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excerpt

No Refuge

Many women escaping violence in their home countries find themselves trapped in the formal violence of the asylum system.

Carol Cleaveland & Michele Waslin

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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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A closer look

No More Shame

Sex offender–specific treatment can leave you feeling humiliated. Or it can ground you, help you grow, and remind you of your worth.

Wesley Vaughan

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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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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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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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law & policy

Don’t Talk to the Cops

Your right against self-incrimination is not safe in a criminal system that cares more about coercing convictions than about finding the truth.

Justin Brooks

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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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Photo Essay

Resisting Creatively

In Pittsburgh, a collective of incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists is dreaming of a world without mass incarceration.

etta cetera

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racial capitalism

Mass Criminalization as Religion

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

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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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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In the States

The People v. the Prison

California is discovering the hard way that you can’t leave decarceral reforms in the hands of prison officials.

Ivan Kilgore

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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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interventions

Lawyerless No More

Once a person is imprisoned, indigent defense stops. But the gravity of mass incarceration demands legal representation to the very end.

Jennifer Soble

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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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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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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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collective action

Making Labor Work

Today’s labor movements must see the carceral state not just as a related progressive battle, but as central to the struggle for workers’ rights.

Sandeep Dhaliwal

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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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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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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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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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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.

Joseph Margulies

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interventions

Announcing the creation of the Movement Media Alliance

Inquest joins over a dozen progressive media organizations to build power and create accountability based on social justice.

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