A Political and Literary Forum
As a space for democratic deliberation and decision-making, the jury box still has the potential to shift the criminal legal system. But, first, we must change who is able to serve on a jury.
Sonali Chakravarti
The Netflix series Dead to Me suggests that we might get closer to justice by forgiving each other and ourselves for the sometimes literally fatal flaw of being human.
Judith Levine
Elizabeth Catte’s new book examines how Virginia progressives believed the forced sterilization of poor whites would pave the way to a bright future—and how their legacy endures in national parks and prisons.
Ellen Wayland-Smith
Many U.S. criminal statutes betray the bedrock legal principle of mens rea. The result is a deeply unjust system that punishes the morally innocent.
Michael Serota
Instead of deterring sexual violence, criminalization has empowered policing and punishment. To prevent both sexual and state-inflicted abuse, we must embrace restorative justice.
Judith Levine, Erica R. Meiners
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
In many states, legal regimes sanction the predictable murder of innocent black men. Justice will not be served until the law changes.
Joseph Margulies
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
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
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
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
We also need to abolish prisons—as well as put an end to counterterrorism. An abolitionist reading list.
Rosie Gillies, Boston Review
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