Crime and Prison
Rap on Trial
Prosecutors use defendants’ rap lyrics to win cases despite the flimsiest evidence. Behind this rests a unique paranoia around hip hop and a long history of criminalizing black art.
Halloween and Stranger Danger
Bizarre restrictions are levied against people on the sex offense registry on Halloween. But do they actually make children safer or simply reveal what we fear?
The Making of the American Gulag
During the Cold War, the “police apparatus” was held up as a prime example of Soviet repression. Yet the United States ended up with its own carceral state.
The Legality and Reality of Torture
Our best writing from our archives on why torture is not the same thing as interrogation.
The College Admissions Scam Is Not the Problem
It’s not just celebrity moms — middle-class families are guilty too.
Puerto Rico’s War on Its Poor
In the 1990s, Puerto Rico showed Washington how militarized policing and privatization can extract profits from poor people of color.
Managing Innocence
The Innocence Movement faces a perverse rhetorical puzzle: righting the isolated wrongful conviction only reinforces public faith in the system as a whole.
In the Name of Public Safety
The Mass Bail Out at Rikers Island shows that freedom is a critical part of public safety.
Hoverboarding While Black
In the era of digital neighborhoods, social networks embolden a new kind of racial surveillance.
The Forgotten Baldwin
His book about the Atlanta child murders speaks best to the era of Black Lives Matter.
The Untold Story of Mass Incarceration
Reform can’t succeed unless we understand the complex political forces behind the expansion of the carceral state.
Inside Joe Arpaio’s Tent City
Exclusive 1995 photos from inside the cruel Tent City run by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was recently pardoned by Trump.
What Does Police Abolition Mean?
Abolition is not about transforming the police; it is about transforming the nation.
Policing: A Public Good Gone Bad
Policing as we know it must be abolished before it can be transformed.
How Immigrants Became Criminals
Most Americans are blind to the separate and unequal justice system that governs immigration detention and deportation.
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.
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