Peace & Justice — YES! Magazine

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Peace and Justice

Restorative Justice: A Practical Alternative to Prison

Patrice Gaines: We can keep our streets safe without throwing people away.

Jun 13, 2011

Vincent Harding: An Open Letter to President Obama

Vincent Harding, a key figure in the civil rights movement and the author of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech condemning the Vietnam War, tells of his reaction to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death and his hopes for a just peace.

Dr. Vincent Harding May 27, 2011

Aerial spraying is meant to eradicate illegal coca crops, but often kills legal crops as well.

A Peaceful End to the War on Drugs?

The international war on drugs isn’t stopping drug use or trafficking—but it is ruining lives. Drug policy expert Sanho Tree on what we can do differently.

Rebecca Leisher May 24, 2011

A 9/11 Friendship of Forgiveness

Two mothers—one whose son was killed on 9/11, one whose son is jailed for conspiracy to commit the attacks—explain their unlikely friendship.

May 25, 2011

Fed up with Mexico's violent drug war, citizens gather at a traffic circle at Paseo de los Heroes in Zona Rio to protest the government's actions.

Mexicans Reject U.S.-Backed Drug War

Led by a popular poet, tens of thousands of protesters fill the streets of Mexico to speak out against the war on drugs.

Laura Carlsen May 19, 2011

Truth and Reconciliation in New York

Ex-offenders and families of victims ask, how can we resolve the tension between our need to protect society, and our desire to believe in human redemption?

David Kaczynski May 08, 2011

Connecting Prisons With Nature

Video: Can prisons save money and the environment while changing lives?

Benjamin Drummond Sara Joy Steele Apr 29, 2011

Spoon Jackson.

Life With Poetry, But No Parole

Locked up for life, prisoner poet Spoon Jackson discovered life as a "melody that flowed like free verse."

Spoon Jackson Apr 14, 2011

My First Vote

“I was overjoyed when I got my voter registration card. I was a real citizen!” Ex-offenders on reclaiming the human right to vote.

Apr 27, 2011

An impromptu rally outside the White House followed President Obama's announcement.

I’m Looking for Justice, Not Vengeance

A 9/11 widow on working for peace when the world expects you to want revenge.

Brooke Jarvis May 03, 2011

In Toronto, demonstrators protest NATO's involvement in the Afghanistan war.

Time to End the War

Let’s not let this chance for peace slip by us.

Robert Naiman May 02, 2011

The New Jim Crow
By Michelle Alexander The New Press, 2010, 290 pages, $27.95 Support YES! when you buy here from an independent bookstore .

"Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness"

Amy Goodman talks to legal scholar Michelle Alexander about the new American caste system.

Apr 25, 2011

Photo Essay: The Innocents

Photographs give a voice to our nation's wrongfully convicted.

Apr 25, 2011

Students in Tucson protect their Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies curriculum by chaining themselves to board member chairs and chanting,

A Student Uprising in Arizona

In Tucson, lawmakers want to cut ethnic studies programs. But they’ll have to unchain these students first.

Jeff Biggers Apr 27, 2011

The Refugee Child Photographers

How photography training and disposable cameras are giving young Palestinian refugees something new—a voice.

V. Noah Gimbel Apr 22, 2011