Inquest

@inquest

National Magazine Award finalist. Cited in Best American Essays. Stillwater Award winner. Focused on ending mass incarceration. All our links: Can you spare $5?:

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Inquest@inquest· 16h

This week, Inquest shared exclusive reporting about the struggles of incarcerated cancer patients, and an international study on the role of policing in keeping poor people and people of color marginalized. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Jeshua Noel's Inquest article "'I Want to Know Who’s Responsible for This Man’s Health'": "There is an obvious conflict of interest in the model of contractual health care: by its very nature, it pits profit against the responsibility to provide often quite costly medical care. The former often wins."

Inquest@inquest· 7d

This week, Inquest shared first-person reporting on prison dog attacks, and reviewed a new book about police unions. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Jaeon Chavis's Inquest article "Virginia's Prisons Have a Dog Problem": "The dog was thrashing my leg like a toy. I was so terrified that this might be where I die. It felt like forever before the officer told the dog to let go. When it finally did, it took some of my flesh with it."

Inquest@inquest· 14d

This week, Inquest shared a call to decarcerate social work, and published a personal essay on the bureaucratic hell of parole. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Carolyn Strudwick's Inquest article "Reclaiming Social Work from the State": "When the government finally recognizes the damage of its own failed policies, it frequently turns to social workers—and the profession’s language of compassion—to make its systems look more humane."

Inquest@inquest· 21d

This week, Inquest shared stories from elderly people in California who are sentenced to indefinite incarceration, and offered an argument for making Post-Incarceration Syndrome a formal diagnosis. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Kevin D. Sawyer's Inquest article "The Elderly '7-Ups' Enduring Indefinite Incarceration": "For many lifers, the reality is that their chance of receiving parole in California is vanishingly small. And in the current political climate—saddled with a governor with presidential ambitions—routes to more sweeping changes are often foreclosed."

Inquest@inquest· 28d

This week, Inquest offered a data-backed argument for ending "pretextual" traffic stops by police, and argued for abolishing the family policing system. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Parambir Dhillon's Inquest article "You Can't Reform a Traffic Stop": "The surest way to prevent police violence is to eliminate the occasions to inflict it. Instead of trying to change the way individual officers think, why don't we restrict their ability to act on their biases?"

Inquest@inquest· Jul 11

This week, Inquest continued our Defending Prison Journalism series with an article from Stevie Wilson about prison censorship, and explored how the War on Drugs packed jails by changing how money bail was used. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Stevie Wilson's Inquest article "Destroying the Conditions that Make Speech Possible": "There were stretches when my mail simply never reached me. This insidious form of censorship is difficult to fight. Because missing mail is not technically confiscated, there is nothing formal to appeal."

Inquest@inquest· Jul 4

This week, Inquest shared Black political prisoner Martin Sostre's take on the Fourth of July, and look at how incarcerated mothers maintain long-distance contact with their children. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Martin Sostre's 1976 speech "Follow the Same Principles that Won My Freedom": "This country claims to celebrate a bicentennial based on liberty. And yet the very founding fathers—George Washington and the rest of them—were slaveowners."

Inquest@inquest· Jun 29

Inquest's editors had an amazing day at The Warehouse NYC's abolitionist fair! Thanks to the organizers —especially Prisonculture — and our gracious hosts at the Bedford Library. And to all the community who kept the library packed with amazing vibes for the entire day.

Inquest's editorial team seated behind a table of Inquest swag at The Warehouse NYC's abolitionist fair in the Bedford Library branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Inquest@inquest· Jun 27

This week, Inquest shared a study from @chadtopaz.bsky.social on how judges with a law enforcement background are more punitive, and insights from incarcerated author Devin Giordano into the devastating psychological impact of long sentences. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Devin Giordano's Inquest essay "Getting Short": "Prison distorts time. Days blur together. Seasons pass without markers. Years are tallied in forms and files rather than memory. Without structure, the day loses its shape."

Inquest@inquest· Jun 13

This week, Inquest explored what outside journalists stand to learn from their incarcerated peers, and interviewed Mariame Kaba and Vic Liu about their ongoing abolitionist art installation in NYC. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Inquest interview with Mariame Kaba and Vic Liu, featuring a quote from Mariame Kaba: "Criminalization is fascism’s indispensable fuel. And since criminalization determines people’s fates, we are all vulnerable to it in different ways."

Inquest@inquest· Jun 6

This week, Inquest covered the work incarcerated people are doing to support their own growth inside prisons, and explored the little-known queer history of the Satanic Panic. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Dyego M. Foddrell's Inquest article "Making Our Own Change": "For advocacy to continue to grow and be met with success, the work of incarcerated people must be made visible to more people on the outside."

Inquest@inquest· May 30

This week Inquest explored how the First Amendment is legally defunct inside of prisons, and the use of solitary confinement in U.S. schools against students with disabilities. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Ivan Kilgore's Inquest article "No First Amendment for Prison Journalists": "The law has constructed a regime in which incarcerated journalists are silenced, punished, and disappeared for telling the truth about what happens behind these walls."

Inquest@inquest· May 23

This week, Inquest explored the power of Buddhist meditation in prisons, and debunked the myth that local law enforcement will somehow serve as a check against ICE. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Tony Koji Wallin-Sato's Inquest article "Mindfulness Behind Bars": "Buddhism not only works toward reframing the self but, as bell hooks teaches, it is also a tool in resisting 'imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.'"

Inquest@inquest· May 16

This week Inquest explored how biometric technologies run roughshod over constitutional rights, and argued for the political vitality of writing by incarcerated people. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from James Kilgore's Inquest article "Lighting the Black Box": "Prison writing has often been the spark that lights the flame of political awareness among the incarcerated population and their allies."

Inquest@inquest· May 9

This week Inquest covered the blame game against West Coast cities for the opioid crisis, and shared a deeply personal essay about the effects of long-term solitary confinement. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Katherine Beckett's Inquest article "West Coast Progressives Did Not Cause This Crisis": "Just as policing and incarceration don’t work to reduce drug use and the harms associated with it, using the threat of incarceration to force people into treatment is ineffective."

Inquest@inquest· May 4

Inquest is a cosponsor of this historic convening in Chicago May 29–30 focused on strengthening journalism in and about U.S. prisons. Registration is free but required in advance. Learn more here: events.haymarketbook...

Inquest@inquest· May 3

Read Andrew Daniels's full poem: inquest.org/into-the...

Quote card from Andrew Daniels's poem "Into the Light": "No longer will I travel / A road that has no end. / No sign ahead will tell me / Go back and commence again."

Inquest@inquest· May 2

This week Inquest continued our Carceral AI series with an exploration of how technology is worsening the school-to-prison pipeline, and featured art and poetry from D.C.-based art project Beauty Behind Bars. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Nicholas E. Stewart's Inquest article "The Algorithmic School-to-Prison Pipeline": "What tends to get left out of the carceral AI conversation is that young people haven’t been passive in the face of these systems. They’ve been among the most effective organizers against them. And they’ve been winning."

Inquest@inquest· May 1

From Steven Harrison's poem "Days", in our miniseries of poetry from Washingtonians in federal prisons. Read on: inquest.org/days/

Quote card excerpting Steven Harrison's poem "Days": "I’m up all night looking out of the window. / Staring at the moon. / It’s past 6, the sun will be up soon. / Daylight is coming. / I’m praying I’ll be home soon."

Inquest@inquest· Apr 30

Poetry from incarcerated author Curtis Dickson for National Poetry Month 2026. Read more: inquest.org/i-dont-k...

Quote card excerpting Curtis Dickson's poem "I Don't Know Why": "I don't know why, the Inevitable occurred so suddenly, for you. / Unexplainable events of joy just bloom."

Inquest@inquest· Apr 25

This week Inquest covered the racist underpinnings of laws that ban "felons" from owning guns, and explored an abolitionist toolkit for long-term organizing against prisons. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Inquest interview with Community Justice Exchange's Mon M.: "When communities fight to get their people out of prison, the state often treats that advocacy as an opportunity for expansion, innovation, or optimization through reform. Decarceration demands get absorbed, retooled, and redirected in ways that ultimately preserve or even strengthen the system."

Inquest@inquest· Apr 18

This week Inquest covered labor strikes in immigration detention and how police manufacture criminality through their gang intelligence databases. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Sharon Brett's Inquest article "What makes a gang member? For police, nearly anything.": "The ubiquity of gang designations is just one component of the expansion of big data surveillance in the modern police state—a brick in the foundation of surveillance and unchecked authority that is at the core of U.S. policing."

Inquest@inquest· Apr 11

This week Inquest covered how biometric technology is being sold to police as predictive, and reflected on what the Epstein scandal tells us about how we're failing women and girls. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Joseph Fischel's Inquest article "The Epstein Sleight of Hand": "There is no single solution to stop the Epsteins of the future from committing similar atrocities. But one thing that would make poor and disadvantaged girls and young women less vulnerable to sexual exploitation is if they were less poor and disadvantaged."

Inquest@inquest· Apr 4

This week, Inquest covered the Democrats' role in creating our violent immigration policing regime, and celebrated National Poetry Month with a series from poets incarcerated in Louisiana State Penitentiary. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Spencer Piston's Inquest article "The Democrats Will Not Save Us": "A clear-eyed view of the failures of the two major parties should not lead one to believe that all is lost. Massive, organized resistance is building and exerting power, leading to crucial victories on a regular basis."

Inquest@inquest· Apr 3

The final part of our National Poetry Month series of new writing from Angola prison, two poems from Lawson Strickland: inquest.org/two-poem...

Quote card from Lawson Strickland's poem "Five/Fourths": "Time / That can’t be forgiven, / For what time I have Cannot be given away, though / I try. Reaching across the divide."

Inquest@inquest· Apr 2

Continuing our National Poetry Month series of work from Louisiana State Penitentiary with two poems from John Corley: inquest.org/two-poem...

Quote card from John Corley's poem "Whisperings from Old Pompeii": "How many left that August morning / for work in the fields, the vineyards, / the shops, civil or military duty / not knowing / they would never see home again?"

Inquest@inquest· Apr 2

For National Poetry Month 2026, Inquest is sharing new writing from poets incarcerated in Louisiana State Penitentiary. First up, a series of haiku from Trevor Reese: inquest.org/angola-h...

Quote card from Trevor Reese's Angola haiku series: " I didn't know / the last time I swam / was the last time"

Inquest@inquest· Mar 28

This week Inquest reported on potential horrifying consequences of mandating body-worn cameras for prison guards, and offered a glimpse inside America’s most secretive supermax prison. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card for Amber Martens's Inquest article "Bare It All": "Any sense of confidence or dignity I had has been extinguished. The shame will stay with me, able to destroy me for years. This is state-sanctioned assault."

Inquest@inquest· Mar 21

This week Inquest covered a promising new strategy in public defense, and explored the power of using film to change the narrative about prisons. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Sharone R. Mitchell's Inquest article "Public Defense Goes to the Capitol": "Police and prosecutors have lobbied for laws written from the perspective that if we just punished people harder and for longer, all the harm produced by the inequities in our society would magically disappear. That addiction to jails and prisons has starved communities like mine—and it has also utterly failed to deliver the safety our communities deserve."

Inquest@inquest· Mar 14

This week, Inquest covered how Oscar buzz around 'The Alabama Solution' hasn't spared its incarcerated whistleblowers from being punished with solitary confinement, and we published an investigation into abuses in Georgia's youth detention facilities. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...