Ever since I decided to research the mechanics of our prison system, I have been somewhat stuck.
"School-to-prison pipeline" is a phrase that describes a set of policies and practices that push young people out of public schools and into the criminal justice system. It is a kind of shorthand that activists use to refer to places where schools are linked to the merciless tendrils of the prison system.
The U.S. has the world's highest incarceration rate, with 2.2 million people, or nearly 1 in 100 behind bars. Rising immigration detentions and the di...
Recently I learned of something even more disturbing than our former mayor's pending indictment.
Leaders in the United States should take a serious look at trying to help young African-American males overcome adversity without falling victim to the many ills of society.
Most of us share an open secret. It reveals itself every time we head to the gym, or prepare for an interview or an important presentation, or, in my case, cleaning day. I cop a Beyoncé, and for a few shining moments I put on the costume of black masculinity. It's like a white tee. One size fits all.
We must not forget about our little black girls, who continue to be invisibilized in classrooms, media, policies, and mainstream society.
The U.S. used to be recognized as the entrepreneurial capital of the world. Today (thanks largely to our unenlightened drug laws), we're recognized as the prison capital of the world. Prisoners, meet your new employers.
Children who have to navigate the harsh reality of homelessness on top of poverty often fall through our already porous safety nets and disproportionately drop out of school and then, too often, drop into the prison pipeline.
The nation’s first privately owned prison could be under fire after an audit report released last week by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and ...
Violence in Chicago's African-American community can be difficult to understand, until you look back over the last 40 years.
Our nation's costly prison complex incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Re-aligning the incentives of our corrections departments is the only way toward achieving a system of justice that is worthy of that name.
A black boy born in 2001 has a one in three chance of going to prison in his lifetime and a Latino boy a one in six chance of the same fate. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world: 7.1 million adult residents -- one in 33 -- are under some form of correctional supervision including prison, jail, probation, or parole. Michelle Alexander writes in her bestselling book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness that there are more adult African Americans under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. In 2011, our state and federal prison population exceeded that of the top 35 European nations combined. Something's very wrong with this picture.
Author and legal scholar, Michelle Alexander, has written a powerful and highly acclaimed, well-researched book titled, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."
Author and legal scholar, Michelle Alexander, has written a powerful and highly acclaimed, well-researched book titled, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."
The next time you attend a graduation, remember that the gowns worn by the graduates are likely to have been made by South Carolina prison labor.
Who bears the brunt of so-called "tough-on-crime" legislation? The 99% -- generally poor people of color who disproportionately populate our prison cells.
It is simply Orwellian for the drug czar to focus on the disproportionate impact of our nation's drug problem on African-American communities without acknowledging the disproportionate racial impact of drug law enforcement.
The growing influence of private prisons over our criminal justice policies is a chilling reminder of what happens when corporations can spend large amounts of money to curry favor with elected officials.
What more can be done to help reverse this ever-growing trend of locking people up instead of providing them with the necessary help to cope and deal with a changing world?
When I was growing up I learned that, although not perfect, the United States had the "best justice system in the world." That bill of goods can not even be faintly passed off with a straight face to today's schoolchildren.
The uprising at Attica was the start of a movement that sought to bring to light the horrible conditions of imprisonment. Surprisingly many of the horrid conditions that existed back then still plague the prison system today.
My experience of living in prison for 24 years convinces me that our prison system has a design to perpetuate failure. Politics is behind that system.
Prison isn't just about doing hard time. For many, it's about working full-time, too. These days, state governments seem ready to squeeze their captive workforces to plug budget gaps on the cheap.
The documentary Concrete, Steel and Paint informs us with piercing eloquence that, through art and honesty, salvation and transcendent understanding are possible.
