Quote card from Sharon Brett's Inquest article "What makes a gang member? For police, nearly anything.": "The ubiquity of gang designations is just one component of the expansion of big data surveillance in the modern police state—a brick in the foundation of surveillance and unchecked authority that is at the core of U.S. policing."

This week Inquest covered labor strikes in immigration detention and how police manufacture criminality through their gang intelligence databases. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

New episode announcement image for the Interdependent Study podcast featuring a gray background with black marks and stylized image renderings of the cohosts in each bottom corner of the image with episode title DHS’ Brutality is Bipartisan in yellow text

💡 EPISODE 246! 💡

In today’s episode, we discuss the piece “The Democrats Will Not Save Us” by Spencer Piston in @inquest.bsky.social.

“They use solitary to remove people who are ‘contaminating’ the rest of the population or to isolate those who agree but don’t yet have the courage to speak up. Essentially, it’s a way to dismember a group that’s opposing them.“ @ccijustice.bsky.social

“Time Is So Precious” - Pedro Figueroa interviewed by Sameer Ashar - Inquest Organizer Pedro Figueroa recounts working while being held in immigration detention, where he earned as little as $1 a day and helped to organize historic labor actions against for-profit prison company GEO Group.

"Tens of thousands of people are being held [in immigration detention], and nobody knows what detention will do to them later in life. Abolishing these places would save a lot of people." Immigrant labor activist Pedro Figueroa in conversation with Sameer Ashar

“Time Is So Precious” - Pedro Figueroa interviewed by Sameer Ashar - Inquest Organizer Pedro Figueroa recounts working while being held in immigration detention, where he earned as little as $1 a day and helped to organize historic labor actions against for-profit prison company GEO Group.

"One day, I was mopping and one of the guards told me, 'Easy money.' That’s when it hit me—GEO was profiting off my labor while I got nothing. I realized then that I wanted to go on strike." Pedro Figueroa on working in immigration detention, w/ Sameer Ashar

What makes someone a gang member? For police, nearly anything. - Sharon Brett - Inquest In most of the country, police can catalog you as a gang member for virtually any reason—and you might never even know until you’re being punished for it.

"Gang designations feed the machinery of mass incarceration, ensnaring innocent people based on arbitrary criteria." Sharon Brett

I wrote a shorter piece for @inquest.bsky.social that distills my forthcoming article in the Virginia Law Review about the ubiquity of gang designations, the arbitrariness involved, and the consequences suffered as a result. Check it out below!

Full article here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Gang databases "represent yet another black box of U.S. policing—a system in which an individual can be labeled, tracked, surveilled, and harassed based on innocuous criteria." Sharon Brett on how police manufacture criminality—with life-altering consequences

Quote card from Joseph Fischel's Inquest article "The Epstein Sleight of Hand": "There is no single solution to stop the Epsteins of the future from committing similar atrocities. But one thing that would make poor and disadvantaged girls and young women less vulnerable to sexual exploitation is if they were less poor and disadvantaged."

This week Inquest covered how biometric technology is being sold to police as predictive, and reflected on what the Epstein scandal tells us about how we're failing women and girls. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

The Epstein Sleight of Hand - Joseph J. Fischel - Inquest Calling Jeffrey Epstein a child abuser comfortably demonizes him while overlooking how our culture normalizes straight men’s everyday coercion and abuse of women and girls.

"What are some of the political costs—or put more cynically, political purposes—of cataloging Epstein as a pe**phile, and thereby mislabeling his behavior as so outside the boundaries of our quotidian inequalities of gender, wealth, and their cross-contaminations?"

The Epstein Sleight of Hand - Joseph J. Fischel - Inquest Calling Jeffrey Epstein a child abuser comfortably demonizes him while overlooking how our culture normalizes straight men’s everyday coercion and abuse of women and girls.

"The most common denominator across Epstein’s victims is not age, but sex: female." Lambda Award finalist Joseph Fischel on why our politics desperately need the insights of gender studies.

Precrime Is No Longer Science Fiction - Sarah Fathallah - Inquest Policing technology is increasingly relying on biometric data to try to predict whether someone has or will commit a crime.

"Biometric tools are likely to expand further across the criminal legal system as police ... increasingly turn to AI [and] these tools are being deployed most aggressively in communities that are already disproportionately criminalized."

Precrime Is No Longer Science Fiction - Sarah Fathallah - Inquest Policing technology is increasingly relying on biometric data to try to predict whether someone has or will commit a crime.

Law enforcement technology increasingly aims for "the encoding of the body as evidence, often without the knowledge of those involved. This strips people of their autonomy, dignity, and right against self-incrimination." The latest in our Carceral AI series:

Excellent collection of poetry and haiku, several by poets and authors I served many of my years in Angola. Also, by following the tags and links below each article, you can find other great writing, as well as links to my stories published there. Give it a read - it’s worth your time.

Quote card for Spencer Piston's Inquest article "The Democrats Will Not Save Us": "A clear-eyed view of the failures of the two major parties should not lead one to believe that all is lost. Massive, organized resistance is building and exerting power, leading to crucial victories on a regular basis."

This week, Inquest covered the Democrats' role in creating our violent immigration policing regime, and celebrated National Poetry Month with a series from poets incarcerated in Louisiana State Penitentiary. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Quote card from Lawson Strickland's poem "Five/Fourths": "Time / That can’t be forgiven,
/ For what time I have
Cannot be given away, though /
I try. Reaching across the divide."

The final part of our National Poetry Month series of new writing from Angola prison, two poems from Lawson Strickland: inquest.org/two-poem...

Quote card from John Corley's poem "Whisperings from Old Pompeii": "How many left that August morning
/ for work in the fields, the vineyards,
/ the shops, civil or military duty
/ not knowing /
they would never see home again?"

Continuing our National Poetry Month series of work from Louisiana State Penitentiary with two poems from John Corley: inquest.org/two-poem...

Quote card from Trevor Reese's Angola haiku series: " I didn't know / the last time I swam / was the last time"

For National Poetry Month 2026, Inquest is sharing new writing from poets incarcerated in Louisiana State Penitentiary. First up, a series of haiku from Trevor Reese: inquest.org/angola-h...

The Democrats Will Not Save Us - Spencer Piston - Inquest As long TSA lines have snarled airports, Democrats have touted their resistance to some aspects of immigration policing. But in reality our brutal immigration regime is a bipartisan creation.

"Will the capacity, authority, scope, and scale of immigration policing decrease if the reforms preferred by Democratic politicians in this current standoff are implemented? There is little evidence for an optimistic answer to that question." —Spencer Piston. Read on:

The Democrats Will Not Save Us - Spencer Piston - Inquest As long TSA lines have snarled airports, Democrats have touted their resistance to some aspects of immigration policing. But in reality our brutal immigration regime is a bipartisan creation.

"What are we to make of Democrats’ claims that DHS 'appears to have strayed far from its original purpose'? In their estimation, what, exactly, was its original purpose?" Spencer Piston on the bipartisan politics of immigration policing.

“We have journalists every place in the world except in prisons.” - Christopher Blackwell - Inquest Incarcerated journalist Christopher Blackwell discusses his recent book on solitary confinement, and what it would take to level the playing field for incarcerated writers.

“We have journalists on the ground every place in the world, except in prisons”

@chriswblackwell.bsky.social speaks with @inquest.bsky.social about Ending Isolation:
inquest.org/we-have-jour...

Quote card for Amber Martens's Inquest article "Bare It All": "Any sense of confidence
or dignity I had has been extinguished. The shame will stay with me, able to destroy
me for years. This is
state-sanctioned assault."

This week Inquest reported on potential horrifying consequences of mandating body-worn cameras for prison guards, and offered a glimpse inside America’s most secretive supermax prison. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

Nothing to See Here: Watts - Boston - April 7. 2026 - RSVPify April 7, 2026 @ 6:00 PM - Coolidge Corner Theatre - 290 Harvard St, Brookline, MA 02446, USA

For folks in the Boston area, an opportunity on 4/7 to be among the first to see a compelling new community-made film about violence interruption in Los Angeles—sponsored by one of our colleagues. Link to register for a free ticket:

Bare It All - Amber Martens - Inquest This isn’t my first strip search during my incarceration. This, however, is the first time it’s being filmed.

"I was sentenced to prison to repay my wrongdoings, not create nonconsensual pornographic material." Incarcerated author Amber Martens on horrifying unforeseen consequences of guards' body-worn cameras in prison.

“We have journalists every place in the world except in prisons.” - Christopher Blackwell - Inquest Incarcerated journalist Christopher Blackwell discusses his recent book on solitary confinement, and what it would take to level the playing field for incarcerated writers.

“We have journalists on the ground every place in the world, except in prisons”

@chriswblackwell.bsky.social speaks with @inquest.bsky.social about Ending Isolation:
inquest.org/we-have-jour...

Really looking forward to presenting tomorrow as a part of the session "Police Unions, Labor Politics, and the Penal State," with Stuart Schrader, Imani Radney, and Aaron Bekemeyer, historians who are doing cutting edge research on the rise of police unions! @inquest.bsky.social

Bare It All - Amber Martens - Inquest This isn’t my first strip search during my incarceration. This, however, is the first time it’s being filmed.

"My natural instinct is to refuse. Then I remember that if I refuse this order, I’ll get a first-class ticket straight to segregation and possibly lose future visits with my family." Incarcerated author Amber Martens on state-sponsored assault in prison.

Inside America’s Most Secretive Supermax Prison - Eric King - Inquest ADX federal prison is designed to hold people in extreme deprivation. Despite this, the men imprisoned there continue to fight for their rights and freedom.

"Although these men are under restrictions designed to isolate them from their entire world ... hundreds of lawsuits against the federal government have come from within." A preview of former political prisoner Eric King's book on supermax prison ADX from PM Press

Inside America’s Most Secretive Supermax Prison - Eric King - Inquest ADX federal prison is designed to hold people in extreme deprivation. Despite this, the men imprisoned there continue to fight for their rights and freedom.

"This unit is a U.S.-soil Guantánamo Bay. People are taken from their nations, tortured brutally, and then dropped in a box for the remainder of their lives." Eric King's firsthand account of secretive supermax federal prison ADX—a preview from PM Press

Quote card from Sharone R. Mitchell's Inquest article "Public Defense Goes to the Capitol": "Police and prosecutors have lobbied for laws written from the perspective that if we just punished people harder and for longer, all the harm produced by the inequities in our society would magically disappear. That addiction to jails and prisons has starved communities like mine—and it has also utterly failed to deliver the safety our communities deserve."

This week Inquest covered a promising new strategy in public defense, and explored the power of using film to change the narrative about prisons. Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...