campaigns
Ending Carceral Censorship
Censorship should not be the mechanism by which prisons ensure security or any other goal they purport to have.
TOPICS
Institutions & Practices
UNDERSTANDING HOW CARCERALISM OPERATES
152 posts in ‘Institutions & Practices’
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.
excerpt
The Women at the Prison Gates
There are many forms of resistance undertaken by relatives and friends of incarcerated people, but the system renders them invisible.
Film review
Reframing Our Outrage
A new film reminds us that caring about survivors means working to prevent and respond to all violence—including carceral violence.
Surveillance
In the Shadows, on the Radar
The lives of undocumented immigrants are very much documented—subject to the surveillance that’s endemic to contemporary life in the United States.
advocacy
The Rubik’s Cube of Cop City
The crisis of colonized cities and state criminality. The first installment in a two-part series.
public health
The Essentialism of Addiction
We must challenge the dominant carceral narrative that one is born an addict and a criminal—rather than constructed as one by those in power.
public health
The Pain of Punishment
Criminalizing pain medicine has led patients to despair while the carceral state forces their medical decisions. But it has also opened avenues for solidarity between pain sufferers and incarcerated people.
social control
Putting Reentry Out of Business
Reentry is an extension of the carceral continuum, a limbo between confinement and freedom.
excerpt
The Embodied Observers
Carceral settings imprison an untold number of experts—outsiders on the inside who have much to teach us about mass incarceration.
Crimmigration
Exploited No More
How organizing workers in immigrant detention can serve as a foundation for abolition and liberation for all.
Beyond Reform
Why Incarcerated People Work
A new research project seeks to understand present prison labor conditions—and build a path toward lasting freedom.
public history
The Buried Roots of Carceral Labor
The U.S. history of coerced prison work is older—and more northern—than its popular origin story tends to acknowledge.
social control
Against ‘Work’
Calling incarcerated people 'workers' displaces the gravity of their situation and obscures the nature of carceral violence.
In Depth
Forced Laborers
The carceral state molds and enforces worker compliance, vulnerability, and insecurity—both within and beyond prison walls.
public health
Care and Carceralism
Disentangling medical care from policing, prisons, and other punitive institutions remains an imperative—now more than ever.
first person
No Leaving Rikers
For the scores of people who have suffered on Rikers Island, their experiences, and scars, of living through it remain long after release.
Beyond Reform
Procedural Justice Isn’t Enough
In immigration court and beyond, fair process matters. But fair laws, fair legal systems, and fair societies matter far more.
Politics
Mass Incarceration on the Cheap
Fiscal arguments have only led to a reconfigured carceral state—one that replaces one type of punishment for another while still harming millions.
Beyond Reform
Poor People Lose
Gideon v. Wainwright is the wrong cure for the reality that the carceral system is designed to target poor people.
A closer look
Choice of Counsel
People assigned a public defender are the only ones deprived of the right to choose their lawyer. This often intersects disastrously with racial bias.
books
Show Me Your License
For many immigrant families, even driving to school or the doctor risks a dangerous encounter with the punitive state.
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.
Local jails
Pretrial Injustice
Incarceration ahead of trial is fundamentally unjust—a form of punishment that makes it virtually impossible to fight for your freedom.
A closer look
Don’t Believe the Hype
Mass incarceration hasn’t ended in San Francisco, or anywhere else. To achieve that goal, governments would first have to devolve power to the communities it has harmed the most.
interventions
Brady ’s Failure
The rule was supposed to prevent prosecutors from hiding evidence. It hasn’t worked—but there’s a better way.