Skip to main content
Hero Split (7)

TOPICS

Futures

IMAGINING A WORLD WITHOUT MASS INCARCERATION

50 posts in ‘Futures’

Futures

Fractal Abolition

The work of tearing down structures of harm while building the world we want can and must start small.

Andrea J. Ritchie

Read More

interventions

A Place to Be Free

Life in prison is hard. Transitioning back home through reentry shouldn’t be harder.

Richard Cruz, Anthony Ammons & David Carranza

Read More

book review

The Gun of Incarceration

Probation and parole in the United States don’t work. A longtime reformer and advocate has drawn a blueprint to end them.

Cristian Farias

Read More

first person

Envisioning Futures

The art of knowing what we’re confronting and revealing who is being made invisible by the carceral state.

Maria Gaspar & Gina Dent

Read More

interventions

Abolition Everywhere

Despite the stumbling blocks imposed by Republican state governments, abolition is happening in the South and in small towns, with organizing specially tailored to local needs.

Meghan Krausch

Read More

roundtable

Radicalized in Service of Others

Organizing and collective acts of resistance allow us to not only imagine new understandings of justice and safety, but to live them out.

Jocelyn Simonson

Read More

abolition

Abolishing the Family

The fight against police and prisons cannot be separated from the struggle to extend care beyond the limits of the family form.

Quinn Lester

Read More

Beyond Reform

No Place for Families

Only an end to family court can lead to a radical reimagining of how we support children and caregivers.

Jane Spinak

Read More

interventions

On Both Sides of the Gun

Community-based gun violence prevention is at a crossroads. A group in Chicago shows how abolition may hold the key to its future.

Cristian Farias

Read More

Essay

Abolition Is Practical

Putting our ideas into practice—allowing ourselves to try, fail, and try again—will be how we move closer to a world without the harms of policing, prisons, and punishment.

Rachel Herzing

Read More

Futures

Rejecting Our Fear of Each Other

In order to invest in a vision for a new way of living, we have to believe in our capacity to create something better—together.

Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba

Read More

In Depth

The Carceral Labor Continuum

So many people, on both sides of the prison wall, labor under threat of state violence. This opens a path to more robust, far-reaching worker solidarity.

Noah Zatz

Read More

Crimmigration

Exploited No More

How organizing workers in immigrant detention can serve as a foundation for abolition and liberation for all.

Lisa Knox, Hamid Yazdan Panah & Serafin Andrade

Read More

collective action

Building Worker Power

How one labor union in New York is organizing and creating solidarity among formerly incarcerated workers—and winning.

Bernard Callegari & Han Lu

Read More

Ideas & Essays

The Alchemy of Abolitionisms

When academics are read more than incarcerated thinkers, it becomes possible to forget the movement’s radical roots.

Joy James

Read More

Essay

Gideon Turns Sixty

The Court’s decision must not preempt questions about the role public defenders can play in ending mass incarceration.

Premal Dharia

Read More

In Their Words

Remembering Tewkunzi

“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.”

NaJei Webster

Read More

In Depth

Criminalizing Survival

The criminal legal system heaps more violence on victims of gender-based violence. Abolishing these structures is the only way to protect them.

Leigh Goodmark

Read More

Essay

A New Clarity

We need new words and understandings — not only for crime, freedom, and responsibility, but also for history and spacetime — because it gets us closer to an abolitionist world.

Katharine Blake

Read More

recommendations

The Year in Books

As 2022 draws to a close, we reflect on books that informed, inspired, and empowered us to envision a world without mass incarceration.

Read More

advocacy

A Passport to the Future

Pell grant restoration for incarcerated students is long overdue. But without infrastructure and safeguards, higher education, and true freedom, will remain elusive.

Abraham Santiago & Norman Gaines

Read More

Reflections

Reshaping Our Wanting

There is a place for desire in an abolitionist world, at least when desire is pleasure and love and freedom.

El Jones

Read More

Decarceral Pathways

Revoking Probation

After years of working in the system, a reformer and believer in government gives up on probation and parole.

Cristian Farias

Read More

interventions

A Secret Stash of Power

Now more than ever, we need a clear understanding of the role of violence, trauma, and survivorship in our harm reduction practice.

Shira Hassan

Read More

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

Kay Whitlock

Read More

Policy

Decarcerating from Within

Here's how imprisoned writers can offer reasoned analysis on policies affecting the carceral state.

Tomas Keen & Atif Rafay

Read More

A closer look

Growing Justice

Why understanding restorative and transformative justice on their own terms, and at their best and worst, will help us build more of both.

Cameron Rasmussen & Sonya Shah

Read More

Beyond Reform

Reclaiming Safety

In our imaginations, we need to break the equation of policing and public safety.

Mariame Kaba & Andrea J. Ritchie

Read More

Crimmigration

Court-Assisted Expulsions

Immigrants fighting their deportations need lawyers. That doesn’t mean federally funding their defense should be a movement goal.

Angélica Cházaro

Read More

Beyond Reform

No More Courts

The legal institutions, processes, procedures, and actors implicated in the progression of criminal cases are simply beyond reform.

Zohra Ahmed & Rachel Foran

Read More