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Sketch of a bedroom with a double bed, a prison courtyard outside the window.

Controversy and Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits were first allowed as incentives for the forced labor of incarcerated Black men, the practice expanding from there. Is human touch a right?
by Molly Hagan via JSTOR Daily on February 13, 2023
Ink prints of men fighting each other.

After Attica, the McKay Report in the Prison Press

How was the famous prisoner uprising and its aftermath depicted in the prison press? The American Prison Newspapers collection on JSTOR has answers.
by James Anderson via JSTOR Daily on January 19, 2023

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

How a Series of Jail Rebellions Rocked New York—and Woke a City

It has been nearly 50 years since New York’s jails erupted in protest, but the lessons of that era feel more relevant than ever.
by Heather Ann Thompson via The Nation on March 21, 2019

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
Black man in jail depicted evoking American flag imagery, with the star in his eye and stripes as jail bars

Ill Fares the Land

A prison is a difficult thing to kill.
by Spencer Weinreich via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 29, 2024
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
Anti-death penalty protesters standing outside the Supreme Court.

The Hollowing of the Eighth Amendment

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has been quietly rolling back a longstanding consensus over cruel and unusual punishment.
by Duncan Hosie via New York Review of Books on June 18, 2024
Old gas chamber, with two chairs

Execution By Gas has a Brutal 100-Year History. Now it’s Back.

An Alabama man faces execution by nitrogen gas—the first U.S. execution by gas in a quarter-century, 100 years after the practice began.
by Randy Dotinga via Retropolis on January 24, 2024
A drawing of Corcoran State Prison with water approaching. The top of the image reads "In Harm's Way".

In California, Climate Chaos Looms Over Prisons — and Thousands of Prisoners

How decades-old decisions to build two California prisons in a dry lakebed and a chaotic climate left 8,000 incarcerated people at risk.
by Susie Cagle via The Marshall Project on October 24, 2023
A group of black prisoners, shoveling.

Race, Prison, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Critiques of the Thirteenth Amendment have roots in a long history of activists who understood the imprisonment of Black people as a type of slavery.
by Daryl Michael Scott, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on September 21, 2023
Soldier in foliage drawing

How Prisoners Contributed During World War II

Prisoners not only supported the war effort in surprising ways during World War II, they fought and died in it.
by Morgan Godvin, David Dressler, Frank T. Flynn, Gordon Hawkins via JSTOR Daily on May 26, 2023
Angela Davis attending her first news conference after being released on bail, February 24, 1972.

Angela Davis Exposed the Injustice at the Heart of the Criminal Justice System

In 1970, Angela Davis was arrested on suspicion of murder. The trial — and her eventual victory — proved to everyone that the justice system was corrupt.
by Joel Whitney via Jacobin on April 1, 2023
Black Panther mural dating from 1996, side wall of Rick’s Barbershop, 3406 Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, 2011 (LOC).

George Jackson in a Global Frame

The story of George Jackson and his radical politics that challenged the American Government in an age of political repression.
by Andrew Anastasi via Black Perspectives on January 24, 2023
Illustration of Nation of Islam members holding hands with Muslims from the Middle East over globe.

The Nation of Islam's Role in U.S. Prisons

The Nation of Islam is controversial. Its practical purposes for incarcerated people transcend both politics and religion.
by Olivia Heffernan via JSTOR Daily on March 22, 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
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
Guard checking pockets of American soldier prisoners

Prisoners of War

During the war in Vietnam, there was a notorious American prison on the outskirts of Saigon: a prison for American soldiers.
via Radio Diaries on August 12, 2021
A prisoner behind bars

The Multiple Layers of the Carceral State

The devastating cruelties these stories reveal also contain a fundamental truth about prison.
by Dan Berger via Black Perspectives on January 11, 2021

‘Some Suburb of Hell’: America’s New Concentration Camp System

The longer a camp system stays open, the more likely it is that vital things will go wrong.
by Andrea Pitzer via New York Review of Books on June 21, 2019

Cruel and Usual

Proponents believe lethal injection to be a medical marvel, but in reality it’s junk science.
by Jackie Roche, Liliana Segura via The Nib on October 1, 2018

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

The 1919 Murder Case That Gave Americans the Right to Remain Silent

Decades before the Miranda decision, a Washington triple-homicide paced the way to protect criminal suspects.
by Scott D. Seligman via Zócalo Public Square on April 30, 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
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
Eastern State Penitentiary, c. 1876.

A Brief History of Solitary Confinement

Dickens, Tocqueville, and the U.N. all agree about this American invention: It’s torture.
by Jean Casella, James Ridgeway via Longreads on February 2, 2016
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