After three weeks of naming the harm — the design, the extraction, the quiet violence baked into the system — it would be easy to believe the story ends there. But Black history has never been only a record of what was done to us. It’s also a record of what we built anyway. What… Continue reading Black Resistance, Black Resilience, Black Care: The Future We’re Building Together
Category: Systemic Spotlight
Deep dives into current issues related to criminal justice
The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See
When Freedom Costs More Than a Conviction Last week, I wrote about what happens when mental illness and Blackness collide inside a jail — how crisis becomes criminalized, how symptoms become charges, how the system responds with punishment instead of care. But the exploitation doesn’t stop at the jail door. It follows people into the… Continue reading The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See
The System Didn’t Break; It Was Built This Way
Every February, America dusts off its favorite Black icons, recites a few safe quotes, shows a few movies with popular Black actors and calls it Black History Month. But Black history isn’t something we visit once a year. It’s something we’re still living — in our laws, in our courtrooms, in our jails, and in… Continue reading The System Didn’t Break; It Was Built This Way
A System Working as Designed
How America Turned Jails Into Psychiatric Facilities — and Called the Deaths Inevitable When the largest psychiatric facility in Texas is a jail, the deaths stop looking like anomalies and start looking like the system working exactly as designed. Another person died in the Harris County Jail this month. Another headline. Another set of familiar… Continue reading A System Working as Designed
A Jail, Not a Graveyard
There are some things a community should never grow used to. Death inside a county jail is one of them. Yet here we are — watching the same headlines cycle through our feeds, hearing the same recycled explanations from officials, witnessing the same failures repeat year after year. If this were once or twice, maybe… Continue reading A Jail, Not a Graveyard
Breathless Justice: The Moral Cost of Nitrogen Executions
On January 25, 2024, Alabama made history—for all the wrong reasons. Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person executed using nitrogen hypoxia, a method touted as “humane” but witnessed as harrowing. His death marked the beginning of a new, controversial chapter in American capital punishment. Smith gasped over 225 times. His body convulsed. His spiritual… Continue reading Breathless Justice: The Moral Cost of Nitrogen Executions
TX-AL Series Finale: A Path Toward Justice and Redemption
This series began with a clear aim: to expose the scale of incarceration in Texas and Alabama, trace its historical roots, and humanize its impact. Over six posts, I’ve examined how these two states—distinct in history but aligned in consequence—embody the extremes of systemic injustice. Texas revealed the machinery: sprawling prisons, harsh sentencing, and the… Continue reading TX-AL Series Finale: A Path Toward Justice and Redemption
TX-AL Series Finale Preview
This series began with a clear aim: to expose the scale of incarceration in Texas and Alabama, trace its historical roots, and humanize its impact. Over six posts, I’ve examined how these two states—distinct in history but aligned in consequence—embody the extremes of systemic injustice. Texas revealed the machinery: sprawling prisons, harsh sentencing, and the… Continue reading TX-AL Series Finale Preview
Southern Sentences, Post 3: Heat, Hunger and Healthcare & Healthcare Behind Bars
Heat, Hunger, and Healthcare: The Human Cost of Texas Prisons Texas prisons are not just sites of confinement—they are crucibles of suffering. In the sweltering summer months, many facilities lack air conditioning, subjecting incarcerated individuals to deadly heat. Temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees, and the physical toll is compounded by inadequate access to water, ventilation,… Continue reading Southern Sentences, Post 3: Heat, Hunger and Healthcare & Healthcare Behind Bars
Southern Sentences, Post 2: Chains of the Past & From Plantation to Prison
Chains of the Past: How Texas Built Its Prison Empire on Slavery and Segregation Texas’s prison system didn’t emerge in a vacuum—it was built atop the foundations of slavery, segregation, and racialized punishment. The state’s earliest carceral institutions mirrored plantation life, with incarcerated Black men forced to labor in fields under brutal conditions1. Convict leasing,… Continue reading Southern Sentences, Post 2: Chains of the Past & From Plantation to Prison
On (In)justice 