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Crime and prison

Reading Lists

Prison Strike 2018

Surveying incarceration: from Attica to Appalachia and prison profiteering to “poverty penalties.”

Rosie Busiakiewicz, Boston Review

Law & Justice, Race

Hoverboarding While Black

In the era of digital neighborhoods, social networks embolden a new kind of racial surveillance.

Clarence Harlan Orsi

Race

The Forgotten Baldwin

James Baldwin’s book about the Atlanta child murders speaks best to the era of Black Lives Matter.

Joseph Vogel

Law & Justice

Building Prisons in Appalachia

Eastern Kentucky will soon get a fourth federal prison but remains as poor as ever. The region deserves better.

Sylvia Ryerson, Judah Schept

Law & Justice, Race

The Untold Story of Mass Incarceration

Two new books, including National Book Award nominee ‘Locking Up Our Own,’ address major blind spots about the causes of America’s carceral failure.

Vesla M. Weaver

Law & Justice

What Does Police Abolition Mean?

Abolition is not about transforming the police, it is about transforming the nation.

Derecka Purnell

Law & Justice

Policing: A Public Good Gone Bad

Policing as we know it must be abolished before it can be transformed.

Tracey L. Meares

Podcast

Abolish the Police?

Is policing a public good gone bad?

Tracey L. Meares, Vesla M. Weaver

Gender & Sexuality

Is Stealthing a Sex Crime?

Prosecuting stealthing may not be the best way to end the practice.

Judith Levine

Politics

How Immigrants Became Criminals

Immigrants are not committing more crimes than in the past. Rather the definition of “criminal” has broadened significantly.

Alan A. Aja, Alejandra Marchevsky

Law & Justice

Whom Do Sanctuary Cities Protect?

Public safety is precisely why sanctuary cities are a good idea.

Lauren Carasik

Law & Justice

Slaves of the State: Prison Uprisings and the Legacy of Attica

A historian uncovered an archive of massacre at Attica—only to have the records disappear.

Robert Chase

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