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Politics

The Terrain of Struggle

Leaving no one behind, abolitionists plan for a transformed future—even as we attempt to address pain points in the here and now.

Rachel Herzing

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interventions

The President and the Police

A second Trump presidency may render police accountability elusive. But, as before, people and communities can and will fight back.

Joanna Schwartz

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books

Raising Abolitionists

A new anthology invites parents into the work of building a world without prisons.

Kim Wilson, Maya Schenwar & Bill Ayers

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interventions

Uprooting Violence

Restorative justice seeks to address the root causes of violence—while also doing the work of healing the grief caused by it.

Phillip Vance Smith II

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abolition

Transformative Justice Is Global

A transnational approach to abolition brings a new appreciation for community—both broader and narrower than the nation-state—as the site for care, justice, and democratic self-governance.

Melanie Brazzell

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culture

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.

Paula Lehman-Ewing

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Excerpt

Mass Criminalization as Religion

The deification of whiteness and property has long legitimized the containment of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized peoples.

By Andrew Krinks

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public health

The Prescription Police

Placing criminal system tools in health-care providers’ hands causes irreparable damage to patient care and public trust.

Elizabeth Chiarello

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advocacy

Preparing for the Worst

Ahead of the election, immigrants’ rights advocates are working hard to be ready, no matter who wins.

Silky Shah

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in conversation

Decarceral Judges

Most judges in Los Angeles are former prosecutors. But a leadership academy there is helping a pair of public defenders to challenge that status quo.

George Andrew Turner, Jr., Ericka J. Wiley, Adam McGee & Daven McQueen

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culture

Survival Art

“Art is not a leisure activity. Art is a redemptive, powerful, meditative, actionable force within a person—within a human being.”

Duane "DJ" Montney, James “Yaya” Hough & etta cetera

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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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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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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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law & policy

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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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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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

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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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

Closed Doors

Prison is no place for grief and closure. Yet even as I mourned, glimmers of love and life surrounded me.

Alexander Bolling

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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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campaigns

Beauty on the Inside

A look at how decarceral, abolitionist filmmaking can help us envision new worlds.

Sylvia Ryerson, Andy Myers, Adamu Chan & Andrew Crespo

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