In Our Future We Are Free

A master class in social change--how a coalition of parents, activists, and prison officials brought a racist and destructive institution to its knees

"Nell Bernstein's book could be for juvenile justice what Rachel Carson's book was for the environmental movement." --Andrew Cohen, correspondent, ABC News, about Bernstein's Burning Down the House

Over the past twenty years, one state after another has shuttered its youth prisons and stopped trying kids as adults, slashing the number of children locked in cages by a stunning 75 percent. How did this remarkable change come about? In the sequel to her 2014 award-winning book Burning Down the House, journalist Nell Bernstein dissects the forces that converged to move us from a moral panic about "juvenile superpredators" to a time in which the youth prison is rapidly fading from view.

In Our Future We Are Free begins and ends with the imprisoned youth who took a leading role in their own liberation. Through vivid profiles, Bernstein chronicles the tireless work of mothers, activists, litigators, researchers, and journalists to expose and challenge the racist brutality of youth prisons--as well as the surprising story of prison officials who worked from the inside to close their institutions for good. The descriptions of how communities are pursuing safety, rehabilitation, and accountability outside of locked institutions offers a model for how we might overcome our addiction to incarceration writ large.

In Our Future We Are Free is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how large-scale social change happens.

Nell Bernstein is the author of Burning Down the House, winner of the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award; All Alone in the World, a Newsweek Book of the Week; and In Our Future We Are Free (all published by The New Press). She is a former Soros Justice Media Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a winner of a White House Champion of Change award. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Glamour, Salon, Mother Jones, and other publications.