Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs purport to prevent radicalization and violence by identifying and surveilling communities that are deemed at-risk. These programs, however, only reinforce discriminatory practices against vulnerable…

The Rise of the Far Right in Western New York

Demographic shifts in Erie county have led to increased far-right activity. Local sheriffs and government officials have ties to a small but active Far Right in Erie County, leading to the legitimizing of these far-right, sometimes violent …

The Role of Militias in County Governments in Central and Southside Virginia

Four counties in Virginia consider formally recognizing militias, paving the way for local militias to work with law enforcement and local governments to undermine democracy at a county level.

In the same breadth as decrying so called liberal identity politics, the U.S. Right declares itself representative of an oppressed White, Christian social class, fly Blue Lives Matter flags in place of Old Glory, and bedeck themselves in the cultish…

A Q&A with authors Jarrod Shanahan and Tyler Wall

On the anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, PRA is taking a moment to examine the history of law enforcement’s relationship with the Far Right. In 2021, academic activists Jarrod Shanahan and Tyler Wall published a…

A Review of Spencer Ackerman’s Reign of Terror

Reading Spencer Ackerman’s new book Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump (Penguin Random House, 2021) is a…

Anti-Sex Work Feminists have a (deadly) listening problem: a problem listening to the people whose lives and livelihoods have been made economically and socially precarious by the state and made subject to daily violence by its carceral arm. In this…

The inhumane treatment and deportations of Haitian refugees from our southern border underscores what we already suspected: that the U.S. anti-immigration movement, which thrived under President Trump, has yet another champion in President Biden and…

No Department of Homeland Security. No Paramilitarized Border Enforcement. No War on Terror. No Trump.

On this 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001, the attacks and their political aftermath have receded into the distance: an important historical event at the start of the 2000s, long before Obama, the Tea Party, Trump, and the pandemic.…

A PRA Webinar Series

Save the Date From the Rise of the New Right to Trump’s America: Forty Years of Right-Wing State Infiltration and Left Resistance Date/Time TBA   Previous Webinars in the Series…

In 1983, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA, now CoreCivic) was founded. That year, approximately 24,000 people were sent to state and federal prisons, bringing the total number of prisoners to 438,830. It was a 12 percent increase from the…

Unmasked: Impacts of Pandemic Policing By Pascal Emmer, Woods Ervin, Tiffany Wang, Derecka Purnell, and Andrea J. Ritchie As of this report’s release in October 2020, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 was approaching a quarter-of-a-million people,…

On January 6, the world saw competing representations of the United States, as the Deep South state of Georgia sent two Democrats to the Senate just hours before hundreds of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol with the goal of overturning the…

The Repercussions of Politicized Law Enforcement

On January 6, a right-wing mob took over the U.S. Capitol with relative ease. Among many things this made clear—including the continued threat of far-right violence, reinforced by movement misogyny[1]—the…

Why the Far Right Flourishes in German Police and Military

Countless pictures of Hitler and swastika propaganda. A refugee photoshopped into historic pictures of concentration camp gas chambers. A Black man being gunned down. These horrific images were…

What to Expect Around the 2020 Elections

As we draft this memo in the days immediately prior to Election Day 2020, there are dozens of articles and opinion pieces pointing out possible “chaos” or “nightmare” scenarios related to the 2020 elections and what could happen in their wake.…

How a Massachusetts Sheriff Became the Far Right’s Perfect Ally

Two weeks before Donald Trump took the oath of office, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson walked into a Fall River, Massachusetts, auditorium filled with law enforcement officers from around the county. With bagpipes blaring, Hodgson was sworn in…

Open Map Introduction to Right-Wing Sheriffs County sheriffs have featured heavily in the right-wing imagination for…

The murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020 marked the beginning of a dramatic surge in racial justice and politics accountability protests. The Black Lives Matter movement that was at the heart of those…

ReOpen Protestors Turn to Constitutional Sheriffs to Defy State Policies

In May 2020, a leader of the recent wave of anti-Lockdown protests against government issued Covid-19 directives and ReOpen America founder, Suzzanne Monk,…

On February 10, 2020 seven Republican representatives in Mississippi introduced a first-of-its-kind bill that raises the possibility of a so-called Second Amendment Sanctuary region stretching…

This wave of Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions and ordinances reflect the contemporary growth of CSPOA’s ideology.

Targeting local sheriffs and other law enforcement is an effort by FAIR to complement this direct access to the administration and develop support for its agenda outside the Beltway.

Technological tools to increase law enforcement’s surveillance capacity will be showcased at this year’s annual National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA), Education and Technology Expo from June 14-18, heightening concerns regarding law enforcement’s…

Reclaiming a City from Neoliberalism

Introduction In many ways, all eyes are on Chicago. The city increasingly finds itself at the epicenter of multiple discourses of violence and safety – from hubristic Presidential tweets claiming federal intervention is necessary to address Chicago’…

Immigration Enforcement and Solidarity in Ohio

The growth of immigration enforcement further north has led many within the immigrant and refugee communities to feel that they, too, live on the border.

How Prison Ministries Prioritize Salvation Over Justice

As bipartisan reform efforts have steadily drifted rightward, the heavy hand of evangelicals in prison reform efforts has created new kinds of problems. In the eight years I spent researching my book, God In Captivity: The Rise of Faith-Based Prison…

On June 8, 2017, the California Board of State and Community Corrections announced the reallocation of $103 million in savings resulting from the passage of 2014’s Proposition 47 criminal justice sentencing reforms to drug treatment, mental health…

How “Bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform” Institutionalizes a Right-Wing, Neoliberal Agenda

More than an actual means of improving policy, “bipartisan criminal justice reform” has become a mantra signifying hope: that people of good will can come together across ideological divides and partisan gridlock to end our country’s overreliance on…

Political Repression, Surveillance, and PRISONS

The steady expansion of both the power and use of law enforcement in multiple areas of life reflects (and institutionalizes) right-wing worldviews regardless of the political party or identity claims of the speaker. These readings explore the…

Today Political Research Associates, a Massachusetts think tank that monitors right-wing movements, warned that the surprise acquittal yesterday of seven militia members on conspiracy and weapons charges in connection with their armed occupation of…

Challenging the Policing Paradigm Rooted in Right-Wing “Folk Wisdom”

When protesters developed a platform to end police violence in the wake of the 2014 police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the first of their 10 demands was to end “broken windows” policing, the law enforcement paradigm…

Simone Browne, an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, describes her new book, Dark Matters: On The Surveillance of Blackness, as a conversation between Black Studies and Surveillance…

The case of David Lenio is opening up many questions about the criminal justice system and White supremacy. Specifically, questions about how terroristic threats are treated when the person making them comes from a wealthy White background versus…

From the War On Drugs To The War On Terror

American political time is often rhetorically divided into before and after the attacks of September 11, 2001. In this model, “before” signals liberty and respect for individual rights while “after” brought increasing restrictions and surveillance…

The Criminalization of Black Women

Between 1990 and 2000, the number of people in U.S. prisons and jails increased from 292 per 100,000 to 481 per 100,000. But the number of women in prison rose even more sharply, doubling over the ten-year period.

The War On Drugs, launched in 1971 by Richard Nixon, has been repeatedly exposed as a failure. Yet, the same failed tactics used to fight drugs continue to be used to retain control over women’s reproduction. Drug laws are increasingly being…

While abolishing the death penalty would clearly be a positive step forward, it is a limited and inadequate objective — particularly if achieved without any meaningful discussion of the racism and structural inequalities that produced and continue…

Disparate Legal Treatment of Muslims and the Radical Right

In April 2014, an armed encampment formed at the Nevada cattle ranch of Cliven Bundy as news spread through militia networks about the confrontation between the 67-year-old rancher and the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM began to impound Bundy’s…

Many leaders of the Christian Right, from megachurch pastors like Rick Warren to the top prelates in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have repeatedly threatened civil disobedience (and worse) over marriage equality. If they follow through…

You might imagine that an increased emphasis on law and order would result in increased attention to all forms of law-breaking. But addressing police brutality and other forms of State violence clearly is not the focus of law-and-order policies.

When Austerity Opens Cages, Where Do the Services Go?

Neoliberal policies that result in institutional closures carry a cost, too. Could communities seize the moment to redirect resources toward self-determination and liberation?

The Right’s Racist Assaults on Reproductive Freedom

The criminal justice system deploys a variety of methods to deny incarcerated people their rights to have children, and because mass incarceration is a racist project, African American people bear the brunt of this punishment.

St. Louis County police officer Dan Page is best known for shoving CNN host Don Lemon while the journalist was covering the Michael Brown protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Page has since been suspended after video of his speech to a right-wing militia…

Addressing Violence Against LGBTQ and HIV-Affected Communities

While the mainstream LGBTQ rights movement made historic progress in 2013, LGBTQ and HIV-affected people around the country still face appalling rates of prejudice-fueled violence and discrimination. During 2013, Manhattan alone—from Harlem to…

The Truth Behind the Right's Resistance to Human Trafficking

The abuse, manipulation, and exploitation of others is unacceptable in any context, and should be confronted and stopped. Yet conservative religious groups, lobbyists, and legislators have done little to curb the harmful elements of the sex trade.…

More recently, the privatization of prisons has begun to expand around the world. The GEO Group, America’s second largest prison corporation, boasts that it is the world’s leading provider of correctional, detention, and community reentry services.…

The Critical Issue We're Not Allowed to Discuss

As gun control advocates push for stricter gun laws, and pro-gun groups continue to push back, there’s one important aspect of the debate conservatives tend to fear discussing: race.

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) was founded o organize county sheriffs around a mission similar to Oath Keepers—that is, to refuse to enforce laws that they believe are unconstitutional.

Nine years ago, PRA published an article written by our founder Jean Hardisty, examining the conservative model of punishment that has dominated the criminal justice system. Since then, the ‘on the ground’ reality in prisons has grown worse.

A Response to "Reconsidering Hate"

The dominant story about race in the United States goes like this: in the past, we had troubling racial patterns, including genocide, slavery, and segregation. Then heroic individuals took spontaneous action and showed America the error of its ways…

Organizing & Advocacy in a Time of Struggle

Since 9/11, the New York Police Department’s Pre-Ramadan Conference and Breakfast has become one of the largest gatherings of Muslim leadership in New York City. Last July, I sat among a sea of suits and uniforms, colorful headscarves, turbans, and…

The Michigan Intelligence Operations Center names the following partners -Michigan State Police (MSP) -Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) -Michigan National Guard -U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -U.S. Coast Guard -U.S.…

Looking at Michigan’s Fusion Centers

In the Winter 2009/Spring 2010 edition of The Public Eye, we reported on the rise of Intelligence Fusion Centers, created to coordinate the national security intelligence efforts of the Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Justice, CIA…

According to Slate, Department of Homeland Security has doled out more than $300 million since 9/11 to at least eight prestigious U.S. universities to support “centers of excellence” including the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and…

What’s the scorecard on the Michigan Operational Integration Center’s ability to combine information from different sources when the threat is not terrorism but environmental disaster?

Behavioral profiling, the latest trend in pre-emptive policing, has been used in America’s airport terminals since 2003 when the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program was implemented by the Transportation Security…

A Texas City police officer, Cpl. Tom Robison, detained freelance photographer Lance Rosenfieldduring the first week of July 2010 for taking pictures of public signs. The law enforcement harassment of Mr. Rosenfield resembles hundreds of similar…

On Monday this week, the New York Times announced that its investigation of NYPD “stop and frisk” practices from 2006 through 2010 found police stopped 52,000 people in a small eight-block predominantly black neighborhood called Brownsville. That’s…

In an expansion of the national Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (SAR), law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials recently tied both Amtrak and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) into the initiative.…

Since the successful street demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999, police and federal agencies have relied on aggressive and unconstitutional tactics to disperse, disrupt, and dissuade popular protest. Last…

The discovery this month that anarchist “John Jacob,” an activist in anti-militarist organizing in the Pacific Northwest, is really civilian Army intelligence analyst John Towery II, shows that those concerned about civil liberties must remain…

So Boston police troll the Criminal Record Information system to find personal information about local movie stars and sports heroes. We know that from a state audit released on May 6, 2009.

Hot Air Leads to Violence? Homeland Security apparently thinks so. The Department of Homeland Security recently warned law enforcement that disenchanted, angry Americans are like kernels of corn under heat, ready to pop at any time.

If the Virginia Fusion Center (VFC) isn’t careful, people might think its intelligence analysts are America’s thought police. Take a look at its 2009 Threat Assessment, which talks about “subversive thought” as a marker for violent terrorism and…

According to a Rasmussen Reports poll released on April 3, 2009, 75 percent of voters say that safety is more important than fairness in determining what countries the US government sends freed Guantanamo inmates. While some element of N.I.M.B.Y.…

Police Tactics Suppress Free Speech

Three of the cops had jumped out of the white nondescript van and attacked me. They were all wearing ski masks and dressed as anarchist black bloc protesters. I threw up my hands and offered no resistance.

Introduction “An eye for an eye” captures the conservative model of punishment in contemporary western societies. That is, when a wrong is done to an innocent person, the wrongdoer must be severely punished in order to “even the books” and stand as…

Why are increased sentences and the severe punishment of those convicted of crimes so popular and prevalent in U.S. culture? Since the late 1970s our society has accepted increasingly rigid and vengeful ways of punishing those convicted of crimes.…

Low-Intensity Conflict Targets Non-Citizens

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the so-called war on terror has provided the U.S. government with a rationale for dramatically increasing state repression. This repression, linked with an upsurge of nationalism and nativist scapegoating,…