Beyond Reform
No More Courts
The legal institutions, processes, procedures, and actors implicated in the progression of criminal cases are simply beyond reform.
TOPICS
Decarceral Pathways
TESTING AND SHARING DECARCERAL IDEAS
78 posts in ‘Decarceral Pathways’
voices
Caring Collectively
Looking back on 25 years of abolitionist feminism and organizing in California.
A closer look
The Evidence-Based Trap
Data-driven approaches to reform can reinforce aspects of a system that’s rotten to the core.
advocacy
Virginians on My Mind
Everyone is redeemable. For that reason, I won’t stop fighting for those people our governor and the legislature have left to die in our prisons.
democracy & power
Changing Everything
Beyond electing progressive prosecutors, decarceration requires an ambitious, multifaceted struggle at all levels of governance.
public health
Policing Health
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.
system actors
Busting the Myth
Many progressive prosecutors promised bold change. In Virginia and elsewhere, reformers are realizing that they’re still actors in the same machinery of injustice.
Surveillance
Deconfiguring the Security State
The roots of e-carceration run deep, and we need to articulate digital abolition as the solution.
prison closures
A Punishment Profiteer
A rare instance of state prisoners, state prison administrators, and the governor of California all publicly agreeing that a particular prison ought to be closed.
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.
public health
Unwell in a Cell
Co-opting the language of mental health and treatment, jail expansion is taking root in several cities and localities. But these are cages all the same.
public health
A World Without Roe
The loss of the fundamental right to reproductive freedom will only lead to more state surveillance and criminalization of pregnant people.
campaigns
150 Years Is Enough
The case for abolishing New Jersey’s youth prisons.
Essay
Beyond Private Prisons
Simply targeting the corporations caging migrants and other people for profit won’t create a future without mass incarceration.
interventions
The End of Public Defenders
One path to ending mass incarceration is ending our modern conception of public defense. And being transparent about our work is one way to start.
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.
In Depth
Atonement
The American penal system renders invisible the many people in its grip who are working hard to make amends.
interventions
Mass Disenfranchisement
The scourge of plea bargaining is robbing millions of a different, and just as fundamental, kind of liberty.
In Depth
Home Rule
In weighing the future of thousands placed on home confinement during the pandemic, the government should prioritize where they are now: in their communities.
interventions
Abolition Is Public Health
The largest public health professional organization in the U.S. took a stand against carceral systems as fundamentally antithetical to public health. Here’s why that matters.
In the States
Moving Forward
After a clean sweep in November, Republicans are now running Virginia. But the prospect of more progress, and justice, remains within reach for all Virginians.
In Depth
Cages in the Coalfields
A growing carceral state has slowly replaced the coal industry in large swaths of Central Appalachia. But even here, a different future is possible.
interventions
Building Bridges
There’s a direct link between the penal system and community wellbeing. Here’s why, and how, I decided to teach that connection to a group of public-health students.
interventions
A Safer Cleveland
Our movement was born out of our shared grief. Our voices reminded voters that the police should never police themselves.
A closer look
Community Spread
People in counties with higher jail populations are getting sicker and dying younger. The data shows that mass incarceration is playing a role.
excerpt
Vulnerable Places
Entire communities are singularly exposed to punishment. Understanding how is central to combating mass incarceration.
In Depth
Saving Austin
Emboldened reactionaries tried to get voters to super-fund our city’s police force. But we out-organized them, and they lost badly. Here’s how we did it.
Politics
So Long, Cy
The end of the Cyrus Vance era at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office calls for a reckoning — and opens up opportunities for his successor.
As Told To
Surviving Everywhere
Clemency gave me a chance to tell my truth — a truth the criminal legal system made invisible.