The 2020 Democratic campaign is already shaping up to be a battle of big ideas. But when it comes to reforming our criminal legal system, the conversation hasn’t been as visionary — in fact, it’s been almost exclusively backward looking.
"There is a silent suffering around the country, but people need to know they're not alone."
Are you pissed off about the recent attacks against public employee unions? Are you disturbed by the continuation of literal slavery in the prison system? This Labor Day weekend take it to the barricades!
In the spirit of rehabilitation, of teaching incarcerated people that well-planned and properly motivated efforts at change can be rewarded, even if only minimally, administrators need to work with inmates on this one.
A nationwide strike takes charge at everything from slavery to sentencing. Organizers say it could be the largest U.S. prison resistance action to date.
On the anniversary of George Jackson's death, prisoners launched a multi-day national strike. The action was taken after an April riot at a prison where guards watched while seven inmates were killed. Strikers are demanding basic human rights.
In this era of law-and-order politics,...we do not need more incarceration. It does not make people safer, it tears communities apart, and many people, including incarcerated people themselves, have argued that incarceration actually produces mental illness.
Typically taking the form of ankle bands and house arrest, monitors are gaining lots of traction in reform packages. Although the immediate financial arguments for EM might make sense, these moves ignore the impact of the monitors on people's lives and the implications of their expanded use for the future of mass incarceration.
In nine states from Nevada to Tennessee, anyone who has lost been imprisoned and lost thier right to vote, cannot regain it until they pay off any outstanding court fines, legal fees and victim restitution. In Alabama, that requirement has fostered an underclass of thousands of people who are unable to vote because they do not have enough money.
Abolition of the carceral state is a fundamental political goal for the Left today: specifically, abolishing the carceral state’s logic and institutions. . Abolition is both a goal and a discourse: it informs the strategies we adopt, as well as the framework we use to critique the carceral state and describe alternatives.
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