From assumptions about drug traffickers and police and elected officials’ corruption to Mexicans’ economic incentives for selling drugs, the Mexican drug trade has been drenched in sensationalist and inaccurate mythology. We need to totally upend our understanding of it.
When Australia’s Labor government overrode union rights — and justice — to place the construction union under administration, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese thought he’d played a trump card. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
The 1978 film Blue Collar, starring Richard Pryor, is far from pleasant. But its riveting portrait of the brutality of life and work for American autoworkers still makes for essential viewing today.
President Joe Biden will pardon thousands who’ve served federal time for marijuana possession. That’s a step in the right direction, but there are still plenty of people serving federal time for weed offenses. Biden should pardon them too, like he promised.
Known for prosecuting Donald Trump on election subversion charges, Atlanta DA Fani Willis is using another high-profile RICO case involving rapper Young Thug to boost her image. But critics say her popularity is obscuring the wrongful nature of the case.
Corporate donors are funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into police foundations without public oversight, allowing for the police to buy specialized surveillance technology and high-tech weapons that they might otherwise struggle to justify.
It’s shocking for many of us to learn that forced labor is actually legal as punishment for a crime. Ballot measures in Nevada and California this Election Day would outlaw forced labor in prisons.
In 1977, 31-year-old Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich took a stand against the sale of his city’s publicly owned electric utility. And he almost paid for it with his life.
Rep. Karen Bass is no socialist, but she's hung around a few of us in the past. Because of this, as her name was floated for Biden's vice presidency, she's been subjected to McCarthyist-style smears. We on the Left have to clearly and loudly stand against these attacks — they’re designed to make socialism politically beyond the pale.
The US government uses the guise of counter-terrorism to squelch the rights of American Muslims.
The police were first created to suppress labor militancy and the Left, before becoming a tool to bludgeon the most marginalized in society, particularly poor black people. We must dismantle this brutal instrument of social control.
In the recent Democratic debate, Julián Castro raised the idea of ending the criminalization of crossing the border. It’s a good idea: prosecuting border crossings is stupid, cruel, and has a sordid, racist history. Let’s do it — then go much further.
Even before Jair Bolsonaro's rise, Latin America's militaries had been regaining power through the court system.
Denmark’s “ghetto plan” promises harsher policing of districts with high unemployed and ethnic-minority populations and selling off the public housing where they live. The Social Democrats’ shameful policy shows that anti-immigrant chauvinism isn’t a way of defending the welfare state — it’s an instrument of privatization.
Jovanka Beckles is a democratic socialist running for California state assembly. In an interview, she explains how she fought oil giant Chevron, how to fix California's housing crisis, and why capitalism isn't working for average Californians.
Juggalos, the intense Insane Clown Posse fanbase, have long been targeted by police, including in a dubious federal investigation under the legacy of a Red Scare law. The group’s crime, it seems, is its very existence as a visible working-class counterculture.
Since the 1980s, the US prison system for detaining immigrants has grown exponentially, under Democratic and Republican presidents alike. The “nation of immigrants” has created a pervasive system of surveillance and control that makes life hell for those yearning to breathe free.
Cali, Colombia, is among the most unequal cities in the world. The story of its inequality is written in its architecture, replete with sprawling favelas, fortified luxury homes, and intimidating bunkers that belong to cartel bosses and police alike.
One in six New York City police officers is out sick. Those who are still working have refused to perform emergency duties, like assisting overstressed mortuary workers, while continuing to make unnecessary arrests. It’s time to send New York cops home.
Mckayla Wilkes is a first-time candidate for Maryland’s 5th congressional district. In an interview with Jacobin, she talks about her experiences with incarceration, how Bernie Sanders inspired her to run, and what it means to run a working-class campaign against a corporate-funded incumbent.