L.A. County activists are working to replace violent jails with mental health facilities, and to reallocate funding from incarceration toward social services.
Criminal justice reform
A big decrease in the incarceration rate of Black adults may lead to parity in the near future.
Attorney Sia Henry shares a wrenching personal experience highlighting the challenges of operating in world where prison abolition is not yet a reality.
The demand to “defund the police” asks politicians to go beyond platitudes and actually end the violence of policing, shifting resources in ways that promote the redistribution of wealth.
We can work for safety and liberation by investing in community-based alternatives to policing, like mental health programs, public education, restorative justice practices, and economic justice.
Gun violence cannot be abstracted from a broader culture of violence and authoritarianism that calls for more gun ownership, more police, and more national security.
Trials are far from impartial if the defendant is poor or reliant on public defenders. These people are working to re-balance the scales of justice.
Police too often claim that confusion during an encounter caused them to fire fatal shots, as in the case of Patrick Lyoya. But there are solutions.
State legislatures and elected officials around the country have almost always responded to crime with more police funding in spite of little to no positive results. Instead, they could tackle the recidivism rate, solve the housing crisis, and reduce poverty.
Formerly incarcerated mental health care providers are supplementing traditional resources for those still in prison—with mutually beneficial results.
Everette Taylor has been as good a father as the prison system has allowed. He’s one of millions of Americans who remains incarcerated for far too long.
Breonna Taylor's father, who remained close to all six children, including Breonna while she was alive, is being held in a Michigan prison. An incarcerated writer makes the case for Everette’s freedom.
Everette Taylor didn’t get to say goodbye to his daughter. Stuck behind prison walls, Taylor speaks with YES! about how he remains connected to his surviving children despite decades of incarceration.
Since 2000, toxic tours in this community have evolved from talking about pollution, to now include systemic racism, policing, and mass incarceration.
Prison reformists—many of whom are serving long sentences—have united to change the cruel and arbitrary carceral system.
These three activists are working to support people at risk of either going to prison for the first time or returning to prison after release.
The city’s activists have seen varying levels of success in housing and food justice. But justice for police abuse remains elusive. Here’s why.
Years of “tough-on-crime” policies have resulted in growing numbers of elderly people remaining in prison for decades. It’s past time to enact policies that help them come home.
The podcast, produced by the Detroit Justice Center, highlights how organizers are engaged in the hard work of abolishing police and prisons, and offers a counter-narrative to mainstream media reports.
Just as slavery couldn’t be reformed and had to be ended, policing can’t be reformed and has to be abolished, say leaders of modern-day abolitionist movements.
The residential and employment program on a North Carolina organic farm helps formerly incarcerated women find a new path.
Changes in public attitudes toward the death penalty include factors like technological change and urbanization. But strategic actions by impassioned advocates can appeal to the public’s compassion.
Volunteers team up with people currently held in solitary confinement to build empathy, compassion, and advocacy for a world without prisons.
It’s not easy, but it is possible.
A network of government agencies and community service organizations have created a program to help formerly incarcerated people navigate life outside prison.
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