Beginnings
When Treatment First Met the Prison
During the mid-twentieth century, the Bureau of Prisons ran two “narcotic farms” that muddled medical care with incarceration, part of a growing trend that criminalized addiction.
bookshelf
98 posts in ‘bookshelf’
books
Freeing the Mind
An incarcerated researcher explores how childhood trauma often shapes the lives of those in prison.
Crimmigration
No Papers, No Fear
A new generation of anti-deportation activists leaves no one behind, fighting to end the harms of the entire punishment industry.
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.
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.
recommendations
The Year in Books
A curated list of 2024 publications that moved us to continue working toward a world without mass incarceration.
excerpt
No Refuge
Many women escaping violence in their home countries find themselves trapped in the formal violence of the asylum system.
books
Raising Abolitionists
A new anthology invites parents into the work of building a world without prisons.
law & policy
Don’t Talk to the Cops
Your right against self-incrimination is not safe in a criminal system that cares more about coercing convictions than about finding the truth.
racial capitalism
Mass Criminalization as Religion
The deification of whiteness and property has long legitimized the containment of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized peoples.
public health
The Prescription Police
Placing criminal system tools in health-care providers’ hands causes irreparable damage to patient care and public trust.
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.
Local jails
Reforming Sheriffs
Electing progressive sheriffs only goes so far toward curbing the structural forces that sustain mass incarceration.
abolition
A Thousand Possibilities
Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.
law & policy
Breaking the Chains
Ending prison slavery and giving fair wages to incarcerated workers are necessary steps on the pathway to justice.
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.”
abolition
The Transformation of Justice
What does genuine safety look like? And what will it take to prioritize it rather than simply managing inequality and other injustices?
organizing
People-Powered Defense
Participatory defense gives families and communities an opportunity to protect their own in courtroom spaces that have long robbed them of power.
abolition
Community Is a Verb
Defund gives us a platform and pathway to reimagine a society with less police, more care, and services that meet the needs of all.
Futures
Abolitionist Social Work
Social work must be anti-carceral, against oppression, and committed to ending the systems, structures, and ideologies that cause people harm.
Policing
Safety Without Police
Even before the uprisings in Minneapolis, communities have been radically reimagining a world that doesn’t depend on policing.
Q&A
Picturing the Crisis
A new book uses art to make the horrors of mass incarceration as visual, and visceral, as possible.
culture
A Narrative of Control
Mass incarceration rests on false narratives that carceral institutions themselves control. But some of us are fighting back.
Beyond Reform
Disability Justice Demands Abolition
When people need care, then the solution should be to get them care, not increase the risk of police violence.
Futures
Abolition as Human Liberation
A hopeful, practical new book shows how abolitionist organizers today are building the world anew.
Essay
Hip Hop Is My Life
I spit bars on Death Row to preserve the legacy of our people, what’s been done to us, and how we’ve fought back.
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.
abolition
How We Rode the Storm
After Hurricane Katrina, law enforcement criminalized sex work and Black women like never before. We fought back—and won.
Policing
The ‘Bad Guys’
Police academies socialize officers into an us-versus-them mentality—particularly when it comes to activists—and harden them to any attempts at reform.
public history
Imprisoned by War
Racialized and violent, modern U.S. warmaking is inextricably linked with our history of mass incarceration.