In Depth
Data-Driven Decarceration
A close analysis of prison data can help us think concretely, and strategically, about the tradeoffs of different approaches to decarceration and prison closures.
legal history
Blood in the Borderlands
Mexicans and Mexican Americans have long been targets of legal and extralegal violence by the police. Learning this history is a step toward ending abuses that persist to this day.
Essay
A New Clarity
We need new words and understandings — not only for crime, freedom, and responsibility, but also for history and spacetime — because it gets us closer to an abolitionist world.
advocacy
Face to Face
The Visiting Room Project offers an intimate glimpse into the stories of Louisianians serving life without parole.
book review
Bars and Barriers
Far from a plan for decarceration, 'Barred' is nonetheless a trenchant look at how the criminal system fails the innocent and guilty alike.
interventions
A Weapon of Last Resort
It's high time we reconsider the power and promise of hunger strikes — without denying the tactic’s radical, disruptive, and self-violent character.
recommendations
The Year in Books
As 2022 draws to a close, we reflect on books that informed, inspired, and empowered us to envision a world without mass incarceration.
Media
Justice and Journalism
How we're helping journalists report more deeply, more precisely, and more carefully on the law, on the criminal system, and towards justice.
Policy
Serial Injustices
Millions rallied behind Adnan Syed, whom the system gave a second look. Many others serving extreme sentences deserve a second look, too.
excerpt
A Point of No Return
Understanding the past of the Cook County Jail is understanding its present.
advocacy
A Passport to the Future
Pell grant restoration for incarcerated students is long overdue. But without infrastructure and safeguards, higher education, and true freedom, will remain elusive.
legal history
Litigious Zeal
One might say incarcerated Muslims sue religiously. And true enough, a deep belief in justice is what moves them to resist oppression this way.
Photo Essay
Archives of Resistance
The movement to end police violence has a rich visual history. In Brooklyn, a collective of volunteers is doing its part to preserve it.
Reflections
Reshaping Our Wanting
There is a place for desire in an abolitionist world, at least when desire is pleasure and love and freedom.
Decarceral Pathways
Revoking Probation
After years of working in the system, a reformer and believer in government gives up on probation and parole.
In Depth
Anything But Petty
Misdemeanors are major sources of overcriminalization and punishment. Requiring jurors to screen them could shake up the system.
In Depth
To Free Them All
The carceral system criminalizes and retraumatizes survivors at every step. Dismantling these structures is the only way to end this violence.
Institutions
Pretty and Punitive
For all its aesthetically pleasing attributes, Norway’s Halden Prison is still a prison for the men who must endure it.
interventions
A Secret Stash of Power
Now more than ever, we need a clear understanding of the role of violence, trauma, and survivorship in our harm reduction practice.
In Depth
Jail by Another Name
The rise of pretrial e-carceration in San Francisco has created a new class of people for whom freedom remains elusive.
Reflections
Goodnight Jail
Based on 'Goodnight Moon', the 1947 bedtime classic by Margaret Wise Brown.
Surveillance
Debt Trapped
The growth of electronic monitoring has spawned a quagmire of hidden fines and fees from which people need a way out.
excerpt
Repression and Backlash
The tangle of policy responses following the 2020 uprisings over police violence shows that both Republicans and Democrats failed to meet the moment.
campaigns
Meeting the Moment
As a lifelong public defender, I ran to become Santa Clara County’s next district attorney. I didn’t win, but our movement did.
democracy & power
Culture Wars and Criminalization
Absent a sustained politics of solidarity, culture wars will continue to erode civil rights while criminalizing, surveilling, and punishing those who claim them
public health
Monkeypox and Decarceration
Urgent action in our nation’s jails and prisons can prevent the kind of mass suffering seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Policy
Decarcerating from Within
Here's how imprisoned writers can offer reasoned analysis on policies affecting the carceral state.
In Depth
Hidden Transcripts
The Reagan administration’s entrenchment of a retaliatory immigration detention regime sowed seeds of resistance that persist to this day.
A closer look
Growing Justice
Why understanding restorative and transformative justice on their own terms, and at their best and worst, will help us build more of both.
interventions
Nullifying Dobbs
Jurors’ conscientious refusal to convict people charged for violating abortion bans is perfectly legal — and what justice demands.