In Depth
When Fire Is the Only Way Out
At a far-flung prison in Virginia, conditions are so inhumane that those imprisoned there are setting themselves ablaze in protest—and to assert their humanity.
book review
Serving City Time
A new book doubles as a detailed chronicle of, and guidebook to, surviving incarceration on New York’s Rikers Island.
culture
Punishment TV
We are fighting to end carceral reality TV—including shows such as ‘60 Days In’—because no one should profit from punishment.
collection
Freedom Writers
Inquest’s landing page for writing by our incarcerated and formerly incarcerated authors. Finalist for the 2025 National Magazine Awards.
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democracy & power
Abolition and the Presidency
The Trump administration will assail our movement. That doesn’t change the fact that it looks backward while we look forward.
interventions
A Bridge to Health
Medicaid access, both pre- and post-release, is a promising path to ensuring that reentry is a genuine, lasting return to freedom.
public health
Surviving Abstinence
Abstinence-only drug treatment doesn’t work. For people in prison, where drugs flow freely, such programs simply place them at greater risk of relapse.
Beyond Reform
No More Pretrial Punishment
In my many years as a public defender, I accepted the legal rationales for pretrial detention. But I can’t anymore.
Crimmigration
No Papers, No Fear
A new generation of anti-deportation activists leaves no one behind, fighting to end the harms of the entire punishment industry.
A closer look
Almost Anti–Death Penalty
Biden’s incomplete slate of commutations saved lives but ultimately lost the moral argument.
Essay
A Lethal Upbringing
A decade of victimization landed a Harlem kid in prison. More than three decades later, he has not allowed prison to define his life story.
In Depth
Beyond Carceral Eugenics
The United States has long treated street and corporate wrongdoing differently. Looking beyond this dichotomy can help us end mass incarceration.
system actors
Decarceral Counseling
Defense lawyers should be open to advising their clients about systemic oppression, laying bare the ways that mass incarceration ensnares.
activism
Back to the Basics
At a time of political realignment, progressive movements need to get back to building relationships, across differences, and growing their base.
organizing
Build Your Fortress
Now more than ever communities must protect our own, even as we prepare for a long battle.
excerpt
A Nation of Imprisoned Immigrants
Jails have been foundational to immigration enforcement for over a century—and have always operated with a staggering absence of oversight and public awareness.
law & policy
A Mere Hunch
The right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion means nothing to millions subject to probation. That’s wrong.
books
Raising Abolitionists
A new anthology invites parents into the work of building a world without prisons.
excerpt
No Refuge
Many women escaping violence in their home countries find themselves trapped in the formal violence of the asylum system.
Culture & Politics
The Prison They Let You SEe
The San Quentin Film Festival offered a feel-good image of prison life—one far removed from the reality faced by most incarcerated Californians.
By Paula Lehman-Ewing
public health
The Prescription Police
Placing criminal system tools in health-care providers’ hands causes irreparable damage to patient care and public trust.
advocacy
Preparing for the Worst
Ahead of the election, immigrants’ rights advocates are working hard to be ready, no matter who wins.
A closer look
No More Shame
Sex offender–specific treatment can leave you feeling humiliated. Or it can ground you, help you grow, and remind you of your worth.
culture
Survival Art
“Art is not a leisure activity. Art is a redemptive, powerful, meditative, actionable force within a person—within a human being.”
democracy & power
Death Qualified
The presidential candidates are worlds apart on the death penalty. The winner could either jolt or sap the energy of the movement to end it.
A closer look
Playing with Originalism
Should advocates looking to unwind our nation’s punitive excesses engage a Supreme Court that set them in motion?
Local jails
Reforming Sheriffs
Electing progressive sheriffs only goes so far toward curbing the structural forces that sustain mass incarceration.
Policing
A Nation of Cop Cities
The push by Atlanta and other cities to build large police training facilities follows on a long history of armories as both symbols and manifestations of the state’s power.
A closer look
Whitewashing Police Violence
‘Excited delirium syndrome’ is a tool the state invented to evade accountability whenever people of color die at the hands of police.
excerpt
No Good Prison
An incarcerated writer and advocate in California implores: “Don’t waste my time trying to make it more comfortable for me in here.”
law & policy
Breaking the Chains
Ending prison slavery and giving fair wages to incarcerated workers are necessary steps on the pathway to justice.
abolition
A Thousand Possibilities
Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.
Series
Ferguson at Ten
How the police killing of Michael Brown propelled a decarceral movement.
Life Inside
The Last Breakfast
I kept my promise to break bread with my friend Dobie one last time, right before the state of Louisiana put him to death.
abolition
The Transformation of Justice
What does genuine safety look like? And what will it take to prioritize it rather than simply managing inequality and other injustices?
organizing
People-Powered Defense
Participatory defense gives families and communities an opportunity to protect their own in courtroom spaces that have long robbed them of power.
racial capitalism
Bad Credit
Credit scoring is control by another name. It keeps marginalized people from the means of survival and exposes them to punishment.
advocacy
Remedying Wrongs
The administrative remedy process is a roadblock to challenging inhumane prison conditions. With the help of advocates, people in prison are fighting back.
Surveillance
For the Public Good
While on parole in Oregon, homelessness, unemployment, and lack of services kept me in survival mode. This is not public safety.
Ongoing Series
Carceral Geographies
Essays exploring how mass incarceration shapes, and is shaped by, our shared world and built spaces.
abolition
Community Is a Verb
Defund gives us a platform and pathway to reimagine a society with less police, more care, and services that meet the needs of all.
Futures
Abolition as Human Liberation
A hopeful, practical new book shows how abolitionist organizers today are building the world anew.
culture
A Narrative of Control
Mass incarceration rests on false narratives that carceral institutions themselves control. But some of us are fighting back.
Series & Collections
Since our launch, we have published a number of essay series and collections examining drivers of and solutions to our crisis of mass incarceration. Find them all here.
activism
Gay Liberation and the Carceral State
Recovering a vision of queer solidarity with incarcerated people may just be what people disaffected by the gay rights movement need today.
organizing
A Safer, Healthier Boston
In seeking funding for non-carceral mental health crisis response, we’re hoping to bring a small piece of our abolitionist horizon to our city.
activism
Asymmetrical Partners
Activism must involve incarcerated people—but few outside advocates really understand the dangers and limitations that imprisoned organizers face.
What we are reading
The Inquest bookshelf
A selection of recent books that invite us to imagine a world without mass incarceration.
The Warehouse: A Visual Primer on Mass Incarceration
by James Kilgore & Vic Liu
Abolition and Social Work: Possibilities, Paradoxes, and the Practice of Community Care
by Mimi Kim, Cameron Rasmussen & Durrell Washington Sr.
Witness: An Insider’s Narrative of the Carceral State
by Lyle C. May
The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence & the Politics of Policing in America
by Michelle S. Phelps
Past, Present & Future of Mass Incarceration
excerpt
Dare to Report
The D.A.R.E. program turned students into snitches, leading to the arrest and incarceration of friends and loved ones who used drugs.
advocacy
Philly’s Safe Consumption Fight
Public skepticism about scientific research, coupled with echoes of the war on drugs, have hindered our city’s ability to respond to our overdose crisis.
first person
Closed Doors
Prison is no place for grief and closure. Yet even as I mourned, glimmers of love and life surrounded me.
Policing
Safety Without Police
Even before the uprisings in Minneapolis, communities have been radically reimagining a world that doesn’t depend on policing.
campaigns
Beauty on the Inside
A look at how decarceral, abolitionist filmmaking can help us envision new worlds.
Sentences
“A major reason for our current economic distress is because of the blessing and curse of our natural resources, which misled us into putting all our eggs in the basket of a fossil fuel single economy. Now, however, we have an opportunity to evaluate all ideas and make better choices for our children’s future.”
* * *
—Artie Ann Bates, a community organizer in Kentucky, in “Letcher Is Us”
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