Politics
Power to the Voters
Progressive prosecutors have delivered tangible and rapid wins to a grassroots movement seeking to end mass incarceration.
TOPICS
Institutions & Practices
UNDERSTANDING HOW CARCERALISM OPERATES
176 posts in ‘Institutions & Practices’
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.
Policing
The ‘Bad Guys’
Police academies socialize officers into an us-versus-them mentality—particularly when it comes to activists—and harden them to any attempts at reform.
law & policy
When the Law Is a Trap
The Prison Rape Elimination Act often revictimizes incarcerated survivors by expanding the power of the prison over them.
A closer look
Graying in Prison
There's no aging with dignity for people serving extreme sentences. Freeing them is only a start to a deeper paradigm shift.
Policing
Unsafe on Campus
Policing on college campuses falls hardest on formerly incarcerated students, leaving them and the broader community unprotected.
Big Data
Borders and Bytes
So-called “smart” borders are just more sophisticated sites of racialized surveillance and violence. We need abolitionist tools to counter them.
Essay
‘And They Stripped Him’
The Gospel narrative places on Christians a moral burden to not turn away from the sexual vulnerability of incarcerated people today.
book review
Cages Without Borders
A new book centers prisons in the history of U.S. empire, reminding us of the need for international solidarity in the fight for freedom.
Essay
On Resilience
In the criminal system, having your life constrained and restricted, even after your sentence is over, has become a fact of life.
first person
Censoring Women’s Health
In prison, even learning about your own reproductive health is met with repression.
Institutions
The Surreal Prison Censorship Regime
Society isn’t being done any favors keeping literature out of the hands of incarcerated people.
campaigns
Ending Carceral Censorship
Censorship should not be the mechanism by which prisons ensure security or any other goal they purport to have.
activism
Surveil and Conquer
The state spies upon and infiltrates social movements to keep people on guard, afraid, and second-guessing their every move.
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.
A closer look
Our Evidence-Based Obsession
Better research won’t get us out of our crisis of mass incarceration.
advocacy
Chained by Debt
Erasing court costs and fines is a relatively small change that would have an outsize impact on those harmed by mass incarceration.
public health
Beware the Healthier Cage
In Atlanta politicians are pushing for a bigger jail they claim will be more humane. But health-care workers are pushing back.