Portside

A reckoning with the “woke” years.

Will policymakers follow evidence, invest in safety strategies that work, and recognize the human capacity for change, or continue repeating punitive approaches that history and research have already shown to fail?

Freedom represents a constant pursuit of equity, dignity, justice, and safety—yet it faces relentless attack.

Reader Comments: U.S.-Israel War on Iran; Bombing Creates Toxic Chemical Warfare Black Rain Over Tehran; Kristi Noem Is Out; More on New Wave of Protest Music; Conversation with Professor Angela Davis in New York; Lots of Cartoons;

How the cruelty of the Confederacy’s prison camps gave rise to the rules of war

Some have waited years for a conviction review. Their letters paint a picture of a review process rife with roadblocks, especially for applicants who didn’t have lawyers.

The power of having a film, having this play filmed is that I want to show that art and activism is a blueprint for liberation. And to show how an incarcerated population can become a powerful voting block through their family.

Readers Comments: Dept of War, Trump War on All People of Our Country; In Memory of Melissa Hortman; More Martin Niemöller; Mainstream Democrats; Epstein Files and Domestic Violence; MAGA Influencers Rehabilitating Hitler; Block the Bombs Act-Sept 15

The audit found that the state’s medical examiners “often failed to acknowledge restraint as a potential contributing factor” when restrained by police and "often failed to appropriately classify homicides” when the people who died were non-white.

The pandemic bared the cruelty of prison in new ways. It was a lost opportunity to move away from mass incarceration.