Who Controls Criminal Justice Reform?

IN CARCERAL CON, Kay Whitlock and Nancy A. Heitzeg reject “the popular but erroneous notion that the massive harms and injustices of the criminal legal system can be reformed as a standalone project.”

Whitlock, an activist, and Heitzeg, a sociologist, are pushing back from the left against the “bipartisan consensus” on criminal justice reform: the general agreement among many moderate liberals and conservatives that the government should reduce sentences for nonviolent offenders and improve reentry services for people leaving prisons. Whitlock and Heitzeg contend that a network of well-funded nonprofit foundations and advocacy groups manufactured this consensus and that its proposed reforms will only further entrench the current system’s injustices.

is the latest of several recent books advocating abolition of police and prisons. Abolitionist Mariame Kaba published a collection of essays, , and Black Lives Matter activist Derecka Purnell released , a