The mugshot was invented in the 1880s. A century later, face surveillance has gone digital but remains as flawed as ever.
Tag: Criminal Justice
We Can’t Look Away from the Courts: An Interview with Matthew Clair
"I see disadvantaged defendants’ cultivated expertise as accurate, even though it is often invalidated and punished."
How Prisons Serve Capitalism
I once asked a class at a prison in Washington State how they would describe the relationship between capitalism and incarceration. “They ...
“To Examine Society and Try to Change It”
I take a seat near the middle of the table at 6:06 p.m. The room soon fills, students clutching coffee, shedding coats; someone brings gummy worms and sends them ...
When Police Are the Problem
Think, if you’ll indulge me, of your last significant encounter with a police officer. For some, this may be difficult, and perhaps all that will come to mind is ...
“The College That Enters the Prison Is Transformed”
The Bard Prison Initiative is a full-time, degree-granting college program ...
Painting while Shackled to a Floor
What does it mean to make art with limited resources, under constant surveillance, when incarcerated in some of the most restrictive and punitive institutions in the modern American prison system ...
The Big Picture: Criminalizing Immigrants
Peering out the windows of John F. Kennedy Airport in the early morning hours of January 29, 2017, I had hope for this country’s future on immigration policy. Hundreds of ordinary New Yorkers were ...
The Big Picture: Violence and Criminal Justice
On a rainy day in December of 2013, I visited the Heritage Foundation, one of the country’s most prominent conservative think tanks, to talk about how to reform the criminal justice system. I sat at ...