Menu
Idea

prison reform

49
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Exterior of Attica Correctional Facility.

The “Long Attica Revolt”

The resistance inside prisons is an integral part of the struggle against white supremacy and for Black liberation beyond the walls.
by Robert J. Boyle via Against the Current on June 30, 2024
Inmates playing touch football at Moberly Correctional Center in Moberly, MO, 1990.

The First Famous Football Team Behind Bars

Sing Sing's football team, The Black Sheep, ascended to fame even though its players were incarcerated. One player was so good, he signed with the Eagles.
by Joshua Finnell via JSTOR Daily on February 8, 2023
Book cover for Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage," showing a photo of incarcerated men speaking to the media.

How Rikers Island Made New York

In “Captives,” former Rikers detainee Jarrod Shanahan traces the history of New York City’s sprawling jail complex, and its centrality to brutal class struggle.
by Jarrod Shanahan, Alana Mohamed via Hell Gate on May 16, 2022

The Struggle to Abolish the Police Is Not New

Prison and police abolition were key to the thinking of many midcentury civil rights activists. Understanding why can help us ask for change in our own time.
by Garrett Felber via Boston Review on June 8, 2020
Cell block at Riker's Island

Is It Possible for New York City to Get Jail Design Right?

Rikers Island jails were supposed to be the more humane model when they were built. New York City has the same lofty goals as it plans Rikers’ replacements.
by Chelsey Sanchez via CityLab on September 12, 2019

The Two-tiered Justice System: Money Bail in Historical Perspective

Decades of tough-on-crime policies that criminalized the poor and people of color are yet to be undone, but the pendulum is beginning to swing.
by Cassie Miller via Southern Poverty Law Center on June 6, 2017
White men strapping a Black man into an electric chair.
original

Matters of Life and Death

Systemic racism and capital punishment have long been intertwined in Virginia, the South, and the nation.
by Janis Parker on July 10, 2024
President Bill Clinton with then-Sen. Biden on Sept. 13, 1994, during a signing ceremony for the crime bill on the South Lawn of the White House.

The Biggest Myth About the 1994 Crime Bill Still Haunts Joe Biden. It Shouldn’t.

The law is routinely blamed for a very real problem it had nothing to do with.
by John Pfaff via Slate on June 20, 2024
The front of the Midgeville asylum in Georgia

What Makes a Prison?

Wherever we find the state engaged in potentially lethal repression, we find prison.
by Dan Berger via Public Books on November 1, 2023
Prison hallway

The Silent Treatment: Solitary Confinement’s Unlikely Origins

Characterised today by the noise of banging, buzzers, and the cries of inmates, solitary confinement was originally developed from Quaker ideas.
by Jane Brox via The Public Domain Review on October 25, 2023
A woman behind bars, and hands writing.

A History of Incarceration by Women Who Have Lived Through It

The members of the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project scrutinize official records not only for what they reveal, but also for what they omit.
by Rachael Bedard via The New Yorker on May 22, 2023

Inventing Solitary

In 1790, Philadelphia opened the first American penitentiary, with the nation’s first solitary cells. Black people were disproportionately punished from the start.
by Samantha Melamed via Philadelphia Inquirer on June 8, 2022
The Rikers Island docks.

The Long Crisis on Rikers Island

A new book about Rikers Island is essentially a labor history, revealing how jail guards seized control from managers, politicians, and judges.
by Brendan O'Connor via The Baffler on May 12, 2022
Lithograph of Eastern State Penitentiary from above.

The Invention of Incarceration

Prisons have been controversial since their beginnings in the late 1700s — why do they keep failing to live up to expectations?
by Ashley Rubin, Greg Miller via JSTOR Daily on March 18, 2022
Johnny Cash performing with band

The Radicalism of Johnny Cash

The best-selling musical artist in the world in 1969, Johnny Cash sang of (and for) the "forgotten Americans": the imprisoned men of all races.
by Livia Gershon, Daniel Geary via JSTOR Daily on December 24, 2021
Picture of a young woman with cannabis leaves.

The Pot to Prison Pipeline

How does a plant become a crime?
by Sophie Yanow, Zack Ruskin via The Nib on September 27, 2021
Prisoners and guards in Attica State Prison

Honoring Attica After Half a Century

It’s time to demand law enforcement accountability for the death of unarmed citizens not just on America’s streets but also in our prisons.
by Heather Ann Thompson via The Nation on September 13, 2021

50 Years After Attica, Prisoners Protest Brutal Conditions

If this nation hopes to achieve a justice system that is just, it must remain ever vigilant for any echo from Attica.
by Heather Ann Thompson via TIME on September 8, 2021
Zoomed in 1949 map of Atlanta.

A Brief History of the Atlanta City Prison Farm

Slave labor, overcrowding, and unmarked graves — the buried history of Atlanta City Prison Farm from the 1950s to 1990s shows it’s no place of honor.
via Atlanta Community Press Collective on August 14, 2021
Two prison employees standing outside a prison cell.

The Truth About Deinstitutionalization

A popular theory links the closing of state psychiatric hospitals to the increased incarceration of people with mental illness. The reality is more complicated.
by Alisa Roth via The Atlantic on May 25, 2021

Everything You Know About Mass Incarceration Is Wrong

The US carceral state is a monstrosity with few parallels in history. But most accounts fail to understand how it was created, and how we can dismantle it.
by Adaner Usmani, Jacobin via Jacobin on March 17, 2020

Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0

An updated prison syllabus in response to the national prison strike of 2018.
by Dan Berger, Garrett Felber, Elizabeth Hinton, Anyabwile Love, Kali Nicole Gross via Black Perspectives on September 8, 2018
Two inmates survey the aftermath of a prison uprising.

Prisons and Class Warfare

A look at the evolution of the prison system in California.
by Clement Petitjean, Ruth Wilson Gilmore via Historical Materialism on July 25, 2018
Line graph showing a rise in Louisiana's prison incarceration rate since 1978.

Louisiana’s Turn to Mass Incarceration: The Building of a Carceral State

How Louisiana built a carceral state during the War on Crime.
by Lydia Pelot-Hobbs via American Association Of Geographers on February 1, 2018

Why Does the U.S. Sentence Children to Life in Prison?

No other nation sentences people to die in prison for offenses committed as minors.
by Katie Rose Quandt via JSTOR Daily on January 31, 2018

What the Prisoners’ Rights Movement Owes to the Black Muslims of the 1960s

Black Muslims have been an influential force in the prisoners' rights movement and criminal justice reform.
by Christopher E. Smith, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on January 22, 2018
A patient in solitary confinement at a special hospital at Broadmoor in Berkshire (1956).
partner

America Must Listen to its Prisoners Before We Make a Major Mistake

The anniversary of two major revolts remind us that tough-on-crime policies have created intense suffering in our prisons.
by Heather Ann Thompson via Made By History on September 8, 2017

Our Long, Troubling History of Sterilizing the Incarcerated

State-sanctioned efforts to keep the incarcerated from reproducing began in the early 20th century and continue today.
by David M. Perry via The Marshall Project on July 26, 2017

What’s Hidden Behind The Walls Of America’s Prisons

Prisons today undergo criticism but in the 19th and the 20th century prisons treated their inmates as "slaves of the state.”
by Heather Ann Thompson via The Conversation on June 4, 2017
The inmates during a negotiating session on September 10, 1971. An uprising born of panic and confusion triggered a cascade of paranoia that extended to the Nixon White House.

Learning from the Slaughter in Attica

What the 1971 uprising and massacre reveal about our prison system and the liberal democratic state.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on August 22, 2016
View More
30 of
49

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History