By Kai Wright, The Nation
People like Luis Rivera are being locked out of the formal workforce forever thanks to one youthful mistake.
One year ago, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed an executive order ratifying the overwhelming victory Amendment 64, the nation’s first statewide vote to end marijuana prohibition.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Are establishment black “civil rights organizations” like the NAACP, the National Action Network and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund really opposed to mass incarceration and the prison state?
By Kevin Edmonds
Given the current controversy surrounding the extent of the U.S. drone program and targeted killings, it is important to revisit that in the summer of 2012, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency announced
By Sheila A. Bedi, The Daily Beast
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to introduce a mandatory prison sentence for anyone caught with an illegal firearm. But reams of data shows that incarceration creates more crime.
Les Leopold, AlterNet
Transforming poorer neighborhoods into desirable real estate for the new elites often requires getting rid of the poor: jail becomes the new home for many.
The one thing we cannot have in our ridiculous ongoing modern prohibitionist state is a criminal justice system that punishes the criminals in law enforcement as harshly as it punishes those at whom the laws are aimed, and on whom the law principally falls.
By John Nichols
Florida Congressman Trey Radel, who has wisely determined that he does not want to become an American version of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, says he will take a leave of absence from the US House of Representatives to address his penchant for cocaine.
By Liliana Segura A holding cell in South Dakota State Penitentiary. (AP/Amber Hunt) This past August, the Lafayette-based IND Monthly published a story about a 54-year-old man named Bill Winters, incarcerated at a medium-security…
By Harry Levine
“Whites Smoke Pot, but Blacks Are Arrested.” That was the headline of a column by Jim Dwyer, the great Metro desk reporter for The New York Times, in December 2009. Although Dwyer was writing about New York City, he summed up perfectly two central and enduring facts about marijuana use and arrests across the country: whites and blacks use marijuana equally, but the police do not arrest them equally.