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.
criminal legal system
48 posts in ‘criminal legal system’
advocacy
Chained by Debt
Erasing court costs and fines is a relatively small change that would have an outsize impact on those harmed by mass incarceration.
recommendations
Our End-of-Summer Reading List
Decarceral ideas and essays that have moved our readers in the past year.
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.
Film review
Reframing Our Outrage
A new film reminds us that caring about survivors means working to prevent and respond to all violence—including carceral violence.
Essay
The Power of Fiction
More people impacted by the criminal legal system can and should share their stories through fiction—and through those stories change minds and public policy.
Essay
The Recall: Reframed
A short film asks how we can offer justice for survivors of sexual violence without perpetuating the harms of mass incarceration.
Crimmigration
Exploited No More
How organizing workers in immigrant detention can serve as a foundation for abolition and liberation for all.
In Depth
Forced Laborers
The carceral state molds and enforces worker compliance, vulnerability, and insecurity—both within and beyond prison walls.
public history
The House of D
In the history of a shuttered lockup for queer women in New York City, a reminder that incarceration has always been a form of social control.
organizing
An Organized Community
ICE entanglement in local law enforcement is just one iteration of a bigger system meant to police our communities. And we can fight it.
interventions
No Justice, No Pleas
Imagining the decarceral possibilities of plea strikes and defendant unions.
public health
Care and Carceralism
Disentangling medical care from policing, prisons, and other punitive institutions remains an imperative—now more than ever.
In Their Words
A Community Judge
As a newly elected judge assigned to misdemeanor court in Los Angeles, a former public defender sees her new role as serving those impacted by the system.
Beyond Reform
Procedural Justice Isn’t Enough
In immigration court and beyond, fair process matters. But fair laws, fair legal systems, and fair societies matter far more.
Beyond Reform
Poor People Lose
Gideon v. Wainwright is the wrong cure for the reality that the carceral system is designed to target poor people.
organizing
Harnessing Union Power for Public Defense
As public defenders, we are not “fighting the system”—we are the system. Because of this, we have power, and the numbers, to change it.
A closer look
Choice of Counsel
People assigned a public defender are the only ones deprived of the right to choose their lawyer. This often intersects disastrously with racial bias.
Essay
Gideon Turns Sixty
The Court’s decision must not preempt questions about the role public defenders can play in ending mass incarceration.
In Their Words
Remembering Tewkunzi
“All of us who’ve been inside have healing to do. There are so many survivors in prison. And then surviving prison requires its own kind of healing.”
A closer look
A Prosecutor’s Decarceral Potential
A new Minneapolis-area county attorney won’t end mass incarceration. But she has the potential to cause less harm and promote healing.
In Depth
Criminalizing Survival
The criminal legal system heaps more violence on victims of gender-based violence. Abolishing these structures is the only way to protect them.
A closer look
Don’t Believe the Hype
Mass incarceration hasn’t ended in San Francisco, or anywhere else. To achieve that goal, governments would first have to devolve power to the communities it has harmed the most.
interventions
Brady ’s Failure
The rule was supposed to prevent prosecutors from hiding evidence. It hasn’t worked—but there’s a better way.
book review
Bars and Barriers
Far from a plan for decarceration, 'Barred' is nonetheless a trenchant look at how the criminal system fails the innocent and guilty alike.
recommendations
The Year in Books
As 2022 draws to a close, we reflect on books that informed, inspired, and empowered us to envision a world without mass incarceration.
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.
Decarceral Pathways
Revoking Probation
After years of working in the system, a reformer and believer in government gives up on probation and parole.
In Depth
Anything But Petty
Misdemeanors are major sources of overcriminalization and punishment. Requiring jurors to screen them could shake up the system.