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Law & Justice

Hold Prosecutors Accountable, Too

In order to achieve lasting change, we must focus on systemic problems across the criminal justice system. That includes holding prosecutors accountable, not just police.

Kate Levine, Joanna Schwartz

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Law & Justice

Law & Justice

Our Broken Constitution

Constitutional crisis won’t be fixed by a few isolated reforms. We need to rethink the Constitution from the ground up.

Mark Tushnet

Law & Justice

What We Can Learn From India's Improbable Democracy

Though Modi's government draws concern today, the country's constitutional history suggests a framework for creating democracy in unlikely settings. 

Ashutosh Varshney

Gender & Sexuality, Law & Justice

Police Sexual Violence Is Hidden in Plain Sight

Forms of gender-specific violence are baked into the structure of law enforcement. Reform efforts will fail until we eliminate police discretion over women’s bodies.

Anne Gray Fischer

Law & Justice, Philosophy & Religion

Bostock v. BLM

Two conflicting visions of equality have recently emerged on the American political left. Only one aims at institutional change.

Aziz Z. Huq

Gender & Sexuality, Law & Justice

Burdens and Benefits

A recent abortion ruling asks whether abortion access laws may one day be judged on how they serve women's health.

Rachel Rebouché

Law & Justice, Race

How the Law Killed Ahmaud Arbery

In many states, legal regimes sanction the predictable murder of innocent black men. Justice will not be served until the law changes.

Joseph Margulies

Law & Justice, Politics

The Problem Isn't Just Police—It's Politics

In this interview, sociologist Alex Vitale explains how the policing crisis in the United States begins with politics—the decision to embrace neoliberal austerity and to turn the social problems it creates over to police.

Alex Vitale, Scott Casleton

Law & Justice

Getting Judges on the Side of Abolition

Success in transforming the criminal justice system will depend on convincing judges to shift how they relate to—and rely upon—police in their criminal courtrooms.

Matthew Clair

Law & Justice, Race

How Police Abuse the Charge of Resisting Arrest

We must reject the current legal regime under which resisting arrest is so widely accepted as a justification for police brutality and officer shootings.

Lisa Cacho, Jodi Melamed

Law & Justice

Policing the World

Since World War II, the United States has spread its style of policing—and police technology—around the world as a way to exert control. This link between modern policing and the national security state means they will have to be democratized together.

Andrew Lanham

Law & Justice, Politics

A Perfect Storm of Vulnerabilities Could Determine the 2020 Election

Here’s what we should do.

Jake Braun

Law & Justice

Accept Nothing Less Than Police Abolition

As post-Katrina New Orleans illustrates, even ambitious attempts to reform police leave intact the structures of racial violence. Worse yet, such efforts drain public money that could instead have been invested in caring for communities.

Lydia Pelot-Hobbs

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