We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
Michael Javen Fortner is assistant professor and academic director of Urban Studies at the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York. He is the author of Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment.
Mass incarceration is so politicized that we can't talk about its origins.
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975. Registered 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more about our mission