Essay
A Forgiving Society
Only by approaching each person as a member of society—rather than an outcast—will we begin to unwind the punitive turn of the past sixty years.
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.
Receive our newsletter
Every Saturday, we’ll send you a digest with the latest essays from people thinking through and working for a world without mass incarceration.
Sign up for the latest.
Newsletter
Roundtable
The World Ferguson Made
Three activists from ‘the Michael Brown generation’—Derecka Purnell, Tef Poe, and Blake Strode—reflect on what changed in St. Louis after the uprisings. And what didn’t.
In conversation with St. Louis historian Walter Johnson.
* * *
A Coming of age
Growing Up Post-Ferguson
I was the same age as Michael Brown when he was killed. The uprising set me on the path to abolition.
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
social control
Safety from Surveillance
In their fight to get ShotSpotter out of Chicago, organizers have emphasized the ways that for-profit technology can never deliver on its promises to make communities safer.
A closer look
Squinting in the Sunlight
Most reentry programs assume a person who is able to work and live on their own. Those of us who are older don’t have that kind of freedom.
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.
Book Roundtable
The Prosecutor Paradox
What role, if any, can prosecutors play in ending mass incarceration?
Ongoing Series
Carceral Geographies
Essays exploring how mass incarceration shapes, and is shaped by, our shared world and built spaces. At the link below, incarcerated writer Stevie Wilson explores the many harms of prison transfers.
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.
in conversation
Unlocking Learning
Education is integral to centering the holistic well-being of incarcerated people.
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.
Excerpt
Safety Without Police
Even before the uprisings in Minneapolis, communities have been radically reimagining a world that doesn’t depend on policing.
Futures
Abolition as Human Liberation
A hopeful, practical new book shows how abolitionist organizers today are building the world anew.
campaigns
Disrupting Carceral Narratives
There can be justice beyond punishment. To realize it, we must challenge the narrative that carceral violence is the only response to other forms of violence.
excerpt
Unmaking Prison Walls
Reacquainting ourselves with practices that made prisons more permeable can be a step toward ending mass incarceration.
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.
campaigns
A Breakthrough on Solitary
Connecting it to the fight for disability rights has helped activists in California to make exciting progress in their effort to end solitary confinement.
activism
Asymmetrical Partners
Activism must involve incarcerated people—but few outside advocates really understand the dangers and limitations that imprisoned organizers face.
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.
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.
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.
advocacy
Back to Appalachia
They were incarcerated in Eastern Kentucky, far from home. Now they’re free and back, hoping the region won’t build a new prison there.
book review
Outsmarting a Monster
Jails are everywhere, trapping people and resources belonging to communities. And everywhere, there are organizers contesting that reality.
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.
activism
No Killing Revolutionary Hope
The oral histories of political prisoners shed light on their true character—and expose the darkness of the state.
interventions
Papers, Please
Reparations for historic wrongs require concrete action, and that’s no different for the untold harm caused by cannabis criminalization.
public history
Imprisoned by War
Racialized and violent, modern U.S. warmaking is inextricably linked with our history of mass incarceration.
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.
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
Fire Dreams: Making Black Feminist Liberation in the South
by Laura McTighe & Women With a Vision
The Jail Is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration
by Jack Norton, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs & Judah Schept
Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the “Criminal Alien”
by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández
Crimmigration
Decriminalizing Migration
Taking criminal law out of immigration enforcement is a step toward safer, healthier communities. But is it enough?
Big Data
Borders and Bytes
So-called “smart” borders are just more sophisticated sites of racialized surveillance and violence. We need abolitionist tools to counter them.
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.
Series
CAPTIVE LABOR
A collection of essays at the intersection of labor and the carceral state, in partnership with LPE Blog.
Past, Present & Future of Mass Incarceration
book review
Cages Without Borders
A new book centers prisons in the history of U.S. empire, reminding us of the need for international solidarity in the fight for freedom.
first person
Learning to Live
For incarcerated people, prison education programs can offer not only knowledge but also hope that a different future is possible.
Reflections
Yearning to Go Home
Life-without-parole sentences hit families especially hard. Yet they fight on, committed to their loved ones’ freedom.
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.
Futures
No More Family Policing
Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, and poor children and their families bear the brunt of a system that many now agree should be dismantled.
Sentences
“The idea is to challenge this prison on every possible front—its purported economic impacts, its environmental impacts, its racial impacts, its social impacts, its public-health impacts. We’re doing this for all those inside and outside its walls. We all stand to be impacted by this. And so we hope everyone will join us in building this record of dissent.”
* * *
—Sylvia Ryerson, a filmmaker and organizer, in “Building Community”
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.