Justice learning resources
This post is for anyone who wants to build their list of standard resources to rely on in learning about and following trends in this field. If you’re already deep in the issue, you already know this, but do feel free to add more suggestions in comments.
Before I start, if you’re super new, you may really get a lot from this recent thread by a new public defender. I appreciate how clearly he lays out how this system chews up and churns through impoverished people, for no purpose.
Ok, here goes:
For great and useful journalism on local criminal justice elections and politics, see Bolts Magazine, founded by Daniel Nichanian. They’ve got really smart and comprehensive coverage, including useful maps showing where the upcoming prosecutor and sheriff elections are taking place.
For research on mass incarceration stats and mechanics, Peter Wagner and his team at the Prison Policy Initiative are an extremely helpful resource. They publish regular reports on a huge range of topics (such as COVID in prison, or the effects of incarceration on employment, or their famous “mass incarceration, the whole pie” chart that they update every year). They also maintain a research library that anyone can use on their website. Props and gratitude to the small but mighty team at PPI!
For comprehensive and well-presented information about the role of private industry in the prison system, look no further than Bianca Tylek, founder of Worth Rises. Three ways to digest her info: (1) Read the reports that she and her team have put together on the prison industry; (2) watch the self-guided 15-week curriculum that she produced, with panels of speakers and experts each week and recommended readings; (3) and/or check out her twitter feed, where she does long threads on the origins and terrible practices of various prison industry players.
For deep and profoundly useful thinking on movement strategy, I rely on Carlos Saavedra and Paul Engler. You can find great offerings at Ayni’s movement school website - I particularly recommend the movement strategy course. I also rely a lot on Paul’s writings with his brother Mark - see their book This is an Uprising, as well as many short articles they’ve published in the past few years which you can google.
Books:
(there are so many good ones - this is an intentionally very short list)
Michelle Alexander, the New Jim Crow — published in 2010, this book helped jumpstart a newly energized movement to end mass incarceration. Even if you think you know the basics of this narrative, from Nixon’s war on drugs to modern mass incarceration, there’s so much good information here that I really recommend actually reading it.
Mariame Kaba, We Do This ’Til We Free Us — this collection of essays by leading abolitionist Mariame Kaba does a brilliant job of communicating profound and challenging concepts in a very simple format. How do we reconcile our desire to reduce the harms of incarceration with desires for retribution and the idea that punishment is necessary in order to have safety? You won’t think the same after reading this book.
John Pfaff, Locked In — Pfaff is a criminologist who’s done a ton of work on prosecutors. He gives a very readable, data-driven account of what we’re dealing with. I don’t agree with some of his broader conclusions; recommend also reading this blog post in response.
William Stuntz, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice — this book doesn’t get nearly enough attention, imho. In it, criminal procedure professor Stuntz lays out the evolution of the northern, and southern criminal legal systems in the U.S., and provides incredibly interesting insights about the relationship between actual crime, the politics of crime, voters perceiving crime, and the actors exercising discretion in these systems. This book made me smarter.
All of these are great memoirs / first hand accounts; I suggest you read at least one of them: Susan Burton, Becoming Ms. Burton; Danielle Allen, Cuz; Patrisse Cullors, When They Call You a Terrorist; Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy; Ted Conover, Newjack.