Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Violence and the Prison Nation
01 May 2013
🖨️ Print Article

By Against the Grain Radio

If the problem is violence against women, is the solution the criminal justice system? Many anti-violence activists look to the police, prisons, and stepped-up criminalization for help and protection.  Beth Richie says that's a misguided approach, one that feeds the buildup of the prison nation. Richie describes the contours of the prison nation and the threats it poses to women on the margins.

Beth Richie is a professor of Criminal Justice and Gender and Womens Studies at the University of Illinois, and a leader in the movement to abolish prisons and roll back the prison state.


More Stories


  • Jacqueline Luqman
    Effective Organizing Requires Understanding Theory. That's Not A Hypothesis
    21 Jan 2026
    To dismiss revolutionary theory is to choose permanent defeat, reducing the movement to a hamster wheel of reaction and co-opted rage.
  • Anthony Rogers-Wright
    Preserving the Legacy of Martin Luther King and The Black Radical Tradition Requires Saving Both from the Congressional Black Caucus More than from white moderates and white supremacists (Or, I said what I said)
    21 Jan 2026
    Preserving the Black Radical Tradition demands struggle not only against white supremacists, but also against the co-opted Black political class who actively support the very evils Dr. King named.
  • Mark P. Fancher
    A Role for Africans In Exile: “Revolutionaries at Large”
    21 Jan 2026
    Africans in the U.S. must weaponize their position and sabotage imperial projects from the inside. Black revolutionaries must modify traditional strategy.
  • Jamal Abdulahi
    Saudi Arabia Asserts Dominant Role in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea 
    21 Jan 2026
    Israel's recognition of a breakaway region in Somalia has redrawn the map of the Horn of Africa, pitting two oil-rich Gulf powers against each other and forcing the U.S. to delay its imperial plans…
  • Monique Welch-Rutherford
    This Texas County Is the Deadliest Place in the U.S. for Black Mothers to Give Birth
    21 Jan 2026
    Harris County, home to a world-renowned medical center, holds the worst maternal death rate for Black women in the entire nation. This staggering statistic represents a systemic failure that subjects…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us