« Reviewing Biden Administration's uninspired criminal justice reform efforts | Main | Shouldn't federal prosecutors already be doing what they can to minimize the unjust crack-powder sentencing disparity? »

July 26, 2021

Excited for the launch of Inquest, "a forum for advancing bold decarceral ideas"

E676CJ9WQAEKg4PI was pleased to receive via email this morning the first official announcement of Inquest, which as explained here "is published by the Institute to End Mass Incarceration [but] not the voice of the Institute."   Here are excerpts from the Inquest mission page:

Inquest is a forum for advancing bold ideas to end mass incarceration in the United States. Here, you will find original, insightful work by thinkers and doers across a broad range of experience and expertise, united in the belief that mass incarceration is an epic injustice that can and must urgently end.

Our authors include leading and new voices across fields, from activism and community organizing, to law and policy, to academia, journalism, and public health. Drawing on their lived experience and their accumulated wisdom, they come here to share ideas, narratives, and analyses that boldly explore the causes and consequences of mass incarceration and that provoke rigorous discussion — all aimed at driving thoughtful action....

Rather, our mission is to create a space where the voices of those doing the thinking and the work — the people closest to the problem, including those directly impacted by mass incarceration — can come together to share ideas and be heard as they pursue bold solutions.

And here is some of the text from the introductory email that I received along with links to the first set of materials and essays on the site:

We are so excited to share this new publication and its core mission with you.  Our opening slate of original, thought-provoking essays is below.  We hope you will take a look today and come back often. Inquest is a forum for advancing bold ideas to end mass incarceration.  The publication features original, insightful work by thinkers and doers across a broad range of experience and expertise, united in the belief that our system of mass incarceration can and must urgently end....

Read a welcome note from our founding editors and visit Inquest to check out our opening slate of essays, all linked below:

Joel Castón, the first incarcerated person ever elected to public office in Washington, D.C., shares his story and vision with Inquest.

Tomas Keen, incarcerated in Washington State, highlights the problems with a prison closure plan.

"To get to real justice, we have to stop depending on the department bearing that name." — Rachel Barkow & Mark Osler

Maneka Sinha on forensics: "[M]any of the reforms proposed to date . . . serve to shore up the legitimacy of the field in the same ways that conventional reform proposals do in the policing context."

All these essays look great, and I am very excited to keep up with both Inquest and the new Institute to End Mass Incarceration.

July 26, 2021 at 12:23 PM | Permalink

Comments

Post a comment

In the body of your email, please indicate if you are a professor, student, prosecutor, defense attorney, etc. so I can gain a sense of who is reading my blog. Thank you, DAB