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inquest.bsky.social
Inquest
@inquest.bsky.social
13K followers 120 following 410 posts
National Magazine Award 2025 finalist focused on ending mass incarceration. Sign up for our newsletter: https://inquest.org/subscribe-follow/
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inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest covered the growing real estate trend of prison flipping, and the inner workings of extractive capitalism's merger with mass incarceration. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card from Joshua Page & Joe Soss's article "Indentured Citizens": "Historically, labor exploitation has stood at the center of criminal justice predation in the United States. In the late 20th century, however, the criminal legal field’s predatory operations shifted decisively toward practices that charge prices, create debts, and pursue collections."
November 22, 2025 at 4:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
At Inquest and our publisher @endmassinc.bsky.social we believe that every voice has the power to move systems—and people—toward freedom. Yet, too often, the voices of those most affected by incarceration are intentionally silenced.

A gift from you helps change that.
November 21, 2025 at 2:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week, Inquest launched our Defending Prison Journalism series with an article on the perils faced by incarcerated journalists, and what must be done to protect them. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card with background image of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's "The Gothic Arch," from his Imaginary Prisons series of prints. In black and white, it depicts an impossible jumble of hastily sketched stairs, bridges, and arches. Quote is from Corinne Shanahan and Andrew Crespo's article "When Reporting Is a Crime": "Prison journalism should not be starved, stifled, or silenced. In a free society, attendant to the needs of all its people, including most especially those rendered wards of the state, our government institutions should be held accountable to the public."
November 15, 2025 at 4:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest covered the long history of opposition to Atlanta's racist policing, and how not even Sing Sing prison could keep Joseph Wilson from composing operas for Carnegie Hall. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card to accompany Jonathon Booth's article "Stop Cop City's Deep Roots". Background is a black-and-white historical image from 1905 showing the Atlanta police on horseback. Booth quote reads: " "Seeing today's protesters as part of a long history of resistance to police oppression allows us to better appreciate the political continuities and to see where openings for potential change may appear."
November 8, 2025 at 4:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest covered the devastating FCC vote that will cost families of incarcerated people at least $250 million more per year, and a reevaluation of the history of how the South become the most incarcerated region of the US. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card. Background blurred black-and-white image of a prison phone. Quote is from Bianca Tylek's Inquest article "Your Call Could Not Be Completed": "In Baxter County, Arkansas, the sheriff announced that he would shut down phone access entirely rather than comply with the new FCC rules. For years, the county collected 52 percent of phone revenue from its contract with Securus. Under the new regulations, commissions would be eliminated entirely."
November 1, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
Attending #NLADA25 @nlada.bsky.social ? Don't miss our panel "Freedom Writers: The Importance of Writing from Experience to Challenge Mass Incarceration," TODAY 3–4pm, featuring @premaldharia.bsky.social @adammcgee.bsky.social & Inquest contributors Kenithia Alston & Ivan Kilgore @ubfsf.bsky.social
Event poster for Inquest panel at the 2025 NLADA Annual Conference on Thursday, Oct. 30, 3–4pm, in Washington, DC. Panel is called "Freedom Writers: The Importance of Writing from Experience to Challenge Mass Incarceration." The panel will feature Inquest Coeditor-in-Chief Premal Dharia, Inquest Managing Editor Adam McGee, Ivan Kilgore, and Kenithia Alston.
October 30, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week, Inquest examined why lethal injection remains so popular with death-penalty states despite its monstrous failings, and we found hope in Black Studies. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card with quote from Corinna Barrett Lain from her interview with Inquest, called "The Myth of Forever Sleep": "Sadly, we had to put down our dog this past May, and something the veterinarian said has stuck with me: 'suffering takes time.' With animal euthanasia it takes 30–60 seconds and they’re gone. The average time now of lethal injection is 18 minutes."
October 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest addressed how racial capitalism explains the overcharging of Luigi Mangione, and shared an incarcerated author's take on finding hope in a hopeless place. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card with image of graffiti in which Luigi Mangione is depicted in the style of a Byzantine saint. Quote is from Charlotte Boucher's Inquest article "Making an Example of Luigi Mangione": "The ambivalence with which the criminal legal system treats the killings of those deemed inconsequential to people in power has long been documented."
October 18, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest interviewed philosopher Sophie Lewis about carceral feminism and shared a medical doctor's argument for making hospitals less like jails. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Card with quote from Sophie Lewis from her Inquest interview with Aya Gruber: "“Ultimately, this is what feminism means to me: a critique big enough to encompass work, race, sexuality, ecology. Feminism, as a label, is one I refuse to give up on. I don’t want to be evicted from feminism by the securitizers and the femonationalists and the pornophobes."
October 11, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week, Inquest covered how drug diversion programs are often extremely carceral in practice, and reviewed a new memoir by one of the greatest jailhouse lawyers of our time, Calvin Duncan. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card. Background is a tumble of abstract geometric shapes. Quote is from Bidish Sarma's Inquest article "Fighting for Relief": "In this world, it is an incarcerated person’s ability to meet statutory deadlines and navigate doctrines such as ‘exhaustion’ and ‘default’ that dictates whether they have any chance at enjoying their constitutional rights. In the procedural morass, many individuals have been lost."
October 4, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest covered how a long history of racist policing in LA set the stage for ICE's violent crackdown, and the false promise that facial-identification tech will "fix" eyewitness identification. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card with a watermarked image of a canary in a birdcage. Quote is from Los Angeles councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez: "What you see happening in [LA] is coming to you; $140 billion new budget for ICE—what do you think that’s going to do? That’s gonna transport what’s happening here in our neighborhoods to your front doorsteps, so wake up." Quoted in Leah Perez's Inquest article "The Canary in the Coal Mine."
September 27, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week, Inquest remembers Attica—Tuesday will be the 54th anniversary of the uprising's start—and reports on the hope- and health-crushing burden of carceral medical debt. Get the full recap here: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card. Background image is a detail of Mikuláš Galanda's woodblock print "Crying Women." Quote is from Joseph Wilson's article "Never Forget Attica Day": "Those who led the Attica uprising wanted humane treatment. Their bravery resulted in meaningful improvements to prison regulations. Those gains have largely been eroded. We want them back. We must remember Attica again."
September 6, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest shared an argument for the decarceral potential of a prison general strike, and a conversation about what present-day activists can learn from the example of political prisoner and anarchist Martin Sostre. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card. Dark gray background with watermarked image of machinery gears. Quote is from Garrett Felber (from the Inquest article "The Work Continues"): "Martin Sostre would say, ‘If we do it right, it’ll end up right.’ We [have to] take care of each other so we don’t just wind up reproducing the oppressive structures that we’re trying to tear down."
August 30, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest published the conclusion of our summerlong series on abolition featuring Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Judah Schept, Craig Gilmore, and Lydia Pelot-Hobbs; and an article about attempts by NYC jail boosters to steal decarceral talking points. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card. Background image is a picture of what appears to be a half-built skyscraper. Quote is from the article "The Dystopia of the World's Tallest Jails" by Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti: "The promise of carceral humanism—that jails and prisons can serve as a medicinal salve on the broader social crisis—cannot be fulfilled, despite the best intentions of reformers."
August 23, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest covered the pro-child, pro-family argument for abolishing the child welfare system, and a close look at how prisons get funded—and how to disrupt that funding. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card with blurred background image of the shadows of a family holding hands. Quote is from Alan Dettlaff and Maya Pendleton, on the subject of abolishing the child welfare system: "Abolition does not mean abandoning the need to protect children; it means building new ways of protecting and supporting families that also eliminate coercive systems of surveillance and punishment."
August 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest covered how people in women's prisons, subjected to horrible medical neglect, form networks of care; and how abolitionist organizers can find ways to win allies in other progressive causes. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card. Watermarked image of a stained glass window of blue and yellow glass. Quote is from Ruth Wilson Gilmore, from the Inquest series Abolitionist Lessons from the Prison Belts: "Just because you don't expect it doesn't mean it's impossible."
August 9, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week, Inquest covered extreme heat and lack of AC in US prisons, and how abolitionists need to learn the legal & financial ins-and-outs of how the carceral state organizes itself to hold people against their will. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
QUOTE CARD. Orangey abstract background reminiscent of flames. Quote is from Tutankhamon Waterman about extreme heat in Virginia's prisons: "Animal control would remove a dog from an owner who left their pet chained outside in this heat. What about us? Aren’t we more than dogs?"
August 2, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest launched a new series on abolitionist organizing and carceral geography from Ruth Wilson Gilmore, @craiggilmore.bsky.social‬ , Judah Schept, & @lydiajean.bsky.social‬ . Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card of Ruth Wilson Gilmore from the series Abolitionist Lessons from the Prison Belts: "It’s crucial to successful movement-building to
be able to show to people who might join in solidarity with abolition movements that the accumulated harms of organized abandonment that they’re encountering are part of a continuum with the organized violence—including criminalization and incarceration—that got us all motivated in the first place." Background image shows the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge viewed through a broken chain-link fence at Alcatraz.
July 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
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This week Inquest interviewed Gina Dent, one of the leading theorists of abolition feminism, and explored how white supremacy enforces racist public order. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card with a blue background of someone holding a lit sparkler. Quote is from Gina Dent from the article "Building Toward Abolition". QUOTE: "People are doing this work in local spaces, and that’s so exciting to see. Unfortunately, capitalist media invisibilize abolitionist stories that encourage us to imagine how we could live together differently. Thus, it’s important for those involved in these organizations and communities to keep telling the stories of what’s happening."
July 19, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week, Inquest covered the appalling state of prison food—and the insane profits that private companies derive from it—and efforts by organizers in New York State to release more elderly incarcerated folks. Read the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card watermarked with an image of moldy fruit. Quote is from Jasma Credle, quoted by Bianca Tylek and Worth Rises in their Inquest article: "The truth is, prisons provide little of what you really need to survive—from sustenance to basic hygiene. Instead, you need to rely on your family for that. But most families supporting people behind bars don’t have money. They can’t afford to give their loved ones doing time the money needed to buy even a shred of dignity inside."
July 5, 2025 at 12:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week, Inquest explored the limits of police reform and covered efforts underway in New York State to pass legislation that would make the parole process less broken. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
Quote card. Against a wavy dark grey background, a quote from incarcerated author Bobbi Cobaugh about the horribly broken parole system: "After 20 years of incarceration, I have four degrees. I have worked every day of my incarceration.
I have completed and taught anger programs,
and I continue to be in trauma counseling.
Because these are the positive indicators
of rehabilitation established by New York law,
I believed I would be granted parole.
I was wrong."
June 28, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
It finally feels real! Grateful to #ASME for sending this beautiful certificate recognizing Inquest as a finalist for the 2025 National Magazine Award for General Excellence – Special Interest. We're honored to be in such great company!
June 24, 2025 at 3:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
We hope that everyone has an inspired Juneteenth. For the full message from our team, and links to our Juneteenth 2025 Liberation Reader, head here: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
QUOTE CARD: For those working to end mass incarceration, Juneteenth offers an important lesson: systems of oppression are built to last, and rarely give way to freedom absent sustained efforts aimed at their undoing.
June 19, 2025 at 12:00 PM
inquest.bsky.social
For Juneteenth, we put together a reading list of some of our most inspiring articles on themes of the long struggle for abolition. Contributions from Angela Y. Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Joy James, @prisonculture.bsky.social @mskellymhayes.bsky.social & more. inquest.org/juneteen...
June 18, 2025 at 12:37 PM
inquest.bsky.social
This week Inquest covered the long, little-known origins of for-profit prisons and unpaid prison labor, and shared a timely poem about violent policing in California. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...
QUOTE CARD with quote from Nicole R. Fleetwood, curator and author of 'Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration': "During one of my first public presentations of ‘Marking Time’, someone came up to me after the lecture and said, 'I never thought about people in prison being loved.' It’s so important to foreground that because of what the stigma of incarceration does."
June 14, 2025 at 3:00 PM