A closer look
Whitewashing Police Violence
'Excited delirium syndrome' is a tool the state invented to evade accountability whenever people of color die at the hands of police.
black lives matter
18 posts in ‘black lives matter’
In Their Words
Poems on Policing
Poetry has the power to help us grow past the stale and rote ways of thinking about safety that tend to characterize policy discussions.
Essay
The Ferguson Decade
A decade on, Ferguson remains central for those working toward a world free from the harms of policing and prisons.
Policing
‘I’m Just Different, That’s All’
We embrace nonconformity in principle—but not for Black men, whose quirks can provoke fear, policing, and punishment.
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.
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.
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
Reflections
Juneteenth and Black Liberation
Our government's history of oppression compels us to free those Black revolutionaries aging in our prisons.
democracy & power
After the Backlash
Understanding the democratic appeal of retrenchment and reaction to movements for racial justice has never been more urgent.
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.
Race and the Law
Reclaiming Whren
How a committed critical race theorist on the bench might have written one of the worst Fourth Amendment cases in history.
campaigns
150 Years Is Enough
The case for abolishing New Jersey’s youth prisons.
Institutions
No More Compromisers
The Supreme Court doesn’t need another Stephen Breyer. It needs someone who can openly confront the immorality of our criminal legal system.
Media
The Journalist Advocate
Since the days of Ferguson, I’ve used my editorial perch to amplify the voices of those crushed by our nation’s system of wealth extraction. If that also makes me an…
interventions
A Safer Cleveland
Our movement was born out of our shared grief. Our voices reminded voters that the police should never police themselves.
excerpt
Fear of the Black Child
American society and its criminal legal system simply won’t let Black kids be kids