In the States
The People v. the Prison
California is discovering the hard way that you can’t leave decarceral reforms in the hands of prison officials.
TOPICS
Institutions & Practices
UNDERSTANDING HOW CARCERALISM OPERATES
162 posts in ‘Institutions & Practices’
A closer look
Whitewashing Police Violence
'Excited delirium syndrome' is a tool the state invented to evade accountability whenever people of color die at the hands of police.
Local jails
Reforming Sheriffs
Electing progressive sheriffs only goes so far toward curbing the structural forces that sustain mass incarceration.
Policing
A Nation of Cop Cities
The push by Atlanta and other cities to build large police training facilities follows on a long history of armories as both symbols and manifestations of the state’s power.
excerpt
No Good Prison
An incarcerated writer and advocate in California implores: “Don’t waste my time trying to make it more comfortable for me in here.”
Life Inside
The Last Breakfast
I kept my promise to break bread with my friend Dobie one last time, right before the state of Louisiana put him to death.
racial capitalism
Bad Credit
Credit scoring is control by another name. It keeps marginalized people from the means of survival and exposes them to punishment.
In Depth
Ferguson’s Pound of Flesh
Ten years ago, the killing of Michael Brown exposed a system that extracts what little wealth marginalized people have. That system is still here.
activism
Anticipating Repression
The Democratic National Convention will be a testing ground for whether progressive politics can meet political dissent without carceral violence.
social control
Safety from Surveillance
In their fight to get ShotSpotter out of Chicago, organizers have emphasized the ways that for-profit technology can never deliver on its promises to make communities safer.
advocacy
Remedying Wrongs
The administrative remedy process is a roadblock to challenging inhumane prison conditions. With the help of advocates, people in prison are fighting back.
A closer look
Squinting in the Sunlight
Most reentry programs assume a person who is able to work and live on their own. Those of us who are older don’t have that kind of freedom.
Life Inside
Unsettled People
Prison transfers are routinely used to punish, disorient, and isolate incarcerated people, disconnecting them from family, friends, community, and all sense of place.
conclusion
All of the Above
Prosecutors alone won’t end mass incarceration. But their interventions can mean the world to people staring down the many harms of criminalization.
advocacy
Not a Fix-All
Electing progressive prosecutors is but one tool in a multifaceted, collaborative approach to ending mass incarceration.
system actors
The Best Prospect
Not all so-called progressive prosecutors are doing enough to dismantle mass incarceration. But they’re better than the alternative.
Politics
Power to the Voters
Progressive prosecutors have delivered tangible and rapid wins to a grassroots movement seeking to end mass incarceration.
Beyond Reform
Maybe, If . . .
Believing that prosecutors can play a role in ending mass incarceration requires imagining a prosecutor whose goal is non-reformist reforms.
interventions
The Problem Solvers
Prosecution can be redefined to focus on effective problem-solving through policies and initiatives that make us a safer, healthier community.
Crimmigration
Immobilized Immigrants
Hardened, remote detention centers shape the experience of immigration imprisonment. Yet even there, a radically different future is possible.
In the States
The Phantom Prison
Incarcerated people who work as firefighters have not escaped the prison; the prison has merely followed them outdoors.
Q&A
Picturing the Crisis
A new book uses art to make the horrors of mass incarceration as visual, and visceral, as possible.
Institutions
Building Carcerality
Architects and designers must reckon with their role in the past and future of mass incarceration.
culture
A Narrative of Control
Mass incarceration rests on false narratives that carceral institutions themselves control. But some of us are fighting back.
Surveillance
For the Public Good
While on parole in Oregon, homelessness, unemployment, and lack of services kept me in survival mode. This is not public safety.
first person
Hell Is Real and It Is Beige
Some of the greatest violence of prisons is hidden, in plain view, within their banality.
Policing
‘I’m Just Different, That’s All’
We embrace nonconformity in principle—but not for Black men, whose quirks can provoke fear, policing, and punishment.
first person
The Banality of Mandatory Surcharges
In New York and elsewhere, exploitative court-ordered fees shouldn't saddle a person who is already poor and criminalized.
first person
Closed Doors
Prison is no place for grief and closure. Yet even as I mourned, glimmers of love and life surrounded me.
excerpt
Dare to Report
The D.A.R.E. program turned students into snitches, leading to the arrest and incarceration of friends and loved ones who used drugs.