Portside

The HALT Act was passed to end long-term solitary confinement. Enforcing it is a whole new struggle.

It is the families and friends of men who are beaten to death behind bars who suffer the longest. It is the deepest most evil corruption that covers and enables cruelty and torture unto death.

Abolitionists and advocates of criminal justice reform in Los Angeles County have amassed some impressive victories, laying out a vision for reducing incarceration and providing care that could have national significance.

#EndTheException is campaigning for the passage of federal legislation to end prison slavery.

“Black, brown and poor white folks in prisons and jails are coming from communities where they are at greater risk for these social and environmental threats. Then they are being siphoned off, extracted, taken hostage and locked up in cages..."

In this time of heightening crisis, we must be brave enough to use our full imaginations — and listen to those who have been dreaming of and fighting for just cities and communities for years.

The penal system remains a source of diseases that spread among prisoners at rates far exceeding those in the communities from which they came.

Reader Comments: No One Asked How We Can Afford It; COVID-19; GE Workers Walk - Demand to Make Ventilators Not War Weapons; Asian Americans Attacked; A Different Response - Vietnam and Cuba; Rent Moratorium; Remembering Rev Joseph Lowery

...little attention is being paid to the millions of people in the most overcrowded conditions that are ripe for the spread of this contagious and deadly virus: the people behind bars in America’s jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers.

2019 has seen an outpouring of local and state efforts to stem the tide of mass incarceration, from bail reform and mass bailouts, to efforts to close jails and legislation to divert people from lengthy prison sentences.