by Peter Knight

 

Newsletter 23, Dec, 2025

Why we’re giving incarcerated women cash relief

Women are the fastest growing incarcerated population in the United States.

The female incarceration rate has ballooned by more than 700% since 1980 – 172,700 women and girls were in jail or prison in 2023. A quarter of these (46,300) are confined because they were either refused bail or cannot afford it, rather than because they were found guilty of a crime. Over 14,000 are awaiting trial for drug-related offences.

Even brief contact with the prison system can have life-long impacts. It can increase the amount of time spent unemployed or out of the labour force by as much as four years, and reduce lifetime earnings by up to 50%. It can also exclude someone from many forms of employment, for example by running afoul of one the staggering 27,000 national, state and local rules that exist to bar formerly justice-involved people from hold­ing profes­sional licenses.

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Why the US needs basic income as reparations for racial injustice

Slavery caused stark wealth inequalities in the US – now that wealth must be returned to its rightful owners

he US colonial project kidnapped nearly 11 million people from Africa as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Slavery was fundamental to nearly all industries in the US, and accounted for 32% of America’s workforce by 1800. The profits generated through slave labour helped fuel the industrial revolution, establish Wall Street, and fund prestigious universities including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia.

When the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery in 1865, its drafters included an exception that allowed for the continued use of involuntary servitude “as a punishment for crime”. This exception clause has shaped the lives of millions of Americans ever since.

Read the full article Here

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