Dorothea Lange. Kern County, California (1938)

"The violence we experience inside is not a different or separate kind of violence. It is gender-based violence, and it's enabled by your silence. So let me ask again: Ain't I a woman? And if I am, then where are you?" My brilliant friend, @kwanetaharris.bsky.social:

I love these emails. Which character in Decriminalizing Domestic Violence do you think suggested real screen potential?

This five year old is still in jail

When I was asked to sign an amicus brief in U.S. v. Rahimi, I reflexively said yes--no one who uses violence should have a gun. Then I remembered that the criminal legal system would enforce the prohibition. #Abolitionfeminism means saying no to the criminal system. My latest @socres.org:

Client's application for a pardon of her federal conviction was denied (the judge felt so strongly that the client deserved mercy that he advocated against her deportation after her conviction). Apparently we didn't submit the one thing that the Administration requires before considering a pardon.

There are no words. #AbolishFamilyPolicing

One of the highlights of being associate dean for research at Maryland Carey Law is welcoming scholars from across the country (including @ahoagfordjour.bsky.social, @profshirleylin.bsky.social, and @susanmcmahon.bsky.social). Looking forward to this semester's Legal Theory Workshops!

Kim Hricko, @kwanetaharris.bsky.social, and I discuss the impact of true crime on criminalized survivors (spoiler: it's devastating) in "The True Harms of True Crime." Find it here: wjlgs.law.wisc.edu/2026/volume-.... Special thanks to @rlopez.bsky.social, who is the godmother of this piece.

I mean, I expected this result. Economic security decreases intimate partner violence. Give money to the people that need it-not to police and prisons. #AbolitionFeminismNow

This doesn’t bode well.

If I were supreme ruler of all things lexical (a word I just looked up), I would outlaw the use of the word "unfortunately." I have spoken.

Preventing harm before it happens, providing safe and non-judgmental spaces in which people who are considering harm can get help without requiring them to be criminalized--this is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing, and House of Ruth is doing it in Maryland.

Today this is a baking account. Chunky Lola cookies (Flour Bakery recipe), chocolate peppermint brownie cookies, and eggnog snickerdoodles (@nytimes.com). Snow outside, cookies inside.

I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, and if I ever stop being nervous before I walk into court, I’ll know it’s time to stop.

Today's fun fact: if "blue" "progressive" Maryland was a country, we would incarcerate more women per capita than 153 countries, including Canada, China, Argentina, and Venezuela, and would be tied with the Russian Federation. #TheMoreYouKnow www.prisonpolicy.org/global/women...

As a pragmatic abolitionist, I'll use any tool I can to get people out of prison. But laws decreasing sentences for/allowing for resentencing of criminalized survivors are not everything we need to prevent injustice. We need for survivors not to be prosecuted at all. Mine @truthout.org.

Supporting Our Inside-Out Prison Writing Community chuffed.org/project/1574...

Think about this program for Giving Tuesday.

So far during the parade, my kids have booed the NYPD, asked why we continue to glorify the (whiteness of the) 50s, and talked about union busting during a Starbucks commercial. The kids are all right.

Not surprising, but disappointing. Mayor Mamdani, call me--let's talk! nypost.com/2025/11/19/u...

One of my clients died yesterday. She was an absolutely lovely woman, full of faith and joy and light. She cared deeply about the people around her. She was a source of encouragement and support to the women she was incarcerated with. She was 51 years old and had spent 28 years in prison.

To the guy spotted reading Imperfect Victims on the B train last week: I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. And I hope they liked the flowers. ❤️

This is news to me, a Jew who doesn't feel like I have lost anything because of Zohran's victory. My goodness. Imagine showing everyone how much your brain is just absolutely pickled in fear and bigotry.

The ideas underlying socialism are hardly toxic. Inclusion, community, compassion, opportunity, effective governance are all fundamental, widely embraced. The term socialism itself has been cynically stigmatized. But with a little good sense, we can move past that and focus on values & results.

It’s been so long since there was good news that I forgot you could scroll and smile at the same time.

study after study after study shows that literally just handing people money and telling them "do what you want with this" reduces homelessness, increases food security for children, makes it more likely people will find and retain jobs.1

Blue sky.

Getting COVID is terrible. Getting COVID in prison, as @victorialaw.bsky.social explores in her latest book, Corridors of Contagion, is still a potentially deadly nightmare. Read about it here: www.thenation.com/article/soci.... And get the book here: www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2447-c...

So excited for Kim Hricko, whose essay is part of the "Inside the Prison Heat Crisis" series at The Jump Line. Read it here: thejumpline.substack.com/p/inside-the...

The average salary for NYPD investigators is $100K. $100K x 450 investigators = $45 million/year. Imagine what we could do to decrease intimate partner violence with $45 million a year? But yeah, let's fund more cops instead. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/n...

That this administration is committed to "aggressively arresting and prosecuting every criminal who terrorizes our fellow citizens and their families" tells you everything you need to know about the effectiveness of criminalization as a response to IPV. www.yahoo.com/news/article...

I told Anna Sinfield that the first season of The Girlfriends made me yell at the radio. She interviewed me anyway. 🤷‍♀️ Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Ending cash bail prevents criminalized survivors of gender-based violence from being held unnecessarily. Kudos to the anti-violence advocates in Illinois advocating for maintaining Illinois' bail reform law. 19thnews.org/2025/10/cash...

My relationship to Judaism right now is...complicated. I didn't go to temple today. But I took the Yom Kippur Torah portion to heart: "Is not this the fast that I have chosen...to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke." I took my fast to court. And the world got a little more just.

The Governor of Michigan seems to be aware of domestic violence and yet just denied clemency to multiple criminalized survivors of violence. Is that irony? Or is it just deeply enraging? www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news...

Tell me again how police keep us safe from sexual violence. www.justice.gov/opa/pr/forme...

I learned today that the reason that I do not read science fiction is because I am a science idiot. 🤷‍♀️

On brand-I’m spending my last hours before the Rapture at the Maryland Parole Commission

This Thursday I’ll be in conversation w/ @leighgoodmark.bsky.social about her work on decriminalizing domestic violence at @chjreportinghealth.bsky.social’s domestic violence symposium. If you’re a journalist interested in reporting on DV, & getting funding to do so from USC, register & attend! ⤵️

Super excited to be moderating a panel w/ @leighgoodmark.bsky.social on the criminalization of domestic violence at @chjreportinghealth.bsky.social's Domestic Violence Symposium on 9/25. The event is free & attendance is required if you want to apply for a USC grant to support reporting on DV in CA

Associate Dean @leighgoodmark.bsky.social featured in the @knowablemag.bsky.social article "Can a strategy shift reduce intimate partner violence?"

Bittersweet when someone who never should have been charged, let alone spent more than a decade in prison, is released. Though she should not have been in, Alexis Martin is out. #FreeThemAll www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Maryland Carey Law Professor @mgraber1.bsky.social in today's New York Times: “The Roberts court’s pro-Trump series of decisions creates reason for thinking that you might lose, even as every professor in your law school tells you the law is on your side.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/o...

Gee, who would have guessed? 🙄

Israel is starving Gaza's people. American funding and weapons are supporting this genocide. It's a moral horror of unfathomable scope. indivisible.org/resource/ong...

3 home. So many more to go. #FreeThemAll