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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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Preview

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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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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racial capitalism

Bad Credit

Credit scoring is control by another name. It keeps marginalized people from the means of survival and exposes them to punishment.

Terri Friedline & Anna K. Wood

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In Their Words

Poems on Policing

Poetry has the power to help us grow past the stale and rote ways of thinking about safety that tend to characterize policy discussions.

Monica Bell

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A closer look

A Pattern of Injustice

The Ferguson report was a landmark. But the Department of Justice needs to do much more to empower communities in the fight to end police abuse.

Christy Lopez

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Reflections

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.

Rachel Rood-Ojalvo

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In Depth

Ferguson’s Pound of Flesh

Ten years ago, the killing of Michael Brown exposed a system that extracts what little wealth marginalized people have. That system is still here.

Alexes Harris

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activism

The World Ferguson Made

Three activists from 'the Michael Brown generation' reflect on what changed in St. Louis after the uprisings—and what didn’t.

Walter Johnson, Derecka Purnell, Tef Poe & Blake Strode

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Essay

The Ferguson Decade

A decade on, Ferguson remains central for those working toward a world free from the harms of policing and prisons.

Adam McGee, Andrew Crespo & Premal Dharia

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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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activism

Anticipating Repression

The Democratic National Convention will be a testing ground for whether progressive politics can meet political dissent without carceral violence.

Brad Thomson

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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.

Ed Vogel & Sharah Hutson

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Essay

Soft Boiled

Most crime novels make detectives into heroes and offer resolution through punishment. Could a different kind of crime novel help us imagine a decarceral future?

Joshua Perry

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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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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.

William Kissinger

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Life Inside

Unsettled People

Prison transfers are routinely used to punish, disorient, and isolate incarcerated people, disconnecting them from family, friends, community, and all sense of place.

Stephen Wilson

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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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conclusion

All of the Above

Prosecutors alone won’t end mass incarceration. But their interventions can mean the world to people staring down the many harms of criminalization.

Premal Dharia

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advocacy

Not a Fix-All

Electing progressive prosecutors is but one tool in a multifaceted, collaborative approach to ending mass incarceration.

David Ayala

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