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public history

The Profit Motive

A recent book unveils the shockingly long history of for-profit prisons—and the equally long history of incarcerated people demanding compensation for their exploited labor.

Robin Bernstein & Nicole R. Fleetwood

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poetry

An Essay in Acrostic: P.O.L.I.C.E.

“They tell us we have the right to take up / space. But they come in armor and shields / that say otherwise.”

Tony Koji Wallin-Sato

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interventions

Changing Courts from the Ballot Box

In Los Angeles, judges are elected, and most are lifelong prosecutors. Community members are now fighting this carceral status quo by working to elect career public defenders.

Gabriela Vázquez, Leah Perez, Adam McGee & Daven McQueen

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interventions

Free Books

Programs that send literature to incarcerated people provide a vital lifeline, facilitating personal growth and imaginative escape.

Hugh Williams, Jr.

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advocacy

The Police Don’t Protect Us

A decade of increasingly sexphobic lawmaking has left sex workers worse off, unable to keep themselves safe and more likely to be victims of police violence.

Kaytlin Bailey

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A closer look

Against Abandonment

When the social safety net gets shredded, incarceration increases. We can’t just count on mutual aid; the most vulnerable among us need government benefits.

Katie Tastrom

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interventions

More Violence at the Door

Domestic violence survivors shouldn’t have to survive police violence, too. It is time to follow the evidence to interventions that actually work.

Sandhya Kajeepeta

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public health

Punished for Getting Sick

Prisons are sites of pervasive medical neglect, both creating and worsening disability. Never was this more the case than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tommaso Bardelli, Aiyuba Thomas & Dylan Brown

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In Depth

Just Learning

Incarcerated people are eligible for Pell Grants again—but will prisons actually allow us to flourish as college students?

Ashleigh Smith

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interventions

Expert Guides

Reentry guides supplied by prisons are light on details and heavy on judgement. That’s why formerly incarcerated people are writing a guide for New York filled with their own lived…

Matthew Azzano

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In Depth

Turning Death into a Commodity

ShotSpotter has leveraged gun violence into a multimillion-dollar business that promises safety but delivers only increased policing and drain on the public’s resources.

Ed Vogel

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In Depth

Everything Old Is New Again

Policymakers claim to have turned away from the “old” war on drugs—but everything about their “new” approach is still focused on punishment and surveillance.

Jennifer Oliva

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advocacy

The Right to Be Called Workers

Language of ‘trafficking’ and ‘slavery’ disempowers migrant sex workers while directing attention away from state violence.

Chanelle Gallant & Elene Lam

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first person

What’s in a Name?

Being forced by prison authorities to publish anonymously caused me to reflect on the long history of Black authors choosing names in response to state violence.

Alexander Bolling

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poetry

Hard Time in Prison

I had one / wish it will be I wish I can / get out of this cuz this is / a suffering pain time I’m doing

Carvis Johnson

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poetry

Two poems

“Shower Call Down Below” & “29 L-Building”

Victor Wilder

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Criminalizing Dissent

The Tools of Repression

The sweeping conspiracy and terrorism indictment of Stop Cop City activists reveals the new playbook for state suppression of protest. But we can still win.

Hannah Riley & Micah Herskind

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poetry

Hi Rise

I’m eligible to smoke til I fall clapping my / Hands and feet all the same time / Laffing at all this shit.

Bryant Kirk

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Criminalizing Dissent

Criminalized for Obeying a Higher Law

Nuclear abolitionists in the Plowshares movement have been imprisoned for bringing attention to the fact that nuclear weapons are immoral and illegal under international law.

Art Laffin

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poetry

Poetry from Mississippi State Penitentiary

Work from poets incarcerated in Parchman’s Unit 29

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poetry

Three poems

“Crying Johnny,” “Officer Judy Gives Instructions to the Lock Down Inmates,” & “Holiday Special Meal”

Leon Johnson

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Beginnings

A Torture Among Tortures

Even in ancient societies not known for their delicacy about violence, solitary confinement stood out as a horror. In our own time we are far less clear-eyed about its violent…

Spencer J. Weinreich

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Decarceral Pathways

Just Surviving

Crimes committed because of financial hardship are a form of labor and should not be subject to criminal legal punishment.

Yvette T. Butler

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racial capitalism

Extracting Police

Violent policing is not a bug of capitalist societies but a feature. To end our dependence on it, we must first understand its connection to exploitation.

Stephanie Guirand & Spencer Piston

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interventions

Ending Juvenile Life Without Parole

Convincing New Mexico to stop sentencing children to die in prison required us to let go of “us” versus “them” politics.

Denali Wilson

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Beginnings

When Treatment First Met the Prison

During the mid-twentieth century, the Bureau of Prisons ran two “narcotic farms” that muddled medical care with incarceration, part of a growing trend that criminalized addiction.

Holly M. Karibo

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Beyond Reform

Pinkwashing Prisons

Efforts to improve incarceration for women ultimately support a system that is worse for all.

Erin Collins

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first person

39 Years

I rejected a plea deal and chose instead to go to trial. I would not understand until too late that I had placed a target on my back.

Shebri Dillon

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Beginnings

Feminisms Against the Carceral State

Seventies-era anti-carceral feminism opposed “tough on crime” policymaking and played an important role in the making of today’s prison abolition movement.

Emily Thuma

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first person

On Aging and Dying in Captivity

This year I passed a grim milestone: I’ve now been in captivity longer than I’d been alive when I was arrested.

Kevin Light-Roth

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