Mass Incarceration
Daily Comment
How a New Approach to Public Defense Is Overcoming Mass Incarceration
Public defenders represent eighty per cent of all people charged with a crime in this country, and they typically work in offices that are underfunded and understaffed.
The New Yorker Documentary
“La Isla” Shows the Absences Left by El Salvador’s Mass Arrests
On a quiet fishing island, families whose fathers and sons were swept up in anti-gang arrests have become the collateral damage of a crackdown.
Q. & A.
The Stunning Neglect and Racist Politics Behind Alabama’s Prison Strike
In 2020, the Department of Justice sued the state for running prisons that were “riddled” with violence. Since then, things have got worse.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Mass Incarceration in America, Then and Now
“The New Jim Crow” helped identify the profound harms that mass incarceration inflicts on communities of color. A dozen years later, how much headway have we made?
Cultural Comment
The Fascinating Experiment Captured in “Philly D.A.”
Could a longtime defense attorney reform the criminal-justice system as an insider?
Annals of Inquiry
Is There a Case for Legalizing Heroin?
The addiction researcher Carl Hart argues against the distinction between hard and soft drugs.
Q. & A.
How the Federal Government Can Reform the Police
A member of President Obama’s 2015 task force on policing reflects on how much reform can take place at the federal level and what “defunding the police” means in practice.
American Chronicles
Will the Coronavirus Make Us Rethink Mass Incarceration?
Community groups have pointed out the social costs of the prison system for decades. Now the pandemic has exposed its public-health risks.
The Political Scene Podcast
What Would a World Without Prisons Be Like?
WNYC’s Kai Wright sits down with two advocates of prison abolition to discuss the why and the how of decarceration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Alternative Oscars, 2020 Edition
Richard Brody shares his list of the best films of 2019, and two prison abolitionists explain the vision of a future of decarceration.
The Political Scene Podcast
Ten Years After “The New Jim Crow”
In 2010, Michelle Alexander’s book spelled out how mass incarceration harms communities of color. Assessing its impact, she looks back, and forward, with David Remnick.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Mass Incarceration, Then and Now
Mass incarceration has been profoundly harmful to communities of color. Ten years after “The New Jim Crow” helped to identify the problem, how much headway have we made?
Our Columnists
Jussie Smollett and the Impulse to Punish
Criticism against the Cook County state’s attorney for the handling of Smollett’s case exposes an uncomfortable truth about the depth of America’s attachment to mass incarceration.
Books
Who Belongs in Prison?
A truly just system must do more than protect the rights of the innocent; it must also respect the humanity of the guilty.
Dispatch
Inside the Mayor’s Plan to Close Rikers
Can New York City build its way out of mass incarceration?
Double Take
Barry Jenkins on “The Fire Next Time” and “If Beale Street Could Talk”
The director of “Moonlight” talks about James Baldwin, mass incarceration, sensuality, and civil rights.
Double Take
Sunday Reading: America’s Incarceration Crisis
From The New Yorker’s archive, reporting on the problem of mass incarceration and the experiences of people inside the prison system.
