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.
TOPICS
Culture & Politics
HOW OUR CULTURE AND OUR POLITICS FUEL MASS INCARCERATION
46 posts in ‘Culture & Politics’
excerpt
A Point of No Return
Understanding the past of the Cook County Jail is understanding its present.
Photo Essay
Archives of Resistance
The movement to end police violence has a rich visual history. In Brooklyn, a collective of volunteers is doing its part to preserve it.
Reflections
Reshaping Our Wanting
There is a place for desire in an abolitionist world, at least when desire is pleasure and love and freedom.
In Depth
To Free Them All
The carceral system criminalizes and retraumatizes survivors at every step. Dismantling these structures is the only way to end this violence.
Reflections
Goodnight Jail
Based on 'Goodnight Moon', the 1947 bedtime classic by Margaret Wise Brown.
excerpt
Repression and Backlash
The tangle of policy responses following the 2020 uprisings over police violence shows that both Republicans and Democrats failed to meet the moment.
campaigns
Meeting the Moment
As a lifelong public defender, I ran to become Santa Clara County’s next district attorney. I didn’t win, but our movement did.
democracy & power
Culture Wars and Criminalization
Absent a sustained politics of solidarity, culture wars will continue to erode civil rights while criminalizing, surveilling, and punishing those who claim them
Policy
Decarcerating from Within
Here's how imprisoned writers can offer reasoned analysis on policies affecting the carceral state.
In Depth
Hidden Transcripts
The Reagan administration’s entrenchment of a retaliatory immigration detention regime sowed seeds of resistance that persist to this day.
interventions
Nullifying Dobbs
Jurors’ conscientious refusal to convict people charged for violating abortion bans is perfectly legal — and what justice demands.
In Depth
Federal Time
Congress' rush to respond to recent mass shootings will criminalize Black and Brown communities the hardest, repeating historic mistakes that contributed to mass incarceration.
Reflections
Juneteenth and Black Liberation
Our government's history of oppression compels us to free those Black revolutionaries aging in our prisons.
Policing
Shattering Broken Windows
For decades, policing so-called ‘quality of life’ issues has had devastating effects. This approach must cease to exist.
democracy & power
Changing Everything
Beyond electing progressive prosecutors, decarceration requires an ambitious, multifaceted struggle at all levels of governance.
democracy & power
After the Backlash
Understanding the democratic appeal of retrenchment and reaction to movements for racial justice has never been more urgent.
Beyond Reform
Rethinking the State
For criminal law to become truly unexceptional, we must rethink our society, and its legal structures, as a whole.
Policy
‘Something on Women’
Carceral feminists clamored for the Violence Against Women Act. What they got in return was criminalization, incarceration, and more violence.
In Depth
Always a Mother
Maternal incarceration is but a phase for the people who experience it. It doesn’t define them.
In Depth
A Future for Susanville
The prison town of Susanville, in California, is about to lose its livelihood. Its economic survival presents a test for abolition.
Big Data
Transgressing Borders
Racist gang profiling on the street becomes hard data, which then feeds a sprawling detention and deportation machine with the imprimatur of law.
public health
Drug-Induced Panic
Criminalization of so-called drug-induced homicides is yet another manifestation of the failed war on drugs — and far from an adequate public health response.
A closer look
And a Public Defender for All
We can celebrate the ascent of Ketanji Brown Jackson, while acknowledging that indigent defense remains woefully inadequate in this time of crisis.
interventions
Making Headlines
The criminal legal system is massively punitive toward people who commit sex offenses. How we treat them jeopardizes their health and safety — and our own.
Essay
The Poverty of Access
Librarians have a responsibility to everyone in their communities — including those who are incarcerated.
In Their Words
Finishing Sentences
Writing about prison from prison is a form of freedom-fighting. It is not without risks — and many rewards.
A closer look
No Compassion
Judge Michelle Childs’ many denials of compassionate release signal a carceralism that should have no place on the Supreme Court.
Institutions
No More Compromisers
The Supreme Court doesn’t need another Stephen Breyer. It needs someone who can openly confront the immorality of our criminal legal system.
Local jails
The Sheriff and His Jail
Jails are key drivers of COVID spread. My experience with Chicago’s top jailer shows how politics can often stand in the way of public health.