Kwaneta Harris

Kwaneta Harris

Kwaneta Harris is a former nurse, business owner, and now incarcerated journalist from Detroit. Her writing has appeared in a wide range of publications including This American Life, Rolling Stone and

4 posts
Weaponized compliance: Tear gas in women’s prisons
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Weaponized compliance: Tear gas in women’s prisons

Guards deploy tear gas for cursing, for walking too slowly, for asking too many questions. It’s not about safety; it’s about control

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5 Min
By: Kwaneta Harris
digital collage with orange background and an illustration of hands gripping bars with a thermometer on the right side
Climate & Environment

Cooked in custody: Four incarcerated people describe dangerous conditions in Texas state prisons

In this collection of testimonials, Kwaneta Harris and others incarcerated in Texas state prisons describe their unsuccessful daily attempts to evade being cooked in custody

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11 Min
By: Kwaneta Harris, Xandan Gulley, Marissa Potts, Lanae Tipton
color photograph of a blue picket sign with instructions for a freeze warning
Climate & Environment

‘It never warms up’: Surviving extreme cold in Texas prisons

The brutal heat wave that swept Texas last summer posed extreme risks for many incarcerated people, garnering the attention of lawmakers, advocacy organizations, and everyday Texans. This winter we faced a different extreme: cold.  For the past eight years I’ve lived in solitary confinement, the heat goes out every

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4 Min
By: Kwaneta Harris
digital collage on an orange background. the outline of the state of texas hovers on the left above barbed wire crossing over
Climate & Environment

‘I wasn’t sentenced to be cooked’: Heat desperation in a Texas prison

Politicians in Texas denied air conditioning for prisons in May. Now temperatures of 100 F and higher are killing incarcerated people

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4 Min
By: Kwaneta Harris

Showing 12 of 4 total posts

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