Tamar Sarai

Tamar Sarai

Tamar Sarai is a writer, journalist, and historian in training. Her work focuses on race, culture, and the criminal legal system. She is currently pursing her PhD in History at Temple University where

186 posts
color photograph of an outdoor protest. the tops of people's heads peek over the bottom edge of the frame. someone whose face
Crime, Reform & Abolition

New York offers a path to justice for incarcerated survivors

The Adult Survivors Act has brought to light the stories of formerly and currently incarcerated women who faced sexual abuse at the hands of authorities in New York State prisons

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13 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
Holmesburg Prison's medical experiments are Philadelphia's 'lasting shame'
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Holmesburg Prison’s medical experiments are Philadelphia’s ‘lasting shame’

For over 20 years, Dr. Albert Kligman experimented on incarcerated men at Philadelphia’s Holmesburg Prison. Those who profited have yet to redress the harm

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18 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
color photograph of two Black people's hands reaching towards the center of the frame. one holds a small drought-resistant pl
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Intentional design can lay a blueprint for abolition

Prisons are designed to be punitive, but intentional design can create spaces that resist systemic biases and the carceral impulse to punish

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6 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
color photograph of an outdoor protest against police. people hold up cardboard signs reading "abolish police" in the foregro
Crime, Reform & Abolition

We can’t allow oppressive systems to co-opt abolitionist language

Without a deeper understanding of liberatory politics, people become susceptible to manipulative co-opting of progressive slogans in support of the status quo

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6 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
The movement for media reparations must include the entertainment industry
Crime, Reform & Abolition

The movement for media reparations must include the entertainment industry

As advocates demand that news media reckon with how they have furthered anti-Black violence, entertainment media can’t ignore its guilt in doing the same

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6 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
Prisons control incarcerated people's relationships and access to intimacy
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Prisons control incarcerated people’s relationships and their access to intimacy

American culture promotes the idea that love conquers all, but the reality is far more complicated for incarcerated people and their loved ones

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11 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
color photograph of a spread out outdoor protest in support of student debt cancellation. a black person wearing a black shir
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Student debt initiatives must include incarcerated people

Debt relief for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people is stymied by a lack of information, access, and political will

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8 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
Can the media move from anti-Black racism and harm toward reparations?
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Can the media move from anti-Black racism and harm toward reparations?

Prism’s Tamar Sarai and members of Media 2070 discuss why the journalism industry’s “reckoning” with anti-Blackness hasn’t shifted into accountability

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10 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
A new kind of crime reporting
Crime, Reform & Abolition

A new kind of crime reporting

Journalism initiatives offer solutions to gun violence and teach formerly incarcerated people how to report their own stories

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12 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
Journalistic integrity requires a reckoning with how news media covers the criminal legal system
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Journalistic integrity requires a reckoning with how news media covers the criminal legal system

The ways newsrooms report crime can have irrevocable consequences for both individual lives and public perceptions

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10 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
Advocates use fashion to promote abolition and illustrate the toll of incarceration
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Advocates use fashion to promote abolition and illustrate the toll of incarceration

Fashion can inspire deeper criticism of the carceral system, but there are risks when profit comes before principle

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10 Min
By: Tamar Sarai
Felon re-enfranchisement restores more than civil rights
Crime, Reform & Abolition

Felon re-enfranchisement restores more than civil rights

Voting allows people convicted of felonies to participate in and shape their communities, helping reintegration and reducing recidivism

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9 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

Showing 12 of 186 total posts

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