Forced Laborers
The carceral state molds and enforces worker compliance, vulnerability, and insecurity—both within and beyond prison walls.
69 posts in ‘criminal legal system’
The carceral state molds and enforces worker compliance, vulnerability, and insecurity—both within and beyond prison walls.
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.
ICE entanglement in local law enforcement is just one iteration of a bigger system meant to police our communities. And we can fight it.
Imagining the decarceral possibilities of plea strikes and defendant unions.
Disentangling medical care from policing, prisons, and other punitive institutions remains an imperative—now more than ever.
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.
In immigration court and beyond, fair process matters. But fair laws, fair legal systems, and fair societies matter far more.
Gideon v. Wainwright is the wrong cure for the reality that the carceral system is designed to target poor people.
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.
People assigned a public defender are the only ones deprived of the right to choose their lawyer. This often intersects disastrously with racial bias.
The Court’s decision must not preempt questions about the role public defenders can play in ending mass incarceration.
“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 new Minneapolis-area county attorney won’t end mass incarceration. But she has the potential to cause less harm and promote healing.
The criminal legal system heaps more violence on victims of gender-based violence. Abolishing these structures is the only way to protect them.
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.
The rule was supposed to prevent prosecutors from hiding evidence. It hasn’t worked—but there’s a better way.
Far from a plan for decarceration, 'Barred' is nonetheless a trenchant look at how the criminal system fails the innocent and guilty alike.
As 2022 draws to a close, we reflect on books that informed, inspired, and empowered us to envision a world without mass incarceration.
How we're helping journalists report more deeply, more precisely, and more carefully on the law, on the criminal system, and towards justice.
After years of working in the system, a reformer and believer in government gives up on probation and parole.
Misdemeanors are major sources of overcriminalization and punishment. Requiring jurors to screen them could shake up the system.
The carceral system criminalizes and retraumatizes survivors at every step. Dismantling these structures is the only way to end this violence.
The growth of electronic monitoring has spawned a quagmire of hidden fines and fees from which people need a way out.
Why understanding restorative and transformative justice on their own terms, and at their best and worst, will help us build more of both.
Jurors’ conscientious refusal to convict people charged for violating abortion bans is perfectly legal — and what justice demands.
Here’s how federal cash assistance for low-income youth impacts whether they come in contact with the criminal legal system.
The legal institutions, processes, procedures, and actors implicated in the progression of criminal cases are simply beyond reform.
The surprising link between Medicaid expansion and arrests levels suggests that keeping people healthy also keeps them from the reach of the criminal legal system.
Many progressive prosecutors promised bold change. In Virginia and elsewhere, reformers are realizing that they’re still actors in the same machinery of injustice.
Sex offender registries don’t make us any safer. Abolishing them would.