Book Selections

"Robin Bernstein relates a bloody tale of race, murder, and injustice that forces us to rethink the origins and consequences of America's immoral system of prisons for profit. Bernstein brings to life the story of William Freeman, a free Black man who in 1840 was forced into unpaid labor as an inmate of Auburn State Prison in New York. After his release, he murdered four members of a white family, as revenge for the theft of his labor. His trial saw the crystallization of a nefarious ideology-the idea that African Americans are inherently criminal-yet it also shaped Auburn as an important node in the long battle for Black freedom"--

This riveting blend of on-the-ground reporting and sweeping social and architectural history discusses the decision to close Rikers Island and what it will really mean for reformists, justice architects, abolitionists, city government officials, prison guards and the incarcerated themselves.

"#MeToo. Black Lives Matter. Decriminalize Drugs. No More Stolen Sisters. Stop Stranger Attacks. Do we need more cops or to defund police? Harm reduction or treatment? Tougher sentences or prison abolition? The debate about Canada's criminal justice system has rarely been so polarized. This book brings the stories of survivors and offenders alike to the forefront to help us understand why the criminal justice system is facing such an existential crisis. Benjamin Perrin draws on his expertise as a lawyer, former top criminal justice advisor to the prime minister, and law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada to investigate the criminal justice system itself. He critiques the system from a trauma-informed perspective, examining its treatment of victims of crime, Indigenous people and Black Canadians, people with substance use and mental health disorders, and people experiencing homelessness, poverty, and unemployment. Perrin also shares insights from others on the frontlines, including prosecutors and defence lawyers, police chiefs, Indigenous leaders, victim support workers, corrections officers, public health experts, gang outreach workers, prisoner and victims' rights advocates, criminologists, psychologists, and leading trauma experts. Bringing forward the voices of marginalized people, along with their stories of survival and resilience, Indictment shows that a better way is possible."--

"Tip of the Spear boldly and compellingly argues that prisons are a domain of hidden warfare within US borders. Orisanmi Burton explores what he terms the Long Attica Revolt, a criminalized tradition of Black radicalism that propelled rebellions in New York prisons during the 1970s. The reaction to this revolt illuminates what Burton calls prison pacification: the coordinated tactics of violence, isolation, sexual terror, propaganda, reform, and white supremacist science and technology that state actors use to eliminate Black resistance within and beyond prison walls. Burton goes beyond the state records that other histories have relied on for the story of Attica and expands that archive, drawing on oral history and applying Black radical theory in ways that center the intellectual and political goals of the incarcerated people who led the struggle. Packed with little-known insights from the prison movement, the Black Panther Party, and the Black Liberation Army, Tip of the Spear promises to transform our understanding of prisons-not only as sites of race war and class war, of counterinsurgency and genocide, but also as sources of defiant Black life, revolutionary consciousness, and abolitionist possibility"--

Since the early 1960s, incarcerated Muslims have used legal action to establish their rights to religious freedom behind bars and improve the conditions of their incarceration. Inspired by Islamic principles of justice and equality, these efforts have played a critical role in safeguarding the civil rights not only of imprisoned Muslims but of all those confined to carceral settings. In this sweeping book����-the first to examine this history in depth-SpearIt writes a missing chapter in the history of Islam in America while illuminating new perspectives on the role of religious expression and experience in the courtroom.

"Challenging incarceration and policing was central to the postwar Black Freedom Movement. In this ... political and intellectual history of the Nation of Islam, Garrett Felber centers the Nation in the Civil Rights Era and the making of the modern carceral state. The book examines efforts to build broad-based grassroots coalitions among liberals, radicals, and nationalists to oppose the carceral state and struggle for local Black self-determination. It captures the ambiguous place of the Nation of Islam specifically, and Black nationalist organizing more broadly, during an era which has come to be defined by nonviolent resistance, desegregation campaigns, and racial liberalism"--