This chapter examines the past decade of organizing against the carceral state under the banner of “Black Lives Matter” (BLM). It draws on my collaborative research with Color Of Change and the movement for transformative justice alternatives to prison and policing for gendered violence. I look at recent BLM mobilizations through three lenses. One tracks BLM’s macro-level gains for community power at the situational, institutional, and systemic levels. Another documents the micro-level psychological empowerment processes of Black queer feminist approaches that center Black joy, political education, and care for Black women. Lastly, I look at the meso-level organizational settings that bridge individual psychological empowerment and capacity-building with macro-level outcomes like policy changes and culture shifts. Drawing on Han, McKenna, and Oyakawa’s concept of the “prism” (2021), I coin the term “Black prism” to describe organizations like Color Of Change that build political homes to amplify the power of Black constituents.

What leads prosecutors to become crusaders in contexts where there are few precedents of Hollywood-style “prosecutor-heroes,” evidence is thin and risks high? Combining theories of the drivers of bureaucratic autonomy with analyses of crusades in Brazil and Italy, the chapter locates the origins of zealous prosecutorial role-conceptions in processes of institutional change and three “moments” (serendipity, agency, and backlash), blending structural and agentic factors. That prosecutors challenge the establishment, triggering a cascade of evidence with unorthodox tactics, is a function of institutional autonomy, criminal law reforms, and bureaucratic differentiation. Inquiries are also shaped by tactical choices, in particular, whether prosecutors form taskforces. Based on research in economics and psychology, the chapter shows that small groups are conducive to evidentiary economies of scale, legal innovation, and defensive strategies. The argument thus specifies the incentives guiding prosecutors, with attention to the organisations within which they operate. It also shows why zeal is both the engine of crusades but also the likely source of their undoing.

Articles on politics and citizenship suggest the breadth of Afro-Latin American writers’ political thought and the depth of their political involvement. After achieving national independence, all four countries overturned colonial racial laws and write the principle of full civic and legal equality into their national constitutions. But as the Black newspapers repeatedly argued, constitutional ideals of egalitarian citizenship were consistently undercut and eroded by everyday racism and prejudice. The papers engaged deeply and critically with electoral politics in each context, offering criticism of the ways that traditional parties abused their relationships to Black political clubs, discussion of campaigns for legal change to extend civil rights, the legislative proposals of Black elected officials, and constitutional delegates. The Black press was also crucial to the creation of race-based political parties in Cuba, Brazil, and Uruguay.Black writers further engaged in debates over communism, fascism, authoritarianism, and democracy from the 1930s through the 1950s.

As trial by jury is expanding across Georgia and covering more types of crimes, one question is gaining increasing importance – whether Georgians fully understand the reform, which to this point has expanded to seven cities and covers nearly 30 crimes in the Criminal Code. Without a well-informed public, progress of the reform will likely face serious challenges, such as citizens’ reluctance to participate, lengthy and costly selection procedures, and increased public support for the political opposition to the reform. Jury reform also remains a politically challenging process. Government support remains weak, exacerbated by skepticism from the courts. As a result, the reform is poorly funded and few, if any, efforts are made to educate the public. Furthermore, the jury receives little attention in the curriculum of Georgian law schools. The media is still not prepared for informed coverage of actual trials and is easily manipulated by opponents of the reform. This chapter addresses these and other problems faced by the Georgian jury and discusses risks that can hamper the development of the institution and discredit its value in the eyes of the public.

This chapter analyses the operation of criminal procedure in contemporary China from the perspectives of institutional and individual interests. First, the chapter zooms in on the various performance indicators that affect the everyday operation of China’s criminal justice system, with a focus on the distorted use of such indicators. Second, it argues that the pathological use of performance indicators must be understood in the context of the power relations and interactions amongst the main players within the criminal justice system. Incentivising and controlling the individual actors can be thought of as managing an enterprise on the basis of individuals’ interest in pursuing promotion and better remuneration and agencies’ interest in obtaining power, prestige and legitimacy. Ingenious individuals and agencies soon develop techniques for disregarding, bypassing or manipulating performance-related factors to obtain the results they want. The downside of such an interest-driven management approach in the criminal justice arena is that it conflicts with the underlying mission of criminal justice agencies: to serve the interests of justice. Finally, the chapter analyses the current criminal justice practices, identifying the ideological and institutional factors that can explain the distortion and limits of reform.