Law

The Roots of Black Incarceration

A nineteenth-century memoir sheds light on the origins of the modern prison.

  • Joy James

The Genetic Panopticon

DNA is a powerful forensic tool. If only crime labs could be trusted with it.

  • Brandon L. Garrett

Machinations of Wicked Men

Niall Ferguson’s authorized biography falsifies Henry Kissinger’s intellectual legacy.

  • Jonathan Kirshner

Syria after the Ceasefire

Negotiations may ease the humanitarian crisis—while strengthening Assad.

  • Stephen Zunes

The iPhone Case and the Future of Civil Liberties

We need new privacy law for the digital age.

  • Neil M. Richards

Going Nowhere

A new law needlessly brands sex offenders’ passports

  • Judith Levine

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Should We Trust Forensic Science?

Forensic Experts Respond to Nathan J. Robinson

  • Wesley Vernon
  • Michael Nirenberg
  • Nathan J. Robinson

The Struggle for Accountability in Flint

Michigan law shields decision-makers from public scrutiny

  • Anna Clark

How Refugees Can Save Europe

Europe must accept that post-nationalism, by nature, is porous at its borders.

  • Paul Linden-Retek

Turkey Descends into Authoritarianism

Fears of terrorism, and President Erdoğan’s rivalry with an exiled theologian, have become excuses for censorship and repression.

  • Umar Farooq

Technology Derailed

How for-profit industry is risking railway safety.

  • Bryce Emley

Weaponizing Syria’s Water

For anti-Assad rebels, a southern spring has become a kind of suicide bomb.

  • Alisa Reznick

Speaking in Tongues

Serving time in Richmond City Jail.

  • Dave Byrne

In San Bernardino, a Crime—Not an Act of War

The massacre led immediately to national security fantasies.

  • Joseph Margulies

A Rock and a Hard Place

The neglect and abuse of Pakistan’s tribal areas.

  • Umar Farooq

The Online–Sex Predator Panic

Laws Against Online Luring Harm Children

  • Judith Levine

Paris in Terror

On France’s long history of political violence.

  • Julian Bourg

Righteous Indignation in Ferguson

In Ferguson, white violence, exclusively, is justified.

  • Simon Waxman

America’s Refugee Debt

The United States should take responsibility for its actions in Syria

  • Aziz Z. Huq

The Limits of Criminal Justice Reform

Reducing prison populations isn’t enough. We need a new criminal system founded on priniciples of justice rather than fear of crime.

  • Joseph Margulies

Forensic Pseudoscience

Hair tests, bite marks, blood spatter: it’s mostly magic.

  • Nathan J. Robinson

Going Negative

The Importance of Judicial Dissent

  • Thomas Healy

Half a Loaf

In Israel and Palestine, two states are still better than one.

  • Assaf Sharon

The Failure of Refugee Camps

Refugee camps, intended to be temporary, host people for an average of 12 years.

  • Elizabeth Cullen Dunn
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