Katharine has a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. in English Literature from Smith College. She has worked in various capacities on issues of mass incarceration, juvenile justice, and prisoners' rights. Most recently she served as Assistant General Counsel at the Children’s Defense Fund. She lives, currently, in San Francisco and is working on a book because she does not want to open her safe one day and find ashes.
by Katharine Blake McFarland I was in my office at the Children's Defense Fund when I heard that someone had shot and killed an unknown number of children at a school in Newtown, Connecticut. I picked up the phone and called one of the top gun safety organizations in the country, and asked to speak…
by Katharine Blake McFarland Jennifer Bornstein, Untitled, 2014. © Jennifer Bornstein On a trip to New York to visit friends last month—a trip that coincided with the city's first beautiful spring weekend after a grueling, endless winter—I walked four miles uptown to see the Whitney Biennial exhibit. Mostly I found the show to be difficult…
By Katharine Blake McFarland Last weekend I slept in the back of my car by a stream in the Klamath River Basin, a territory that stretches across the top of California and into Southern Oregon. This is how you camp when you don't have a tent, and it still does the trick. You still get…
by Katharine Blake McFarland I'm sitting in the empty bathtub with all my clothes on and my laptop in my lap, because it's the only place I can't hear the neighborhood jackhammer, when a headline from The Onion catches my attention: 15 Years In Environment Of Constant Fear Somehow Fails To Rehabilitate Prisoner. “About time,”…
by Katharine Blake McFarland Making an argument against capital punishment has always felt to me like a ridiculous exercise. Like making an argument against sticking forks into electrical sockets, leaving your baby alone at the mall, or eating spoiled meat. Its patent indefensibility has often left me at a loss for words. But speechlessness is…
America’s singular, unimaginative response to people who break the law is untenable. But meaningful reform necessitates a careful detangling of the political and financial agendas that have rendered the system what it is.
by Katharine Blake McFarland On Saturday, September 20, 2013, Prabhjot Singh, a Sikh man who wears a turban, was attacked by a group of teenagers in New York City. “Get Osama,” they shouted as they grabbed his beard, punched him in the face and kicked him once he fell to the ground. Though Singh ended…