books
Freeing the Mind
An incarcerated researcher explores how childhood trauma often shapes the lives of those in prison.
excerpt
31 posts in ‘excerpt’
excerpt
A Nation of Imprisoned Immigrants
Jails have been foundational to immigration enforcement for over a century—and have always operated with a staggering absence of oversight and public awareness.
excerpt
No Refuge
Many women escaping violence in their home countries find themselves trapped in the formal violence of the asylum system.
racial capitalism
Mass Criminalization as Religion
The deification of whiteness and property has long legitimized the containment of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized peoples.
abolition
A Thousand Possibilities
Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.
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.”
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Dare to Report
The D.A.R.E. program turned students into snitches, leading to the arrest and incarceration of friends and loved ones who used drugs.
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Unmaking Prison Walls
Reacquainting ourselves with practices that made prisons more permeable can be a step toward ending mass incarceration.
Big Data
Borders and Bytes
So-called “smart” borders are just more sophisticated sites of racialized surveillance and violence. We need abolitionist tools to counter them.
campaigns
Do You Know Their Names?
When slain by police, Black women and girls rarely garner the same communal outcry or political response as their fallen Black brothers.
excerpt
The Women at the Prison Gates
There are many forms of resistance undertaken by relatives and friends of incarcerated people, but the system renders them invisible.
Beyond Reform
No Place for Families
Only an end to family court can lead to a radical reimagining of how we support children and caregivers.
excerpt
The Embodied Observers
Carceral settings imprison an untold number of experts—outsiders on the inside who have much to teach us about mass incarceration.
In Depth
Criminalizing Survival
The criminal legal system heaps more violence on victims of gender-based violence. Abolishing these structures is the only way to protect them.
excerpt
Defending Attica
How radical lawyers played a key role standing up for survivors of the Attica uprising.
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A Point of No Return
Understanding the past of the Cook County Jail is understanding its present.
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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.
Beyond Reform
Reclaiming Safety
In our imaginations, we need to break the equation of policing and public safety.
voices
Caring Collectively
Looking back on 25 years of abolitionist feminism and organizing in California.
In Depth
Making Men Pay
For incarcerated fathers, child-support and related debt create their own feedback loops of disadvantage and punishment.
excerpt
The Problem With Innocence
Human sacrifice, and nothing else, is the central problem that organizes the carceral geographies of the prison-industrial complex.
excerpt
Sexual Policing
Law enforcement of women’s bodies is a structural and systematic form of police violence. All of us are less safe if we don’t end this brutal expression of state-sanctioned power.
Life Inside
Burn the Spot
Writing about people you encounter in prison carries special responsibilities.
excerpt
Canaries in the Coalmine
We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are isolated.
Surveillance
A Model City
How e-carceration grabbed a hold of Camden is a cautionary tale for those of us who envision a future without policing.
Crimmigration
The Border State
Our nation’s turn toward punitiveness for people arriving at the Southwest border coincided with the modern era of mass incarceration.
excerpt
Vulnerable Places
Entire communities are singularly exposed to punishment. Understanding how is central to combating mass incarceration.
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Copaganda
How pop culture helped turn police officers into rock stars — and Black folks into criminals.
system actors
Resistance Is Futile
In ways large and small, defendants who try to assert their voice in the criminal legal system see their agency denied — including, sometimes, by their own lawyers.
excerpt
An American Invention
In the struggle to end mass incarceration, one must understand how the criminalization of violence is largely a modern creation.