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Incarceration & Prisons

Posted inRACE & PLACE

Abolition in the Era of Climate Change

by Aarohi Sheth March 20, 2025March 20, 2025

"Prison labor is the essence of capitalism within the United States. Because of it, there's this mentality of needing to force [incarcerated people] to work and 'pay off' the debt they have to society. With that, comes the idea that we must work incarcerated folks to the bone because they are essentially slaves."

Reproductive Resistance in the Antebellum South
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Reproductive Resistance in the Antebellum South

by Ivy Valentine February 20, 2025April 9, 2025
A Decade of Scalawag: Top Stories Each Year
Posted inSCALAWAG UPDATES

A Decade of Scalawag: Top Stories Each Year

by Scalawag Editors December 30, 2024December 13, 2024
The Hell Inside Hell: Solitary Confinement in Texas Hides the Sexual Abuse of Women and Girls
Posted inSCALAWAG UPDATES

Abolitionist Politics and Incarcerated Perspectives: A Scalawag Reading List

by Tea Troutman December 30, 2024December 26, 2024
Climate Resilience
Posted inSCALAWAG UPDATES

Climate Resilience: A Scalawag Reading List

by Tea Troutman December 23, 2024December 26, 2024
AI Surveillance
Posted inSCALAWAG UPDATES

South to South: A Scalawag Reading List

by Tea Troutman December 16, 2024December 26, 2024
How the criminalization of Black parenthood hurts Black children
Posted inRACE & PLACE

How the criminalization of Black parenthood hurts Black children

by Alexis J. Smith December 11, 2024December 12, 2024
UNC expands its use of AI surveillance following spring encampments
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

UNC expands its use of AI surveillance following spring encampments

by Jordyn Cooper October 23, 2024December 10, 2024
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Felony Murder Law

by E. Paris Whitfield August 30, 2024August 30, 2024
AI Surveillance
Posted inRACE & PLACE

AI Surveillance as a tool of state repression

by Michigan People's Defense Committee August 29, 2024August 28, 2024
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Locked Out: From County Jails to Guantánamo Bay

by Emily Russell August 26, 2024August 26, 2024
This year, our focus is Empire, its endless expansion, and the carceral technologies that make it possible.
Posted inSCALAWAG UPDATES

Abolition Week: Empire Must Die

by Sherronda J. Brown and Scalawag Editors August 26, 2024August 26, 2024
Surviving the Crash
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Surviving the Crash

by Ryan Ken May 31, 2024May 31, 2024
The Hell Inside Hell: Solitary Confinement in Texas Hides the Sexual Abuse of Women and Girls
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

The Hell Inside Hell

by Kwaneta Harris May 30, 2024May 30, 2024
Boiling on the Inside: Texas Inmates Weather Extreme Heat in non-Air Conditioned Prisons
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Boiling on the Inside

by Kwaneta Harris April 11, 2024April 16, 2024
Protestors grieve the loss of Palestinian life outside of the White House in Washington, DC, November 4, 2023. Photo by Katie Hanzalik. A look at Scalawag's most-read stories, reporting, and writing of 2023—from Cop City to Gaza, prison conditions, and more—in review.
Posted inSCALAWAG UPDATES

Year in review: Scalawag's top stories of 2023

by Scalawag Editors January 2, 2024December 14, 2023
Elena Kiejliches, featured on 'Snapped' in 2004, reveals how her story was twisted to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about women's violence.
Posted inRACE & PLACE

'It's not a story—it's a life:' A look at Snapped, from the inside

by Elena Kiejliches and Molly Hagan November 21, 2023November 21, 2023
In this November 2005 file photo, Larry Greene, public information director of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, demonstrates how a curtain is pulled between the death chamber and witness room at the prison in Lucasville, Ohio. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File) Author Keith LaMar's execution date was moved to 2027 after 30 years on Death Row in Ohio, awaiting the death penalty.
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

A Death Row Reprieve: One man's bittersweet reflection

by Keith LaMar November 16, 2023November 15, 2023
Having spent the first wave of COVID-19 in Rikers Island, David Campbell found the pandemic lockdowns he was met with after his release strangely familiar. The parallels of self-quarantine and incarceration can be tools for abolitionist solidarity.
Posted inRACE & PLACE

What living through COVID in jail taught me about abolition

by David Campbell September 21, 2023September 21, 2023
Men from the Brevard County Jail fill sand bags for local residents to combat flooding caused by high water levels from Hurricane Irma on October 5, 2017 in Sharpes, Florida. Credit: Paul Hennessy/Alamy Live News.
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Florida's jails put incarcerated people's lives at risk during hurricane season

by Angel D’Angelo September 12, 2023September 27, 2023
Prison workers making uniforms at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard) Rehabilitation stops being a priority for officials when it conflicts with prison labor—abruptly shutting down programs, citing labor costs.
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

The Profitable Prisoner

by Antoine Davis September 6, 2023September 5, 2023
Henry Drake was convicted for a 1975 murder he didn’t commit—twice. Even after another man confessed to the crime, he still spent 12 years on Death Row seeking exoneration and battling the classism and legal misconduct of Georgia's judicial system.
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

A Close Shave with Death

by Lillah Lawson September 1, 2023September 1, 2023
Death penalty opponents gather on the steps of the State Capitol in Atlanta, Ga., Monday, March 2, 2015 to protest the death penalty and the planned execution of Kelly Gissendaner. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ben Gray)
Posted inRACE & PLACE

On the execution of my friend, Kelly Gissendaner

by Carla J. Simmons August 31, 2023August 30, 2023
Federal receiver Robert Sillen in the prison yard at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California, on June 14, 2007. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Prop 66 doesn't dismantle California's Death Row—it expedites our executions

by Timothy James Young August 30, 2023August 29, 2023
Posted inARTS & SOUL

In paintings: Life, Death, Carcerality, and the Pursuit of Abolition

by Obie Weathers August 29, 2023August 29, 2023
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

A Man Alone

by Ahmed Jallow, The Assembly July 11, 2023June 29, 2023
Inside the post-Roe crisis of abortion and surveillance facing pregnant incarcerated people seeking and reproductive justice.
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Abortion bans and pregnancy surveillance: The body itself as a prison

by Gabrielle A. Perry June 28, 2023February 20, 2025
Periods in prison: The monthly struggle for sanitary products
Posted inRACE & PLACE

'That's not how it works around here': When free-bleeding ain't free

by Heather Jarvis June 28, 2023September 27, 2023
A Black mother in prison exposes the greed and hypocrisy of the system that keeps her behind bars and rips apart families.
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Only Mercy

by Chanell Burnette June 27, 2023November 13, 2023
How Israel exiles Palestinian prisoners to Gaza: Three Palestinian prisoners who were banished to Gaza as a condition of their release from Israeli prisons share their stories of exile.
Posted inPOLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Palestine on lock: Israeli occupation

by Basma Adham Albayed June 27, 2023November 14, 2023

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