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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?

Cristian Farias

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In the States

The People v. the Prison

California is discovering the hard way that you can’t leave decarceral reforms in the hands of prison officials.

Ivan Kilgore

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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.

Lee Kovarsky

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Local jails

Reforming Sheriffs

Electing progressive sheriffs only goes so far toward curbing the structural forces that sustain mass incarceration.

Jessica Pishko

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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.

Matthew Guariglia

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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.

Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús

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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.”

Paula Lehman-Ewing

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Preview

Breaking the Chains

Ending prison slavery and giving fair wages to incarcerated workers are necessary steps on the pathway to justice.

Tommaso Bardelli, Andrew Ross & Aiyuba Thomas

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abolition

A Thousand Possibilities

Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.

Bill Ayers

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Also, the boy and his mother aren’t pleased with this photo.

Series

Ferguson at Ten

How the police killing of Michael Brown propelled a decarceral movement.

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From 'The Ferguson Decade'

First locally and then nationally, protests calling for justice for Michael Brown fundamentally changed the public conversation about state violence, racist policing, and the limits of what a democratic society could stomach while still considering itself such.

The editors of Inquest

Splash image: Jamelle Bouie/Wikimedia Commons/Inquest


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.

William Kissinger

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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?

Philip V. McHarris

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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.

Raj Jayadev

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Book Roundtable

The Prosecutor Paradox

What role, if any, can prosecutors play in ending mass incarceration?
in conversation

Returning to Freedom

A PBS series on reentry is exposing audiences to how people leaving prison grow, heal, and thrive despite their past.

Paul Butler & Cristian Farias

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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.

Kenneth Alyass

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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.

Wesley Vaughan

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Hero Overlay – With Companion Stories-19

Ongoing Series

Carceral Geographies

Essays exploring how mass incarceration shapes, and is shaped by, our shared world and built spaces.

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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.

CalvinJohn Smiley

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Futures

Abolition as Human Liberation

A hopeful, practical new book shows how abolitionist organizers today are building the world anew.

Rachel Herzing, Justin Piché & Maya Schenwar

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culture

A Narrative of Control

Mass incarceration rests on false narratives that carceral institutions themselves control. But some of us are fighting back.

Lyle C. May

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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.

Michael Bronski

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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.

Emy Takinami & Husain Rizvi

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activism

Asymmetrical Partners

Activism must involve incarcerated people—but few outside advocates really understand the dangers and limitations that imprisoned organizers face.

Ivan Kilgore, Paula Lehman-Ewing & Glenn E. Martin

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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.

Explore

abolition

For the People’s Health

Abolition and public health go hand in hand. Organizers are embracing both as they pursue decarceral projects that center everyone’s well-being.

Cristian Farias

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Policing

‘I’m Just Different, That’s All’

We embrace nonconformity in principle—but not for Black men, whose quirks can provoke fear, policing, and punishment.

Monica Bell

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In Depth

Sticking with the Sex

From sex work to sex offender registries, a queer politics requires that we end state practices of sex exceptionalism.

Joseph J. Fischel

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book review

Outsmarting a Monster

Jails are everywhere, trapping people and resources belonging to communities. And everywhere, there are organizers contesting that reality.

Charlotte Rosen

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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.

Max Felker-Kantor

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activism

No Killing Revolutionary Hope

The oral histories of political prisoners shed light on their true character—and expose the darkness of the state.

Josh Davidson & Eric King

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interventions

Papers, Please

Reparations for historic wrongs require concrete action, and that’s no different for the untold harm caused by cannabis criminalization.

Adam Vine

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public history

Imprisoned by War

Racialized and violent, modern U.S. warmaking is inextricably linked with our history of mass incarceration.

Jason A. Higgins

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In Their Words

Ambassadors to Freedom

People condemned to die in prison are telling the world about it—and fighting to free one another in the process.

Marcus Kondkar, Calvin Duncan, Annie Nisenson, Daryl Waters, Ron Hicks & Everett Offray

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What we are reading

The Inquest bookshelf

A selection of recent books that invite us to imagine a world without mass incarceration.

Abolition, Vol. 1: Politics, Practices, Promises

by Angela Y. Davis

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Fire Dreams: Making Black Feminist Liberation in the South

by Laura McTighe & Women With a Vision

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The Jail Is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration

by Jack Norton, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs & Judah Schept

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Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the “Criminal Alien”

by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

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Past, Present & Future of Mass Incarceration

Futures

Abolition Can Mend Our Democracy

How might we reimagine our rights and liberties in the absence of incarceration?

Angela Y. Davis

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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.

Shoshana Aronowitz

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first person

The Banality of Mandatory Surcharges

In New York and elsewhere, exploitative court-ordered fees shouldn’t saddle a person who is already poor and criminalized.

Eric Paris Whitfield

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organizing

Building Community

For many years, Kentuckians have been fighting the construction of a federal prison. They’ve been winning, but their fight isn’t over.

Sylvia Ryerson

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Policing

Safety Without Police

Even before the uprisings in Minneapolis, communities have been radically reimagining a world that doesn’t depend on policing.

Michelle Phelps

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