Is ‘Abolish Prisons’ the Next Frontier in Criminal Justice?
Closing jails is a radical idea now gaining momentum as a way to replace broken institutions.
If not jails, what?
Photographer: Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images
Published in partnership with the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for its newsletter, or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.
Five years ago, when the activist and cable TV host Van Jones launched the #cut50 campaign to reduce U.S. prison populations by half, many mainstream justice reform watchers rolled their eyes at what seemed to be a reckless overreach. (My own eye-roll is here.) Now the campaign has attracted an A-list of celebrities, philanthropists and candidates pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination. These days, when Jones gets pilloried, it’s as likely to be for being too compromising: Why stop short of #cut100?