As the IDF military operations in Gaza following the attacks of October 7 continue unabated, and the death toll among Palestinians gets close to 29,000 people (or about 1 in 100), our need to understand the roots of this conflict becomes ever more urgent. For this reason, we are making freely available to our readers […]
Author: Social Justice
Mike Davis and Betita Martinez: A Revolutionary Encounter
Image: Mike David, illustration by Carolyn Ramos for Voice of San Diego; Betita Martinez, art by Favianna Rodríguez. In loving memory of two dear friends of the journal—Mike Davis, who joined our Advisory Board back in 1989, and Elizabeth Betita Martinez, who has inspired all of us throughout her life—we share a memory of Betita written by […]
A Future in the Balance: The Fight Against the Carceral State in Central Appalachia
by Judah Schept* Three years ago this month, in June 2019, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) withdrew its Record of Decision to build United States Penitentiary Letcher, a maximum security federal prison sited for a former mountaintop removal site in Letcher County, Kentucky. Were it to have been built, USP Letcher would have been the […]
Where is Police Abolition in Criminal Justice Studies?
by Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land and Kevin Walby* Image by DANIEL ARAUZ via FLICKR. CC BY 2.0. Criminology and criminal justice studies have too often failed to incorporate lessons from the front lines of struggles for radical changes to the criminal justice system. This failure is apparent in recent advancements toward police abolition. Over the past […]
On the Outs: Global Capitalism and Transcarceration
by Oscar Fabian Soto This blog piece is extracted from a longer article, “On the Outs: Global Capitalism and Transcarceration”, published in Vol. 48-1 of Social Justice. On a cold April night back in 2008, I was arrested and charged with two felonies and six misdemeanors. Once inside the jail, awaiting my sentence, I could hear loud […]
Making Violence Visible: Mapping Violence against Guarani and Kaiowá Women in Brazil
by Camilla Rossi* In November 2020 the Guarani and Kaiowá Women’s Council, Kuñangue Aty Guasu, shared the first comprehensive report documenting the initial outcomes of their Violence Mapping project, ‘Corpos Silenciados, Vozes Presentes’. Located in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, since 2006 the Kuñangue Aty Guasu has been working with their local communities to collect […]
Police Abolition or Police Surveillance: The Looming Choice
by Micol Seigel* Speaker after speaker at the Republican National Convention last month railed against democrats’ supposed plans to defund the police. The major spotlight on these denunciations reflects how visible this once-fringe proposal has become. It also highlights the political position defunding occupies today: far, far beyond the pale for conservatives and “centrist” voters. […]
From Islamophobia to Oikophobia in the Netherlands
by Maartje van der Woude* The stakes in the May 2019 elections for the European parliament are unusually high. The results will indicate whether or not nationalist, anti-immigrant, and Euro-skeptic parties continue to grow and expand their influence. Here in the Netherlands, once known as a “beacon of tolerance,” I expect rightwing parties to increase […]
Pushback on Human Rights in France: The Republic on the Move, but in Reverse Gear
by Rémy HERRERA* For some months now, France has been the scene of a turbulent upheaval. Fierce social conflict has long been a defining feature of the country’s political life. It has been a historical given in a nation constructed, for the most part, after 1789 on the basis of a revolution of universal scope […]
Passive Revolution and the Movement against Mass Incarceration: From Prison Abolition to Redemption Script
by William I. Robinson & Oscar Fabian Soto* At a recent conference that brought together academics and activists from the movement against mass incarceration, one of the authors of this commentary, Oscar Soto, sat through several days of presentations on the current state of the prison reform movement and future directions for research and activism. […]