A closer look
Graying in Prison
There's no aging with dignity for people serving extreme sentences. Freeing them is only a start to a deeper paradigm shift.
conditions of confinement
18 posts in ‘conditions of confinement’
public history
The Long Revolt
Attica represents far more than a historic rebellion about prison reform. Its revolutionary abolitionist vision endures today.
public health
Beware the Healthier Cage
In Atlanta politicians are pushing for a bigger jail they claim will be more humane. But health-care workers are pushing back.
Crimmigration
Exploited No More
How organizing workers in immigrant detention can serve as a foundation for abolition and liberation for all.
legal history
A Spirit, Unbroken
How Martin Sostre’s ‘single act of resistance’ stood for a broader struggle for bodily autonomy and collective liberation.
collective action
An End to Bread and Water
When the state of Virginia starved them, the author and his incarcerated comrades banded together to gain recognition of their right as citizens to access the courts.
excerpt
Defending Attica
How radical lawyers played a key role standing up for survivors of the Attica uprising.
interventions
A Weapon of Last Resort
It's high time we reconsider the power and promise of hunger strikes — without denying the tactic’s radical, disruptive, and self-violent character.
legal history
Litigious Zeal
One might say incarcerated Muslims sue religiously. And true enough, a deep belief in justice is what moves them to resist oppression this way.
voices
Caring Collectively
Looking back on 25 years of abolitionist feminism and organizing in California.
campaigns
A New Sheriff in Town
New Orleans’ newest jailer won’t get us out of our crisis of mass incarceration. But her election still matters as we build a safer, healthier community.
public health
Treating Unfreedom
Practicing correctional medicine is fundamentally an exercise in harm reduction. And it’s no match for freedom itself.
Essay
Radicalized at the Workhouse
The criminal legal system almost took my life from me. The anger that came after now fuels my life’s work.
voices
Divide and Conquer
For those of us on the inside who believe in prison abolition by any means necessary, prison closures really mean prison closures. The state and some of my fellow prisoners…
interventions
The True Jailers of Rikers
As demands grow louder for decarcerating and shutting down New York City’s deadly jail complex, judges and prosecutors have escaped accountability. But they’re the ones driving the crisis.
Essay
Where Choice Ends
Unless and until mass incarceration is ended, Roe v. Wade, and reproductive freedom writ large, will never be safe.
Life Inside
‘We Are Men’
On the 50th anniversary of a flashpoint of the American penal system, the cries of Attica still resonate today.
Crimmigration
Immigration Imprisonment Is a Choice
Quickly, legally, and unilaterally, the Biden administration could easily free tens of thousands trapped in ICE detention. Whether it wants to is another story.