Mandatory minimum sentences have been receiving a fair bit of scrutiny lately, largely due to the efforts of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). And rightly so. Mandatory minimums remove discretion and context from sentencing, resulting in grossly unjust and wildly disproportionate sentences for minor offenses. Moreover, they’ve caused some troubling shifts in who has discretionary…

A new report from the Open Society Justice Initiative documents the overuse of pretrial detention around the globe. The report estimates that around 3.3 million people are currently incarcerated awaiting trial. These people have yet to be convicted of any crime, yet they are locked in cages and subjected to brutal human rights abuses. Martin Schoenteich…

An excellent article published last week by Radley Balko in The Washington Post explores the racially discriminatory consequences of gun control laws in the United States, as illustrated through the lens of several recent news stories. Balko begins by discussing the arrest of Shaneen Allen: Last October, Shaneen Allen, 27, was pulled over in Atlantic…

Il rapimento e l’assassinio di tre adolescenti israeliani è un crimine odioso. Ma la risposta del governo israeliano è dal canto suo un’orgia di crimini violenti. Quando qualcuno commette un crimine contro qualcun altro, solo l’autore di questo crimine dovrebbe essere considerato responsabile. Non la famiglia o i compagni di camera, non quelli della sua…

On July 7th, Molly Knefel published a great piece on jury nullification in The Nation. Knefel opens by discussing the trial of Cecily McMillan, an Occupy Wall Street protester who was convicted of “assaulting” a police officer who had assaulted her, and sentenced to a prison term that most of the jurors who convicted her…

The abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers is a contemptible crime. But the Israeli government’s response has been to engage in a violent crime spree of its own. When someone commits a violent crime against another person, the perpetrator should be held accountable. Not the perpetrator’s family or roommates, not those of the same…

This Wednesday, June 25th at the Salt Lake City Library, I will discuss Ending the Prison State in Utah with Kirsten Tynan, director of the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA). I’m quite excited about this. I’ve admired FIJA’s work for a long time. Their work educating people across the political spectrum about jury rights and jury nullification helps…

America’s criminal code is massive, criminalizing a litany of seemingly harmless and ethical actions. In an excellent 2013 article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Paul Larkin explores this overcriminalization through the lens of public choice theory. Public choice theory uses the assumptions and methods of economics to study the behavior of…

In recent weeks, I’ve seen multiple stories about deaths in prisons. These deaths were all preventable and easily attributable to prison conditions. Let’s examine a few of these incidents. According to the Miami Herald, “Florida’s Department of Corrections is facing a third potential criminal probe in the wake of another inmate death at a state…

Last Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed something called “the USA Freedom Act.” The bill was intended by its authors to end the National Security Agency’s broad and privacy-shredding bulk data collection program, but the final version that passed is so weak that bulk data collection will still be permitted. Trevor Timm at the…

This week marks the 2014 National Week of Action Against Incarcerating Youth. Across the country, actions will be held to protest everything from the criminalization of queer and disabled youth to the isolation of youth in solitary confinement. Ultimately, what activists are protesting is systematic child abuse by the state. Kids are being locked in…

There’s a lot of news and information related to prisons, policing, borders, and other facets of the prison state. In previous editions of the Weekly Abolitionist, I have tried to fit multiple stories into one theme or analytic frame. This week, however, I’ve encountered a diverse enough range of articles relating to these issues that…

A recent article by Deborah Small at Salon raises some genuinely valuable points about the likely pitfalls of prison reform and the broad scope of the problem of criminalization. Yet the headline, and the later paragraphs, package these important and interesting points into yet another one of the “progressives should fear and despise libertarians” pieces…

These days, some policy makers are discussing rolling back America’s system of mass incarceration. Figures from Eric Holder to Rand Paul are proposing eliminating many mandatory minimum sentences. States like Colorado are legalizing marijuana. But while some policy makers talk about shrinking the prison state, prison expansion continues to be pushed and passed by legislators….

State violence thrives in the dark. This is why the state secrets privilege is so abused, it’s why the Obama administration has viciously persecuted whistleblowers, and it’s why states benefit from a  media climate where their legitimacy is assumed and radical ideas aren’t heard. So today I want to highlight some people both inside and…

The identification of libertarians with conservatives seems never ending. At the recent International Students for Liberty conference Justin Amash equated the two. Many leftists make similar equations with the intent of demonizing libertarians as right-wingers. What is the truth of the matter? We’re most definitely not conservatives. Liberty is a radical and revolutionary idea. One…

Review number five is upon us! Let’s begin. Ashley Smith discusses the imperial roots of sectarian violence in Iraq. Horace G. Campbell discusses counter-terrorism and imperial hypocrisy. Daniel White offers us some notes on the American Empire. Sheldon Richman discusses the urgency of stopping war with Iran. Dave Lindorff discusses the question of whether security…

Today marks Transgender Day of Remembrance. On this day, transgender and gender non-conforming people join with our allies to mourn and memorialize the transgender and gender non-conforming people who have been killed for who they are.  There’s a lot at stake here. Trans* people, particularly transgender women of color, face horrendous bigotry, violence, and murder….

Nothing like starting out your day with a laugh — and today I have Matthew Lynch (“12 Reasons Why Obama is One of the Greatest Presidents Ever,” Huffington Post, November 15) to thank for it. About half of Lynch’s points boil down to, “Obama is for x, because he makes speeches talking about x all…

Welcome to the fourth review! Let’s get started. First up are the usual pieces on foreign policy and militarism: Daniel R. Mahanty discusses how realists can also champion human rights. David Swanson discusses the visit to the White House of a Taliban victim and drone strikes. Patrick Cockburn discusses the victims of war in Iraq….