Note: This article contains spoilers for all four seasons of Jane the Virgin. In season four, episode ten of Jane the Virgin, protagonist Jane and her grandmother walk into a sex shop. As Alba (Jane’s grandmother, played by Puerto Rican actress Ivonne Coll) glances from the handcuffs to the edible underwear on display, the look […]
#NiUnaMenos is Fighting Gender-Based Violence in Latin America
In March 2015, a nineteen-year-old Argentine woman by the name of Daiana García disappeared in a suburb of Buenos Aires after telling family and friends that she was going to a job interview. A few days later, a municipal employee found her mostly naked remains in a bag by the roadside. Police named a thirty-eight-year-old man, […]
Seven Questions, Two Men, and the Future of Ecuadorian Democracy
When Ecuadorian voters take to the ballot boxes on Sunday they will have the chance to vote yes or no on seven fairly straightforward questions. Behind this consulta popular, however, lies a decade’s worth of political maneuvering, the split of the country’s ruling party, and two very different possibilities for the future of the nation. […]
Whither the War on Drugs?
Note: This is the fifth and final piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the earlier stories here, here, here and here. In December, I wrote that the election of Donald Trump would likely put a hold on many of the criminal justice reforms that President Obama had advocated, many of which once seemed to […]
Can’t Afford Bail: Fixing Pretrial Release
Note: This is the fourth piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the earlier parts here, here, and here. Most people sitting in local jails have not been convicted of a crime, and some of them never will be. Nationally, nearly 500,000 people are imprisoned while they await trial, according to a […]
Aging Inmates, Little Release
Note: This is the third piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the introduction here and the second piece here. American prisoners are getting old. Harsh sentencing laws from the 1980s and 1990s mean that more inmates are reaching retirement age behind bars. These aging inmates are forcing some prisons to provide […]
A Fair Chance?
Note: This is the second piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the introduction here. The people most likely to go to prison in the United States are the ones who have been there before. It is known as the “revolving door”: over 650,000 people are released from state and federal prisons […]
Criminal Justice Under a Trump Presidency
Writer’s note: This piece is the first in a multi-part series on criminal justice reform. The series will examine variation in criminal justice policies between states and evaluate the effectiveness of local reforms that have aimed to reduce mass incarceration and improve treatment of ex-offenders. Six months ago, the prospects of criminal justice reform were […]
The Fatal Flaw of Border Security
Maria Ochoa will not forget the day in June 2007 when her party stumbled upon human remains while searching for an undocumented immigrant in the southern Arizona desert. We were looking for a young woman that had stayed behind with her uncle and her husband because her uncle had become ill. She was seven months […]
Losing the Game
American professional sports have a tendency to get wrapped up in grand narratives. The N.B.A. star who was homeless in high school but now makes millions on the court. The baseball team that makes an improbable and unprecedented September run. The hat trick. The Cinderella story. The Hail Mary. Professional sports have also created the […]