Skip to main content
collective action

Imprisoned but United

How the peaceful takeover of Walpole prison in 1973 holds lessons for abolitionists today.

Thomas Dichter

Read More

law & policy

Exceptional Punishments

No one should be made to give up their rights in exchange for being spared from prison.

Kate Weisburd

Read More

A closer look

Our Evidence-Based Obsession

Better research won’t get us out of our crisis of mass incarceration.

Jonathan Ben Menachem

Read More

roundtable

A Constellation of Tactics

Radical acts of justice can happen within the confines of the system. Or well outside it, as demonstrated by the organized resistance to Atlanta’s Cop City.

Micah Herskind

Read More

roundtable

From Reformism to Revolution

As organizers in Illinois know well, it is necessary to engage with criminalizing institutions to better learn how to defeat them.

Sharlyn Grace

Read More

roundtable

Keeping Each Other Safe

Acting within the criminal legal system cannot be the solution, on its own, to the existence of the carceral state.

Jocelyn Simonson

Read More

campaigns

Do You Know Their Names?

When slain by police, Black women and girls rarely garner the same communal outcry or political response as their fallen Black brothers.

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Read More

public health

Beware the Healthier Cage

In Atlanta politicians are pushing for a bigger jail they claim will be more humane. But health-care workers are pushing back.

Mark Spencer

Read More

excerpt

The Women at the Prison Gates

There are many forms of resistance undertaken by relatives and friends of incarcerated people, but the system renders them invisible.

Gwenola Ricordeau

Read More

advocacy

Chained by Debt

Erasing court costs and fines is a relatively small change that would have an outsize impact on those harmed by mass incarceration.

Shivani Nishar & Sarah Martino

Read More

abolition

Abolishing the Family

The fight against police and prisons cannot be separated from the struggle to extend care beyond the limits of the family form.

Quinn Lester

Read More

Essay

The Power of Fiction

More people impacted by the criminal legal system can and should share their stories through fiction—and through those stories change minds and public policy.

B.L. Blanchard

Read More

interventions

Abolition Everywhere

Despite the stumbling blocks imposed by Republican state governments, abolition is happening in the South and in small towns, with organizing specially tailored to local needs.

Meghan Krausch

Read More

Essay

Abolition Is Practical

Putting our ideas into practice—allowing ourselves to try, fail, and try again—will be how we move closer to a world without the harms of policing, prisons, and punishment.

Rachel Herzing

Read More

Beyond Reform

No Place for Families

Only an end to family court can lead to a radical reimagining of how we support children and caregivers.

Jane Spinak

Read More

Surveillance

In the Shadows, on the Radar

The lives of undocumented immigrants are very much documented—subject to the surveillance that’s endemic to contemporary life in the United States.

Asad L. Asad

Read More

public history

Urban Warfare and Corporate-Funded Armies

Atlanta’s Cop City is another chapter in the long history of U.S.-based colonialism. The second installment in a two-part series.

Joy James & Kalonji Jama Changa

Read More

interventions

A Secret Stash of Power

Shira Hassan

Read More

public health

Care and Carceralism

Disentangling medical care from policing, prisons, and other punitive institutions remains an imperative—now more than ever.

Ji Seon Song

Read More

Beyond Reform

Procedural Justice Isn’t Enough

In immigration court and beyond, fair process matters. But fair laws, fair legal systems, and fair societies matter far more.

Maya Pagni Barak

Read More

legal history

A Spirit, Unbroken

How Martin Sostre’s ‘single act of resistance’ stood for a broader struggle for bodily autonomy and collective liberation.

Garrett Felber

Read More

inquestcaptivelabor

Series

CAPTIVE LABOR

A collection of essays at the intersection of labor and the carceral state, in partnership with LPE Blog.

Read the essays

Past, Present & Future of Mass Incarceration

social control

Putting Reentry Out of Business

Reentry is an extension of the carceral continuum, a limbo between confinement and freedom.

CalvinJohn Smiley

Read More

Politics

Mass Incarceration on the Cheap

Fiscal arguments have only led to a reconfigured carceral state—one that replaces one type of punishment for another while still harming millions.

Jarrod Shanahan & Zhandarka Kurti

Read More

Politics

Lessons from Ohio’s Bail Backlash

Fearmongering about public safety played a major role in the state’s midterm setback. But we can learn from it how to take control of the political narrative.

Nikki Baszynski

Read More

interventions

No Justice, No Pleas

Imagining the decarceral possibilities of plea strikes and defendant unions.

Andrew Crespo

Read More

A closer look

A Prosecutor’s Decarceral Potential

A new Minneapolis-area county attorney won’t end mass incarceration. But she has the potential to cause less harm and promote healing.

Jared Mollenkof

Read More

A portion of the cover of Clarence Earl Gideon's petition to the Supreme Court of the United States

Series

Beyond Gideon

A collection of essays examining how—or whether—public defenders can meaningfully contribute to the end of mass incarceration.

Read the series

In Their Words

A Community Judge

As a newly elected judge assigned to misdemeanor court in Los Angeles, a former public defender sees her new role as serving those impacted by the system.

Holly Hancock

Read More

activism

Black Power Meets Police Power

The experiences of Michael and Zoharah Simmons show that the fight against the carceral state is embedded in a larger project of building a just world.

Dan Berger

Read More

In Depth

Data-Driven Decarceration

A close analysis of prison data can help us think concretely, and strategically, about the tradeoffs of different approaches to decarceration and prison closures.

Ben Grunwald

Read More

organizing

An Organized Community

ICE entanglement in local law enforcement is just one iteration of a bigger system meant to police our communities. And we can fight it.

Felicia Arriaga

Read More

Beyond Reform

Reclaiming Safety

In our imaginations, we need to break the equation of policing and public safety.

Mariame Kaba & Andrea J. Ritchie

Read More

Local jails

Pretrial Injustice

Incarceration ahead of trial is fundamentally unjust—a form of punishment that makes it virtually impossible to fight for your freedom.

Cyrus Gray

Read More

In Depth

A Future for Susanville

The prison town of Susanville, in California, is about to lose its livelihood. Its economic survival presents a test for abolition.

Piper French

Read More

interventions

A Secret Stash of Power

Now more than ever, we need a clear understanding of the role of violence, trauma, and survivorship in our harm reduction practice.

Shira Hassan

Read More

excerpt

The Problem With Innocence

Human sacrifice, and nothing else, is the central problem that organizes the carceral geographies of the prison-industrial complex.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Read More

What we are reading

The Inquest bookshelf

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

Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism

by Leigh Goodmark

Read More

Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power Through One Family’s Journey

by Dan Berger

Read More

The Slow Violence of Immigration Court: Procedural Justice on Trial

by Maya Pagni Barak

Read More

States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and America’s Punishment System

by Jarrod Shanahan & Zhandarka Kurti

Read More

system actors

Resistance Is Futile

Matthew Clair

Read More

Crimmigration

Court-Assisted Expulsions

Angélica Cházaro

Read More

A closer look

And a Public Defender for All

Sara Mayeux

Read More

interventions

Making Headlines

Glenn Christie & David Rangaviz

Read More

ELSEWHERE on INQUEST

advocacy

A Passport to the Future

Abraham Santiago & Norman Gaines

Read More

interventions

Brady ’s Failure

Thomas Dybdahl

Read More

legal history

Blood in the Borderlands

Brian Behnken

Read More

public health

Policing Health

Jessica T. Simes & Jaquelyn L. Jahn

Read More

interventions

A Weapon of Last Resort

Candice Delmas

Read More

In Depth

Anything But Petty

J.D. King & Andrea Roth

Read More


KEEP UP WITH OUR BRAINSTORM

Inquest publishes new, thought-provoking ideas and essays weekly.

Join our mailing list to stay on top of the latest.

Newsletter