abolition
A Thousand Possibilities
Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.
bookshelf
76 posts in ‘bookshelf’
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.
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.
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.
excerpt
Unmaking Prison Walls
Reacquainting ourselves with practices that made prisons more permeable can be a step toward ending mass incarceration.
Policing
Unsafe on Campus
Policing on college campuses falls hardest on formerly incarcerated students, leaving them and the broader community unprotected.
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.
Futures
Abolition Can Mend Our Democracy
How might we reimagine our rights and liberties in the absence of incarceration?
Crimmigration
Decriminalizing Migration
Taking criminal law out of immigration enforcement is a step toward safer, healthier communities. But is it enough?
book review
Outsmarting a Monster
Jails are everywhere, trapping people and resources belonging to communities. And everywhere, there are organizers contesting that reality.
activism
No Killing Revolutionary Hope
The oral histories of political prisoners shed light on their true character—and expose the darkness of the state.
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.
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.
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.
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.
campaigns
Renewing New Orleans
Anti-jail organizers scored important wins in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But their fight isn’t over.
public history
The Long Revolt
Attica represents far more than a historic rebellion about prison reform. Its revolutionary abolitionist vision endures today.
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.
Futures
Fractal Abolition
The work of tearing down structures of harm while building the world we want can and must start small.
Crimmigration
Deconstructing Immigrant Binaries
To truly provide justice for those with criminal records, we must question harmful binaries that separate “good” from “bad” immigrants.
activism
Surveil and Conquer
The state spies upon and infiltrates social movements to keep people on guard, afraid, and second-guessing their every move.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.