole before the age of 18.

The Sunset Advisory Commission found that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has room for improvement. The commission on Tuesday discussed accountability, budgetary efficiency, response to inmate grievances and communication.

For years they’ve been the Butch and Sundance of Texas criminal justice policy. Republican state Rep. Jerry Madden and Democrat state Sen. John Whitmire have helped lead a sea change in the adult and juvenile prison systems. But the team is breaking up. 

An administrative judge has again denied Kerry Max Cook's request to move his case out of Smith County, a decision the former death row inmate worries will doom his fight to legally prove his innocence.

With the state government tightening its belt, there are now 10,200 fewer state government employees, according to our latest analysis of data collected by the state auditor’s office. 

UPDATED: Former Smith County District Attorney A.D. Clark III denies allegations by Kerry Max Cook's lawyers that Clark had kept the knife linked to Linda Jo Edwards' fatal stabbing at his home. 

The state's highest criminal court on Wednesday ordered a lower court to review a death penalty case that involved a psychologist reprimanded last year for using unscientific methods.

The executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance on how drug policies are making Texas’ criminal justice system “horrific,” and who has the most to gain and lose by amending current drug policies.

Part news program, part call-in show, "The Prison Show" aims to help inmates stay connected to family, friends and the outside world.