How the pandemic made us confront what it means to be alone.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Caitlin L. Chandler, Kelan Lyons, Daniel Loedel, John Colapinto, and Shay Castle.
15 True Crime Longreads and the Questions We Should Ask Ourselves When Reading Them
By bringing new dimensions to an unjust process, a well-told story has the power to impact some of our most flawed systems.
Can We Build a Better Women’s Prison?
Houston Chronicle criminal justice reporter Keri Blakinger — who once served 21 months of a 2½-year sentence for felony drug possession — visits a women’s prison near Austin, Texas, and considers the ways in which women’s prisons don’t take into consideration women’s particular needs. She speaks with those involved in planning a new $97 million building […]
A Green New Jail
What does environmental justice look like in a landscape overrun by prisons? Where the incarcerated suffer from unusually polluted surroundings, and prisons are a toxin in their own right?
Longreads Best of 2020: Essays
A small sampling of standout essays published this year.
Following the North Star
Shaheen Pasha explores how the trauma of a loved one’s incarceration unravels her carefully planned-out existence, and sets her on a new, unexpected path to find meaning in the meaningless.
Debt Demands a Body
“The future that debt chose for me — indeed the future it chooses for many people — included a lot of shame, confusion, and pain.”
The PTSD of Everyday Life
The mental and physical toll of life in a white supremacist state is unavoidable for BIPOC, even if it manifests differently for different people.

