legal history
A Spirit, Unbroken
How Martin Sostre’s ‘single act of resistance’ stood for a broader struggle for bodily autonomy and collective liberation.
abolition
69 posts in ‘abolition’
Ideas & Essays
Whose Abolition?
Du Bois’s ‘Black Reconstruction’ is widely embraced by decarceral activists, but it celebrates state violence in a way few would now accept.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Reflections
Goodnight Jail
Based on 'Goodnight Moon', the 1947 bedtime classic by Margaret Wise Brown.
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
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.
Beyond Reform
Reclaiming Safety
In our imaginations, we need to break the equation of policing and public safety.
Crimmigration
Court-Assisted Expulsions
Immigrants fighting their deportations need lawyers. That doesn’t mean federally funding their defense should be a movement goal.
Beyond Reform
No More Courts
The legal institutions, processes, procedures, and actors implicated in the progression of criminal cases are simply beyond reform.
voices
Caring Collectively
Looking back on 25 years of abolitionist feminism and organizing in California.
Reflections
Inquest: Year One
A reflection from the founding editors of Inquest on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the publication.
Reflections
Juneteenth and Black Liberation
Our government's history of oppression compels us to free those Black revolutionaries aging in our prisons.
democracy & power
Changing Everything
Beyond electing progressive prosecutors, decarceration requires an ambitious, multifaceted struggle at all levels of governance.
Institutions
End Carceral Social Work
To stay true to their professed values, social workers must wholly disavow and remove themselves from systems of harm.
Surveillance
Deconfiguring the Security State
The roots of e-carceration run deep, and we need to articulate digital abolition as the solution.
prison closures
A Punishment Profiteer
A rare instance of state prisoners, state prison administrators, and the governor of California all publicly agreeing that a particular prison ought to be closed.
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.
excerpt
The Problem With Innocence
Human sacrifice, and nothing else, is the central problem that organizes the carceral geographies of the prison-industrial complex.
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.
A closer look
Cops and Counselors
Mental health professionals call the police, work with the police, and act like the police. But even in our ranks, an abolitionist future is possible.
Institutions
A Veneer of Benevolence
For many years, I believed that the child welfare system could be reformed, but no more. It needs to be abolished.
public health
Unwell in a Cell
Co-opting the language of mental health and treatment, jail expansion is taking root in several cities and localities. But these are cages all the same.
Essay
Beyond Private Prisons
Simply targeting the corporations caging migrants and other people for profit won’t create a future without mass incarceration.