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.
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.”
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.
interventions
Free Books
Programs that send literature to incarcerated people provide a vital lifeline, facilitating personal growth and imaginative escape.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In Depth
Just Learning
Incarcerated people are eligible for Pell Grants again—but will prisons actually allow us to flourish as college students?
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…
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.
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.
advocacy
The Right to Be Called Workers
Language of ‘trafficking’ and ‘slavery’ disempowers migrant sex workers while directing attention away from state violence.
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.
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
poetry
Two poems
“Shower Call Down Below” & “29 L-Building”
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.
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.
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.
poetry
Poetry from Mississippi State Penitentiary
Work from poets incarcerated in Parchman’s Unit 29
poetry
Three poems
“Crying Johnny,” “Officer Judy Gives Instructions to the Lock Down Inmates,” & “Holiday Special Meal”
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…
Decarceral Pathways
Just Surviving
Crimes committed because of financial hardship are a form of labor and should not be subject to criminal legal punishment.
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.
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.
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.
Beyond Reform
Pinkwashing Prisons
Efforts to improve incarceration for women ultimately support a system that is worse for all.
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.
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.
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.