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bookshelf

76 posts in ‘bookshelf’

abolition

A Thousand Possibilities

Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.

Bill Ayers

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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.

Raj Jayadev

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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.

CalvinJohn Smiley

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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.

Katie Tastrom

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Futures

Abolition as Human Liberation

A hopeful, practical new book shows how abolitionist organizers today are building the world anew.

Rachel Herzing, Justin Piché & Maya Schenwar

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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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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.

Laura McTighe & Women With A Vision

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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.

Samantha J. Simon

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excerpt

Unmaking Prison Walls

Reacquainting ourselves with practices that made prisons more permeable can be a step toward ending mass incarceration.

Reiko Hillyer

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Policing

Unsafe on Campus

Policing on college campuses falls hardest on formerly incarcerated students, leaving them and the broader community unprotected.

Ryan Flaco Rising

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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.

Ruha Benjamin

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Futures

Abolition Can Mend Our Democracy

How might we reimagine our rights and liberties in the absence of incarceration?

Angela Y. Davis

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Crimmigration

Decriminalizing Migration

Taking criminal law out of immigration enforcement is a step toward safer, healthier communities. But is it enough?

Cristian Farias

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book review

Outsmarting a Monster

Jails are everywhere, trapping people and resources belonging to communities. And everywhere, there are organizers contesting that reality.

Charlotte Rosen

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activism

No Killing Revolutionary Hope

The oral histories of political prisoners shed light on their true character—and expose the darkness of the state.

Josh Davidson & Eric King

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recommendations

The Year in Books

As 2023 draws to a close, a look back at the books that informed, inspired, and empowered us to work for a world without mass incarceration.

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public history

The Suburban Drug War

How white, middle-class youth in the suburbs experienced the war on drugs is a largely untold chapter in the arc of mass incarceration.

Matthew D. Lassiter

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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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book review

Cages Without Borders

A new book centers prisons in the history of U.S. empire, reminding us of the need for international solidarity in the fight for freedom.

Stuart Schrader

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campaigns

Renewing New Orleans

Anti-jail organizers scored important wins in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But their fight isn’t over.

Lydia Pelot-Hobbs

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public history

The Long Revolt

Attica represents far more than a historic rebellion about prison reform. Its revolutionary abolitionist vision endures today.

Orisanmi Burton

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Essay

On Resilience

In the criminal system, having your life constrained and restricted, even after your sentence is over, has become a fact of life.

Jeff Noland

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Futures

Fractal Abolition

The work of tearing down structures of harm while building the world we want can and must start small.

Andrea J. Ritchie

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Crimmigration

Deconstructing Immigrant Binaries

To truly provide justice for those with criminal records, we must question harmful binaries that separate “good” from “bad” immigrants.

Sarah Tosh

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activism

Surveil and Conquer

The state spies upon and infiltrates social movements to keep people on guard, afraid, and second-guessing their every move.

Chris Robé

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book review

The Gun of Incarceration

Probation and parole in the United States don’t work. A longtime reformer and advocate has drawn a blueprint to end them.

Cristian Farias

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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.

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

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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.

Gwenola Ricordeau

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roundtable

Keeping Each Other Safe

Acting within the criminal legal system cannot be the solution, on its own, to the existence of the carceral state.

Jocelyn Simonson

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roundtable

Radicalized in Service of Others

Organizing and collective acts of resistance allow us to not only imagine new understandings of justice and safety, but to live them out.

Jocelyn Simonson

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