Think Justice Blog

Series: Covid-19

A View from the Inside

In Maine, reports say that the state prison population has been cut by more than 8 percent in response to the novel coronavirus, that cleaning and sanitation has been ramped up, that people are being released “early” on a Supervised Community Confinement Progr ...

What’s in a Name? A Small Step Prosecutors Can Take to Build a More Humane System

Prosecutors are supposed to dehumanize people charged with crimes. That’s what we’re taught in law school. As my professor instructed, if you’re a prosecutor, always refer to the person accused as “the defendant.” Using “defendant” distances the judge or jury ...

Series: Covid-19

A New Vision for Justice in New Orleans

In the face of adversity, the COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated one positive thing—that New Orleans can lock up fewer people in jail and still maintain public safety.

DACA Was Never the End Goal: Liberation Is

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision on DACA—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration law—impacted 650,000 young people, including us, four DACAmented Verans. We are relieved that the Court blocked efforts to end the program, leaving it intac ...

Series: Target 2020

Postsecondary Education in Prison is a Racial Equity Strategy

The recent protests against police violence have led to calls to divest from law enforcement and invest in communities of color. At the same time, college students across the county are grappling with how to safely pursue their education and what the implicati ...

Federal Immigration Enforcement Agencies Are a Threat to Our Civil Liberties

This piece was written before recent confrontations between U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel and protestors in Portland, Oregon. Similar to the examples highlighted below, multiple news media outlets have since reported on the deployment of ...

Series: Covid-19

Without an attorney, I might still be confined in a detention facility with COVID-19

People trapped in the United States’ massive immigration detention system have no right to legal counsel if they cannot afford it. Without attorneys, they stand little chance of navigating the complex and adversarial arena of immigration law to win their freed ...

Series: Target 2020

Data-Backed Outrage: Police Violence by the Numbers

The United States and its thousands of law enforcement agencies have a historic opportunity to end our nation’s crisis of over-enforcement and over-criminalization. The worst abuses in policing—including killings of unarmed civilians—disproportionately affect ...

COVID-19 Adds to Challenges for Trans People in California’s Prisons

As the novel coronavirus has swept through U.S. jails and prisons, little attention has been focused on the needs and experiences of incarcerated transgender and gender-nonconforming (GNC) people. Fewer than 1 percent of adults in this country identify as tran ...

A First Step in Mississippi toward Sentencing Reform and Fewer People in Prison

On Sunday, after a concerted campaign reignited by protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, Mississippi finally passed legislation to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag. This week, the state is poised to take another step toward addr ...

DACAmented are Still Vulnerable—and the Fight Must Continue

The Supreme Court’s decision to block the Trump administration from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program gave us reason to celebrate last week. It means that an estimated three-quarters of a million people who came here as children ...

A Juneteenth Call to Action

This year on Juneteenth, thousands of people are marching, braving the coronavirus pandemic—which has disproportionately affected Black people—to stand face-to-face with police and say: Enough is enough.