In this pathbreaking reader, three of the nation’s leading advocates—Premal Dharia, James Forman Jr., and Maria Hawilo—provide tools to move from despair and critique to hope and action. Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change surveys various approaches to confronting the carceral state, exploring bold but practical interventions involving police, prosecutors, public defenders, judges, prisons, and even life after prison. Rather than prescribing solutions, the book offers a forum for discussions—and disagreements—about how to best confront the harms of mass incarceration. The contributors range from noted figures such as Angela Y. Davis, Clint Smith, Ph.D. (FAN ’23), Emily Bazelon (FAN ’13, ’19), and Larry Krasner to local organizers, advocates, scholars, lawyers, and judges, as well as people who have been incarcerated.

Dharia, a former public defender, is the executive director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration at Harvard Law School and co-editor in chief of the online publication Inquest.

Forman is a professor of law at Yale Law School. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize―winning Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.

Hawilo is Distinguished Professor in Residence, Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She formerly served as Clinical Assistant Professor of Law in the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. She previously served as a supervising attorney for the District of Columbia’s Public Defender Service.

Dharia, Forman, and Hawilo will be in conversation with W. David Ball, a full-time member of the Santa Clara University School of Law faculty and co-chair of the Corrections Committee of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section.

This event suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Dismantling Mass Incarceration from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by the four panelists that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.

In recent years, a searching national conversation has called attention to the social and racial injustices that define America’s criminal system. But despite growing movements for change, the vast machinery of the carceral state remains very much intact. How can its damage and depredations be undone?