The #EndSARS movement has convulsed Nigeria for weeks, demanding an end to police brutality. But the protesters have something else in their crosshairs: the unequal, austerity-ridden status quo and the political class that defends it.
The US nuclear arsenal gobbles up massive resources for death that should be used for human life. For decades, Catholic activists have put their bodies on the line to insist we dismantle that arsenal.
Alex Gibney’s The Forever Prisoner reveals the brutal truth behind the nearly two-decade imprisonment of Guantanamo Bay inmate Abu Zubaydah — and the powerful men at the top of the American government responsible for his torture. We spoke with Gibney about it.
Without moralizing, the Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor’s novels look unflinchingly at cruelty and poverty. Her work is a model for how to think about the ambiguity of human relations.
A German judge claimed this week that a protester broke the law by chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It’s the latest attempt to criminalize the speech of Palestinians by the supporters of mass killing in Gaza.
The call to demilitarize police overlooks the longstanding link between policing and empire.
In the US, consumer debt is presented as a crucial rung on the ladder to a better life, a pathway to homeownership, and a good job. But most people never dig themselves out of debt, and the myth of the “good” debtor only conceals the crime of treating health care, shelter, and education as profit centers.
Scholar Raz Segal recounts the strange experience of being attacked as an antisemite, despite being Jewish himself and studying the Holocaust and other genocides, for the high crime of opposing Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.
New York City’s infamous jail on Rikers Island is one of the most brutal institutions of incarceration in America. Its conditions are the product not just of “tough-on-crime” policies but also of the best intentions of liberal criminal-justice reformers.
The Biden Justice Department just announced it is making it easier for corporate lawbreakers to avoid prosecution — even if they have committed multiple crimes, earned significant profit from their wrongdoing, and failed to self-disclose the misconduct.
The for-profit bail industry is behind a new federal effort to criminalize charitable efforts designed to help people who can’t afford to post bail. The legislation is part of a national wave of attacks on bail reforms.
After an IRS leak about billionaires’ massive tax avoidance schemes, corporate media says there’s nothing to see here because the avoidance is surely legal. But there’s no reason we should assume that these billionaires are playing by the rules.
Spain’s Vox party typically masks its racism in more palatable rhetoric. But this summer, leading Vox MPs helped incite violence against residents of Maghrebi origin in the Murcia region in Spain.
If George W. Bush is not going to stand trial for war crimes, he should at the very least stop appearing in public to weigh in on unjustified wars, as he did this week when he accidentally referred to the “wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.”
The Outfit is a modest crime drama about the danger of underestimating strangers. It’s the kind of movie that would have been a pleasure to stumble upon in a theater in the old days of leisure time when people had a few hours to kill.
The “Just Say No” campaign is remembered today for the huge quantity of kitsch media it produced, like McGruff the Crime Dog. But the campaign was based on the psychological warfare techniques of the Cold War.
Last week Serbia was rocked by two mass shootings. President Aleksandar Vučić has responded by announcing a vast expansion of police powers, using “war on terror” rhetoric to ramp up his assault on civil liberties.
In Wolfs, George Clooney and Brad Pitt’s new Apple TV+ buddy action-comedy about a rivalry between two lone-wolf fixers cleaning up a crime scene, you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for: lax, unambitious entertainment for dark times.
By refusing to enforce the Corporate Transparency Act, the Trump administration has gutted key protections against money laundering and financial crime. The message to kleptocrats worldwide is clear: the US is open for anonymous shell company business.
Donald Trump told the world that his administration would end the censoriousness of “woke” liberal culture. His time in office has seen one of the worst crackdowns on free speech in recent American history.