Film review
Big-Screen Abolition
Films that imagine decarceral futures are a cultural antidote for the carceral messages and aesthetics so prevalent in popular media.
TOPICS
Culture & Politics
HOW OUR CULTURE AND OUR POLITICS FUEL MASS INCARCERATION
125 posts in ‘Culture & Politics’
Q&A
Picturing the Crisis
A new book uses art to make the horrors of mass incarceration as visual, and visceral, as possible.
culture
A Narrative of Control
Mass incarceration rests on false narratives that carceral institutions themselves control. But some of us are fighting back.
poetry
The Names They Call Us
“I applaud, your / Frankenstein’s monster, forevermore.”
poetry
Prisoner of Poetry
“What does it mean to be an / incarcerated poet?”
Essay
Hip Hop Is My Life
I spit bars on Death Row to preserve the legacy of our people, what’s been done to us, and how we’ve fought back.
poetry
“Incarcerated Slavery” & “2 crack a smile”
“The cotton field / is replaced by walls of steel . . . ”
first person
Ink from Honey
Poetry can help incarcerated authors to reclaim the story of their life.
poetry
“Don Haitian Monument” & “The Hunters”
“Paralyzed in shock / by slave raid tactics, / my trembling hands on the wall . . .”
In Depth
Sticking with the Sex
From sex work to sex offender registries, a queer politics requires that we end state practices of sex exceptionalism.
campaigns
Disrupting Carceral Narratives
There can be justice beyond punishment. To realize it, we must challenge the narrative that carceral violence is the only response to other forms of violence.
public history
Imprisoned by War
Racialized and violent, modern U.S. warmaking is inextricably linked with our history of mass incarceration.
activism
Gay Liberation and the Carceral State
Recovering a vision of queer solidarity with incarcerated people may just be what people disaffected by the gay rights movement need today.
advocacy
Philly’s Safe Consumption Fight
Public skepticism about scientific research, coupled with echoes of the war on drugs, have hindered our city’s ability to respond to our overdose crisis.
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.
campaigns
Beauty on the Inside
A look at how decarceral, abolitionist filmmaking can help us envision new worlds.
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.
campaigns
Renewing New Orleans
Anti-jail organizers scored important wins in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But their fight isn’t over.
Politics
A Defense of Public Defender Funding
Unless Congress acts, funding for federal public defenders will take a serious hit, with disastrous consequences for the people they represent.
campaigns
Ending Carceral Censorship
Censorship should not be the mechanism by which prisons ensure security or any other goal they purport to have.
collective action
Imprisoned but United
How the peaceful takeover of Walpole prison in 1973 holds lessons for abolitionists today.
first person
Envisioning Futures
The art of knowing what we’re confronting and revealing who is being made invisible by the carceral state.
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.
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.
public history
Urban Warfare and Corporate-Funded Armies
Atlanta’s Cop City is another chapter in the long history of U.S.-based colonialism. The second installment in a two-part series.
activism
Quashing Dissent
Critical infrastructure laws are cynical attempts by corporations to manipulate public fears of terrorism to protect their own profits.