Dismantling Carceral Debt: A Manifesto on Building Debtor Power

If we understand carceral debt, not only as a tool of financial extraction, but as a tool of control and coercion (alongside criminalization, courts, cages, and surveillance) used by the carceral state to discipline poor and otherwise vulnerable people, what does that open for our organizing against it?

This resource documents two years of experimenting, campaigning, and research by Free Hearts, Milwaukee Freedom Fund, Montgomery Bail Out, Tucson Bail Fund, and Community Justice Exchange. The resource covers six critical interventions organizations can take to meaningfully challenge debt that accrues as a result of people being criminalized, prosecuted, imprisoned, or deported, including strategies for building debtor power and rejecting techno-solutionist reforms.