LIMA, Peru — “Will anything be done against the Venezuelan criminals who enter Peru?” reads the Twitter post. “I have read hundreds of news stories where they are involved in big robberies and MURDERS. Where are the rights of the Peruvian? Will they continue to protect these criminals? WILL YOU DO SOMETHING?” “Venezuelan threatens a delivery man with a knife,” claims a Facebook video, and another on YouTube claims “VENEZUELA EXPORTS CRIMINALS AND SICKNESS.”Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and even some traditional news sites are crowded with posts like these. They have different messages, styles and intensities but are unified by an underlying assertion: Venezuelan migrants are a threat to Peruvians.

In March, Chris C. was disqualified from driving for Uber. The reason? Two criminal convictions had been found in his most recent background check. The news confused Chris for a few reasons. For one, his convictions were relatively minor, one for a fake ID (officially, criminal possession of a forged instrument) and one for theft. For another, they happened nearly 20 years ago (specifically, in 1999, when he was 19) and had never disqualified him from other jobs.

When I think of the importance that contact with the outside world has for incarcerated people, I think of my uncle, who has been in and out of prisons in Arizona for most of my life. More specifically, I think of a letter he sent me a few days before I graduated from high school. “Thank you for the letter you wrote me. … It lifted my ‘spirit!’ ” he wrote in his characteristic block letters. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to come to your graduation but will be thinking of you & the family on your ‘Special Day’!” Even now, there’s something comforting about looking at the letter. There’s still a piece of folded-over tape at the bottom of the paper, a remnant of when I stuck it to the wall next to my bed in my freshman dorm. As I trace the indents of pen on paper where my uncle scrawled about release dates and Bible verses, I feel closer to him.

An anonymous meant to bring attention to sexual harassment in academia has generated more than including some that refer to cases at ASU. A prominent ASU physics professor, Lawrence Krauss, was after allegations of sexual misconduct generated national attention and a University investigation. The Cronkite School has to address sexual misconduct in the workplace. And on Monday, March 26, the approved a to require professors to include Title IX and mandatory reporter notices in their syllabi.

In July, ASU announced the Charles Koch Foundation had awarded a $6.5 million grant to fund the newly minted Academy for Justice, a research coalition based out of the University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. The Academy says the grant will help bridge the gap between academics and policymakers in order to promote positive change in the criminal justice system. But critics say it represents another attempt by one of the country's most prominent political donor networks to exert its influence.

The details of the plans went like this: After the election, the government will take full control of the internet. It will establish a stringent schedule of times citizens will be allowed online and will restrict access to websites it considers harmful to society. According to the new rules, the feds will gain the power to remove any media they consider false, biased, or defamatory. In order to eliminate obesity, junk food will be prohibited, and each person will be given a monthly cap on the amount they spend on meals. No private sector employee is to make more than $800 per month. No individual will be allowed to own more than one car.

Many companies seek captive markets—those in which consumers have little choice, like food in a sports arena or cable access in a rural area. But the ultimate captive market is the U.S. criminal justice system, where consumers are captive in both an economic and a physical sense. Traditionally, private companies providing services in prisons have focused on food and personal items, as well as phone calls. These items are often priced at rates incarcerated consumers deem inaccessible—think $21 for a cheeseburger and wings, $31 for a hygiene essentials kit, or $15 for a 15-minute phone call (no small cost when you’re earning an hourly wage of between 33 cents and $1.41).

On Sept. 19, 2017, I was sitting at a table on the Tecnológico de Monterrey Ciudad de México campus reviewing a PowerPoint presentation I was supposed to give that evening. I was enjoying the sun and the low hum of conversations that flows through the halls and plazas of any college campus, which is surprisingly less distracting when it occurs in a language that’s not your own. And then, the world started to shake. When I decided to study abroad in Mexico City through an ASU exchange program, I never thought that while there, I would experience one of the deadliest earthquakes in the city’s history. But on that Tuesday afternoon, I did. And it changed my life.