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In Depth

35 posts in ‘In Depth’

In Depth

Just Learning

Incarcerated people are eligible for Pell Grants again—but will prisons actually allow us to flourish as college students?

Ashleigh Smith

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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.

Ed Vogel

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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.

Jennifer Oliva

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In Depth

The Hidden War Fueling New York’s Prison Guard Strike

The deadly labor action can best be understood in the context of white supremacy and class struggle.

Orisanmi Burton

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In Depth

When Fire Is the Only Way Out

At a far-flung prison in Virginia, conditions are so inhumane that those imprisoned there are setting themselves ablaze in protest—and to assert their humanity.

Jennifer Black & Noel Hanrahan

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In Depth

Beyond Carceral Eugenics

The United States has long treated street and corporate wrongdoing differently. Looking beyond this dichotomy can help us end mass incarceration.

Anthony Grasso

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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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In Depth

Sticking with the Sex

From sex work to sex offender registries, a queer politics requires that we end state practices of sex exceptionalism.

Joseph J. Fischel

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excerpt

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.

Max Felker-Kantor

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In Depth

When ‘Community’ Isn’t Actually the Community

The crisis of youth incarceration won’t be solved by cynical attempts to co-opt the language of grassroots organizing.

Sarah Cate

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In Depth

How We Ended Wealth-Based Jailing

In Illinois, ending money bond was our target. Pretrial freedom is our goal.

Matthew McLoughlin

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In Depth

The Carceral Labor Continuum

So many people, on both sides of the prison wall, labor under threat of state violence. This opens a path to more robust, far-reaching worker solidarity.

Noah Zatz

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In Depth

Forced Laborers

The carceral state molds and enforces worker compliance, vulnerability, and insecurity—both within and beyond prison walls.

Erin Hatton

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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.

Leigh Goodmark

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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.

Ben Grunwald

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In Depth

Anything But Petty

Misdemeanors are major sources of overcriminalization and punishment. Requiring jurors to screen them could shake up the system.

J.D. King & Andrea Roth

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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.

Leigh Goodmark

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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.

Sandra Susan Smith & Cierra Robson

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In Depth

Hidden Transcripts

The Reagan administration’s entrenchment of a retaliatory immigration detention regime sowed seeds of resistance that persist to this day.

Kristina Shull

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In Depth

Federal Time

Congress' rush to respond to recent mass shootings will criminalize Black and Brown communities the hardest, repeating historic mistakes that contributed to mass incarceration.

Kyana Givens, Michael Carter & Laura Ginsberg Abelson

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In Depth

Making Men Pay

For incarcerated fathers, child-support and related debt create their own feedback loops of disadvantage and punishment.

Lynne Haney

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In Depth

A Pound of Flesh

Fines and fees have a devastating effect on Black women and their communities. Abolishing them is the only option.

Alexes Harris, Natasha Hicks & Cortney Sanders

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In Depth

Always a Mother

Maternal incarceration is but a phase for the people who experience it. It doesn’t define them.

Geniece Crawford Mondé

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In Depth

A Future for Susanville

The prison town of Susanville, in California, is about to lose its livelihood. Its economic survival presents a test for abolition.

Piper French

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In Depth

Train Up a Child

Many kids learn violent behaviors through intergenerational harm — and are then met with more harm by the state. Things don’t have to be this way.

Micere Keels

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In Depth

Captive Consumers

How government agencies and private companies trap and profit off incarcerated people and their loved ones.

Ariel Nelson & Stephen Raher

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In Depth

Atonement

The American penal system renders invisible the many people in its grip who are working hard to make amends.

Steve Herbert

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In Depth

Home Rule

In weighing the future of thousands placed on home confinement during the pandemic, the government should prioritize where they are now: in their communities.

Jessica Morton & Samara Spence

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In Depth

Cages in the Coalfields

A growing carceral state has slowly replaced the coal industry in large swaths of Central Appalachia. But even here, a different future is possible.

Judah Schept

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In Depth

The Invisible Violence of Carceral Food

There's no such thing as a 'humane' eating environment in a penal system that inherently produces illness and death.

Kanav Kathuria

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