collective action
Imprisoned but United
How the peaceful takeover of Walpole prison in 1973 holds lessons for abolitionists today.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From our archives
Pride Reading List
Essays exploring the past and present of the criminalization of queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming existence.
democracy & power
Culture Wars and Criminalization
Absent a sustained politics of solidarity, culture wars will continue to erode civil rights while criminalizing, surveilling, and punishing those who claim them
public health
Care and Carceralism
Disentangling medical care from policing, prisons, and other punitive institutions remains an imperative—now more than ever.
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.
legal history
A Spirit, Unbroken
How Martin Sostre’s ‘single act of resistance’ stood for a broader struggle for bodily autonomy and collective liberation.
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
social control
Putting Reentry Out of Business
Reentry is an extension of the carceral continuum, a limbo between confinement and freedom.
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.
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.
interventions
No Justice, No Pleas
Imagining the decarceral possibilities of plea strikes and defendant unions.
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.
Series
Beyond Gideon
A collection of essays examining how—or whether—public defenders can meaningfully contribute to the end of mass incarceration.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Beyond Reform
Reclaiming Safety
In our imaginations, we need to break the equation of policing and public safety.
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.
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.
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.
excerpt
The Problem With Innocence
Human sacrifice, and nothing else, is the central problem that organizes the carceral geographies of the prison-industrial complex.
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
Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power Through One Family’s Journey
by Dan Berger
The Slow Violence of Immigration Court: Procedural Justice on Trial
by Maya Pagni Barak
States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and America’s Punishment System
by Jarrod Shanahan & Zhandarka Kurti
Sentences
“Organizing is the key element in all social change. The legal strategy has to be coordinated and informed by the organizing strategy. Anyone who has been arrested under these unjust laws who goes to court without support and an organizing strategy will likely be martyred by the legal system. The government and corporations are using the legal system to squash dissent.”
* * *
—Bill Quigley, a veteran human rights lawyer, in “Quashing Dissent”
From our archives
Beyond Gideon
A reading list of past Inquest essays that examine the role of public defense in the machinery of mass incarceration.
interventions
The End of Public Defenders
One path to ending mass incarceration is ending our modern conception of public defense. And being transparent about our work is one way to start.
system actors
Resistance Is Futile
Crimmigration
Court-Assisted Expulsions
A closer look
And a Public Defender for All
Local jails
Pretrial Injustice
interventions
Making Headlines
excerpt
Defending Attica
interventions
Saying Their Names
ELSEWHERE on INQUEST
book review
Bars and Barriers
advocacy
A Passport to the Future
interventions
Brady ’s Failure
legal history
Blood in the Borderlands
Photo Essay
Archives of Resistance
public health
Policing Health
campaigns
Meeting the Moment
interventions
A Weapon of Last Resort
In Depth
Anything But Petty
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