That’s right, I’m back! You can once again get your weekly dose of prison abolitionist opinion and analysis right here at the Center for a Stateless Society. Throughout my absence, my C4SS colleagues have presented excellent prison abolitionist commentary. For example, Nick Ford argued that despite Tutwiler Prison’s formal demise, the rape-filled prison system it represents…

Content Warning: Discussions of rape and sexual abuse After over two decades of abuse, Julia Tutwiler Prison, located in Montgomery Alabama, will close. After almost two decades of prison guards sexually assaulting, abusing and raping inmates, Tutwiler prison will be closed. After nearly two decades of investigations, reformist legislature, promises on the part of the…

A recent study conducted by The National Registry of Exonerations found that in 2015 there were a total of 149 people who were exonerated for a myriad of reasons. The exonerations revolved around convictions that were based on police misconduct, false confessions and in some cases, the fact that no crime had occurred. In addition,…

Last week president Obama put an end to the use of solitary confinement on youth locked up in the federal prison system. In an op-ed announcing a series of executive actions the president cited the particular psychological harms that young inmates face when being placed in solitary confinement. He rightly points out that a life in…

La chiusura mentale ha diverse forme. Si vede dal modo in cui oggi alcuni progressisti reagiscono agli eventi di Burns, nell’Oregon, dove un gruppo di persone ha occupato una struttura dell’Ente Federale per la Gestione del Territorio per protestare contro la condanna al carcere dei rancher Dwight e Steve Hammond. I due, padre e figlio,…

Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women di Victoria Law Quando si parla di prigioni solitamente si pensa a detenuti uomini. Comprensibile, perché i detenuti sono in gran parte uomini. Secondo Victoria Law, però, la popolazione carceraria femminile cresce a ritmi allarmanti. Tra il 1990 e il 2000 le detenute sono aumentate del 108%,…

Bigotry comes in multiple forms. It’s evident at present in some progressives’ responses to events in Burns, Oregon, where protestors opposed to the jailing of ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond are occupying a Bureau of Land Management facility. The father and son were convicted of two counts of arson on federal land under the draconian…

Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women by Victoria Law Conversations about prison typically focus on male prisoners. This is understandable, given that the vast majority of prisoners are men. But according to Victoria Law, the population of women in prison has been growing at an alarming rate. The number of women incarcerated grew…

Il 13 luglio Obama ha annunciato l’intenzione di concedere uno sconto di pena a 46 detenuti. Dozzine di questi sono condannati per reati legati alla droga e altri reati non violenti. Tredici erano ergastolani. Una buona notizia, senza dubbio. È bene festeggiare ogni vittoria, per quanto piccola, nella lotta contro l’industria carceraria razzista. Gli sconti…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Ryan Calhoun‘s “Hate Crimes: Bernie Sanders’s Political Theater” read by Katrina Haffner and edited by Nick Ford. Somehow Sanders has managed to escape criticism for a similarly bad piece of legislation he supported — the Local Law Enforcement Against Hate Crimes Act — another virtual gift bag for police departments. Hate…

It was 1975 when the first same-sex Americans were “permitted” to marry one another. It was Clela Rorex who processed these licenses illegally. This act of sabotage against the state’s marriage monopoly was eventually discovered, and Rorex quit — many calling for her to face legal punishment. She’s said of her activism, “I didn’t want…

On July 13, President Obama announced that he will commute the sentences of 46 imprisoned individuals. Among them are several dozen drug offenders and a score of other nonviolent lawbreakers. Thirteen of them were serving life in prison. This is undeniably good news. Any victory, no matter how small, in the fight against the racist prison-industrial complex is worth celebrating. Obama’s…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Ryan Calhoun‘s “A Riot Broke Out and No One was Surprised” read by Thomas J. Webb and edited by Nick Ford. “Many liberal reformists object to rioting as a legitimate tactic of effecting positive change. They cite, as all anti-revolutionaries do, crackdowns on prison life and the possible negative response of outsiders. However,…

If you have even a shred of humanity, the answer is yes. Prisoners Richard Matt and David Sweat have dominated headlines for nearly two weeks after escaping from Dannemora, a maximum security prison in Upstate, New York. One prison employee, Joyce Mitchell, has been accused of providing them assistance in their escape. She too now,…

It’s sad evidence of collective latent racism that no one cares about prison until a conventionally attractive, intelligent, well-educated, middle-class, urban white woman goes there. Hence, Orange is the New Black, a funny and moving hit original series based on a bestselling memoir. How is it that black and Latina women are relegated to supporting…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Nick Ford‘s “Mr. President, Chelsea Manning Would Like a Word” read by Mike Godzina and, again, edited by Nick Ford. But if I had to pick one of the most egregious quotes from Obama it’s this: “[W]e defend free speech, and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities,…

Il venti febbraio è scoppiata una rivolta nella struttura correttiva di Willacy, un carcere texano per “immigrati illegali”. Duemila detenuti hanno protestato contro l’incuria e il superlavoro. La situazione è peggiorata rapidamente quando i detenuti sono venuti in possesso di armi contundenti, invadendo il cortile e smantellando o bruciando quelle strutture a cui erano incatenati…

A riot broke out on February 20 at Willacy Correctional Facility, a Texas prison for “illegal immigrants.” 2,000 inmates demonstrated against their subjection to neglect and overwork. The situation quickly escalated as inmates armed themselves with blunt instruments, swarming the yard and dismantling and setting fire to the structures they’d been shackled to for too long. As the…

The Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) holds a prominent annual interdisciplinary academic conference featuring free-market-oriented research. C4SS has had a panel at every APEE program since 2010. This year’s meeting will be in Cancún, April 12-14, and C4SS is sending Nathan Goodman (C4SS’s Lysander Spooner Research Scholar in Abolitionist Studies), Jason Lee Byas (C4SS…

As usual, the State of the Union address was a top to bottom massacre of verbiage. Every year the English language struggles to survive an onslaught of what can only be described as total verbal hangover from a year of rhetorical binge drinking. Somehow, some way, one man manages to stand on a platform (while two other…