Recent Writings
Texas Justice, American Injustice
Published in TruthOut, April 10, 2010 | View Online
Explains why the decision by the Texas Board of Education to eliminate the concept “justice” from the state’s social studies standards makes sense after all.
Houston’s Death Penalty Hullabaloo
Published in The Huffington Post, March 11, 2010 | View Online
Explains why Texas has the most active death chamber in the nation and is more likely to execute innocents than any other state.
A review of Anne-Marie Cusac’s new book on religion, culture, and imprisonment and a call for President Obama to support Senator Jim Webb’s prison commission bill.
Published in The Nation, July 6, 2009 | 
Download PDF
Guarded Hope: Lessons from the History of the Prison Boom
Published in Boston Review, July/August 2008 | View online
A look back at LBJ’s 1967 crime commission and its relevance today, as well as a review of recent books on the rise of mass imprisonment in America.
‘Hell Exploded’: Prisoner Music and Memoir and the Fall of Convict Leasing in Texas
Published in Prison Journal, March 2009 | Download PDF
Examines the role of prisoner music and writing in destabilizing convict leasing, the most ignominious penal regime in American history.
American Race Relations in the Age of Obama
Published in Journal of English and American Studies, December 2008 | Download PDF
Contrasts the election of Barack Obama as a milestone in the Black freedom struggle against the rise of hyper-incarceration in the United States, which is more racialized today than before the civil rights movement.
Two Angry Men
Published in The Nation, March 4, 2008| View Online
A reexamination of the Duke Lacrosse case and a critique of prosecutorial power in American criminal justice.
