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
TOPICS
Futures
IMAGINING A WORLD WITHOUT MASS INCARCERATION
26 posts in ‘Futures’
Policy
Decarcerating from Within
Here's how imprisoned writers can offer reasoned analysis on policies affecting the carceral state.
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.
Beyond Reform
Reclaiming Safety
In our imaginations, we need to break the equation of policing and public safety.
Crimmigration
Court-Assisted Expulsions
Immigrants fighting their deportations need lawyers. That doesn’t mean federally funding their defense should be a movement goal.
Beyond Reform
No More Courts
The legal institutions, processes, procedures, and actors implicated in the progression of criminal cases are simply beyond reform.
voices
Caring Collectively
Looking back on 25 years of abolitionist feminism and organizing in California.
Reflections
Inquest: Year One
A reflection from the founding editors of Inquest on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the publication.
A closer look
The Evidence-Based Trap
Data-driven approaches to reform can reinforce aspects of a system that’s rotten to the core.
Beyond Reform
Rethinking the State
For criminal law to become truly unexceptional, we must rethink our society, and its legal structures, as a whole.
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
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.
A closer look
Cops and Counselors
Mental health professionals call the police, work with the police, and act like the police. But even in our ranks, an abolitionist future is possible.
Institutions
A Veneer of Benevolence
For many years, I believed that the child welfare system could be reformed, but no more. It needs to be abolished.
In Depth
Atonement
The American penal system renders invisible the many people in its grip who are working hard to make amends.
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 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.
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.
Essay
Radicalized at the Workhouse
The criminal legal system almost took my life from me. The anger that came after now fuels my life’s work.
voices
Divide and Conquer
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…
In Depth
‘Organizers Change What’s Possible’
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.
Reflections
A Disruptive Innovation
Dismantling the machine that is mass incarceration requires all of us to think outside the box.
Decarceral Pathways
From Crisis to Care
For alternative responses to policing to work and reduce the footprint of the criminal legal system, they must work in concert and holistically to address both immediate and longer-term social…
Policing
The Other Gun Violence
Shifting the narrative and policies on gun violence to include killings by police may spare many families from the pain of losing loved ones.
Beyond Reform
Unraveling Carceral Reach
The work of addressing harm without more prisons, police, and punitiveness is daunting. But it can be done. And it’s happening now.
Essay
The Keeper and the Kept
The carceral system dehumanizes not just the people we condemn, but also its massive workforce.