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.
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68 posts in ‘Decarceral Pathways’
The prison town of Susanville, in California, is about to lose its livelihood. Its economic survival presents a test for abolition.
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.
The loss of the fundamental right to reproductive freedom will only lead to more state surveillance and criminalization of pregnant people.
The case for abolishing New Jersey’s youth prisons.
Simply targeting the corporations caging migrants and other people for profit won’t create a future without mass incarceration.
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.
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.
The American penal system renders invisible the many people in its grip who are working hard to make amends.
The scourge of plea bargaining is robbing millions of a different, and just as fundamental, kind of liberty.
In weighing the future of thousands placed on home confinement during the pandemic, the government should prioritize where they are now: in their communities.
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.
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.
A growing carceral state has slowly replaced the coal industry in large swaths of Central Appalachia. But even here, a different future is possible.
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.
Our movement was born out of our shared grief. Our voices reminded voters that the police should never police themselves.
People in counties with higher jail populations are getting sicker and dying younger. The data shows that mass incarceration is playing a role.
Entire communities are singularly exposed to punishment. Understanding how is central to combating mass incarceration.
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.
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.
Clemency gave me a chance to tell my truth — a truth the criminal legal system made invisible.
Practicing correctional medicine is fundamentally an exercise in harm reduction. And it’s no match for freedom itself.
For public defenders in New York, representing clients unjustly criminalized for gun possession is a matter of principle. Now, they have the Supreme Court’s attention.
In the age of mass incarceration, the president of can and should lead the nation by freeing from prison as many people as possible.
Older New Yorkers are dying in state prison at an alarming rate. Once and for all, they need to come home to their families.
The criminal legal system almost took my life from me. The anger that came after now fuels my life’s work.
How public defenders in New York City organized to speak up for those who have died on Rikers — and to keep others from going there.
For those of us on the inside who believe in prison abolition by any means necessary, prison closures really mean prison closures. The state and some of my fellow prisoners…
As demands grow louder for decarcerating and shutting down New York City’s deadly jail complex, judges and prosecutors have escaped accountability. But they’re the ones driving the crisis.
Before bold, decarceral changes can become a reality, community organizers tirelessly move the policy needle in other ways. Here’s how they did it in Illinois.
Nothing short of immediately getting people out of New York City's jail complex, and keeping others from going in, will prevent the death and horror now ravaging it.