Crime, Reform & Abolition

562 posts

How rural organizers are building community connections and power

This story is part of a joint series by The Forge and Prism. Read the rest of the series, Organizing, Innovation, and Upheaval, here. A fertile ground for organizing around justice and equity, rural communities are shifting the range of possibilities. Often positioned as exclusively white and conservative, rural communities

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5 Min
By: Anoa Changa

Editors’ Note: Organizing, innovation, and upheaval

This story is part of a joint series by The Forge and Prism. Read the rest of the series, Organizing, Innovation, and Upheaval here. The past few months have wrought untold economic, emotional, and physical devastation. Much of this pain has been concentrated in Black and brown communities, who are

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2 Min
By: Ashton Lattimore

Local jails supported slavery in antebellum society, and they’re still doing it

By the turn of the 19th century in Savannah, Georgia,  twice-widowed plantation owner Mary Wylly was in financial distress. Despite her ties to wealthy slaveholding families, Wylly found herself in steep debt and was forced to slowly sell off property, including her former husband’s land and a number of

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7 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

New bill would regulate expensive fees for prison phone calls

For Martha Wright-Reed, the cost of a simple phone call from her grandson sometimes meant going without her medicine. Her grandson, Ulandis Forte, said that while he was incarcerated, the exorbitant phone fees forced Reed to choose between paying for medications and calling him to offer much-needed support. “More people

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3 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

Retroactive protests lift up stories of past police violence victims

Every day for the past two months, protests against police violence have taken place in cities across the country with no signs of slowing down. While the uprisings erupted in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, in some cities, the cries on behalf of people like

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5 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

SCOTUS ruling reopens conversation on tribal sovereignty and criminal justice

Last week’s Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma was a striking victory for Oklahoma’s Indigenous communities and may have a profound impact on the criminal justice/courts systems in almost half of the state. The ruling stated that three million acres of Oklahoma land are Native American

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3 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

ICYMI: Mental health, the queer porn industry, mass incarceration, and more Q&As from Prism

While we love a reported feature story here at Prism, often the best way to understand what’s happening in the world is through a conversation with the people at the center of the action. Over the last few weeks, we’ve published a bounty of interviews with established and

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3 Min
By: Ashton Lattimore

Q&A: Author Sylvia A. Harvey’s new book explores how families are affected by mass incarceration

In Sylvia A. Harvey’s new book, The Shadow System: Mass Incarceration and the American Family, the author explores how mass incarceration creates immense obstacles for not only those inside, but for the families who live and love beyond prison and jail walls. While recent criminal justice campaigns such as

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9 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

Q&A: Mental health, defending Black life, and Black joy

Amidst this war on Black bodies, we are being saturated with content about Black death and violence. It is critical in this moment of rebellion and uprising to find moments to consume and live within Black joy. Black joy amongst our loved ones, Black joy in celebration of our resilience,

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10 Min
By: Patrisse Cullors

Scripted cop dramas paint a dangerously false picture

As the uprisings against police violence force a national reckoning with how Americans conceive of police, calls to closely examine the role of pop culture in valorizing cops have grown more pressing. While the first cultural tentpoles to fall have been reality-based shows like Cops and Live PD (which were

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7 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

More delays in voting rights restoration for formerly incarcerated Floridians

Restoration of rights for formerly incarcerated Floridians is once again on hold after a federal appeals court granted a request to stay a lower court decision that “the state of Florida’s pay-to-vote system was an unconstitutional restriction on the right to vote.” Earlier this year, a three-judge panel of

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2 Min
By: Anoa Changa

Students call for an end to in-school police

When Stephanie Vela taught seventh grade in San Antonio, Texas, school police officers suspected that a student had brought weed to school but couldn’t confirm who. In response, administrators decided to call the police on the students “to teach them a lesson.” “So they lined them up against the

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9 Min
By: Tamar Sarai

Showing 12 of 562 total posts

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