Book Selections

"Over the last 60 years, more has been done in Oakland to reform policing than any other American city-and yet, Oakland has failed to reign in the tendencies of its police to prey upon, rather than protect, its communities. Why is this, and what does it mean both for Oakland, and for America? THE RIDERS COME OUT AT NIGHT will be the first authoritative account of the Oakland Police Department's troubling history of violence, secrecy, and mismanagement, and the city's unfulfilled promise to implement constitutional policing. By examining cases of police violence and corruption in one of America's most iconic cities, the Polk Award-winning investigative duo, Ali Winston & Darwin BondGraham, illustrate why criminal justice reform has proven an elusive goal for the entire nation. Their investigation will introduce readers to "The Riders," a band of corrupt cops running riot through the city, and to Keith Batt, a "fresh out of the academy" rookie assigned to patrol with the Riders. Winston & BondGraham deftly maneuver between the worlds of intransigent police culture to City Hall, where a lack of political will to see through reforms (and local prosecutors who failed to hold officers accountable) conspire to keep these cycles of brutality in place. Through never-before-seen reporting and interviews, the authors paint a portrait of a city-and nation-in crisis, and the steps needed to finally, once and for all, effectively address policing in the Unites States"--

"The 2020 murder of George Floyd rocked nearly every aspect of American life and brought issues of police brutality to the forefront of public discourse. In the wake of his death and under extreme public pressure, many politicians, police chiefs, and court officials acknowledged the existence of systemic inequality in the fields of policing and criminal justice. However, with few exceptions, one actor within the justice system remained painfully silent: prosecutors. Progressive Prosecution both argues that this group should be at the forefront of calls for criminal justice reform and provides a guidebook for how this can be achieved. To date, little has been written that offers real guidance to District Attorneys and their staffs to help them shape a new culture within their offices dedicated to race-conscious practices and even-handed approaches. And even less has been written to educate a broader audience about the importance of a race-sensitive, community-based prosecution function in making real change in the criminal justice system and moving toward real justice. Progressive Prosecution offers both through a curated collection of chapters written by criminal justice experts and practicing District Attorneys focused on those components of prosecution policy and practice that deserve and demand radical rethinking. The book puts forth a radical new vision of prosecution: prosecutors must redefine the future of the criminal justice system"--

This book critically explores how police power manifested beyond criminal law into the field of public health during the pandemic. Whilst people were engaged with anti-police violence protests, particularly in the US, they were being policed openly and notoriously by the government and medical science in the public health arena. The book explores how public health policing might be an abuse of constitutional power and encourages the abolition question to be applied consistently to the state’s discourse in the area of public health, as black people the world over continue to bear a disproportionate cost burden for public health policies. The chapters explore contemporary policing in terms of the historical context of slavery, the growth of the police and prison abolition movement and how this should be applied more widely, and how police power operates throughout society beyond the criminal justice system, in finance, technology, housing, education, and in medicine and health science. It seeks to re-examine our relationship to health sovereignty and the police power more fundamentally. It provides insights into the convergence of policing and social control of humans and argues that the most normative response is abolition.

"Long Term Offenders, or LTOs, is the state's term for those it condemns to effective death by imprisonment. Often serving sentences of sixty to eighty years, LTOs bear the brunt of the bipartisan embrace of mass incarceration heralded by the "tough on crime" agenda of the 1990s and 2000s. Like the rest of the United States' prison population--the world's highest per capita--they are disproportionately poor and non-white. The Long Term brings these often silenced voices to light, offering a powerful indictment of the prison-industrial complex from activists, scholars, and those directly surviving and resisting these sentences. In showing the devastation caused by a draconian prison system, the essays also highlight the humanity and courage of the people most affected. This striking collection of essays gives voice to people both inside and outside prison struggling for liberation, dismantles claims that the "tough on crime" agenda and LTO sentencing keep us safe, and reveals the white supremacism and patriarchy upon which the prison system rests. In its place, the contributors propose a range of far-reaching reforms and raise the even more radical demand of abolition, drawing on the experience of campaigns in the United States and beyond"--Publisher's description

"In this unforgettable memoir, Emerald Garner recounts her father's cruel and unjust murder, the immense pain that followed, the pressures of an exploitative media, and her difficult yet determined journey as an activist against police violence. She begins with the morning of July 17, 2014--a rare day off from work, one she had hoped to enjoy with rest and family, that quickly turned her world inside out. What follows is a personal account of the suffering Emerald and her family endured: unsympathetic camera lenses, the stares and whispers of strangers, and the inability to mourn in private. In addition to these vulnerable, personal essays, Finding My Voice includes conversations in which Emerald found inspiration, empathy, and community: with politicians, athletes, and activists like Brian Benjamin and Etan Thomas; with others surviving similarly unfathomable grief like Lora Dene King, Angelique Kearse, and Pamela Brooks; and with Emerald's own family, Mrs. Esaw Garner and Eric Garner Jr. The book ends with a powerful call-to-action by author and daughter of Malcolm X, Ilyasah Shabazz. As calls for radical transformation and accountability grow, Emerald Garner's memoir is a story of family and community, and the strength it takes to survive, to stand, to speak"--Publisher's website.

Invisible No More is a timely examination of how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. By placing the individual stories of Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Dajerria Becton, Monica Jones, and Mya Hall in the broader context of the twin epidemics of police violence and mass incarceration, Andrea Ritchie documents the evolution of movements centered around women’s experiences of policing. Featuring a powerful forward by activist Angela Davis, Invisible No More is an essential exposé on police violence against WOC that demands a radical rethinking of our visions of safety - and the means we devote to achieving it.

"Inside this place, not of it reveals some of the most egregious human rights violations within women's prisons in the United States. Here, in their own words, thirteen narrators recount their lives leading up to incarceration and their harrowing struggle once inside"--Cover, page [4].

With race and the police once more burning issues, this classic work from one of America's giants of black radicalism has lost none of its prescience or power The trial of Angela Davis is remembered as one of America's most historic political trials, and no one can tell the story better than Davis herself. Opening with a letter from James Baldwin to Angela, and including contributions from numerous radicals and commentators such as Black Panthers George Jackson, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins, this book is not only an account of Davis's incarceration and the struggles surrounding it, but also perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of the prison system of the United States and the figure embodied in Davis's arrest and imprisonment-the political prisoner. Since the book was written, the carceral system in the US has grown from strength to strength, with more of its black population behind bars than ever before. The scathing analysis of the role of prison and the policing of black populations offered by Davis and her comrades in this astonishing volume remains as relevant today as the day it was published. From the Trade Paperback edition.

"A journey for justice turned into a love story when Maya Moore, one of the WNBA's brightest stars, married the man she helped free from prison, Jonathan Irons. Jonathan was only sixteen when he was arrested for a crime he did not commit. Maya Moore's family met Jonathan through a prison ministry program in 1999 and over time developed a close bond with him. Maya met Jonathan in 2007, shortly before her freshman year at the University of Connecticut, where she became one of the most heralded women's basketball players in collegiate history. She visited him often throughout the years, as well as sending him letters and books as he fought for his freedom; ultimately, she became a strong voice for prosecutorial changes. She stunned the sports world when she announced in February 2019 that she would step away from her career in women's basketball, in part so she could help Jonathan in what they hoped would be his final appeal. In March 2020, his conviction was overturned by a state judge in Jefferson City, Mo. In this inspiring memoir, the couple will explore their unwavering faith, their deep connection, and how Maya stepped away from basketball to pursue justice both to prove Jonathan's innocence and inspire activism in others"--

'Indefinite' is an ethnographic study of life in a contemporary county jail system. Having been arrested and jailed, Michael L. Walker turned his experience into an examination of jails from the inside out, revealing the physical and emotional experience of doing time, the set of strategies prisoners use to endure it, and the deputies who use race to control prisoners and the kinds of experiences prisoners had.

"A senior federal judge's incisive, unsettling exploration of some of the paradoxes that the define the judiciary today: among them, why innocent people plead guilty, why high-level executives aren't prosecuted, why you won't get your day in court, and why the judiciary is curtailing its own constitutionally mandated power"--

"By the founder of the first organization in the US committed to freeing the wrongly imprisoned, a riveting story of devotion, sacrifice, and vindication Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would transform his life. A former management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world; he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary at the age of 37. His first assignment found him a chaplain at Trenton State Prison in 1980, where he ministered to some of the most violent offenders in the state. Among them was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who'd been convicted of murder years earlier. De los Santos swore to McCloskey that he was innocent--and over time, McCloskey came to believe him. With no legal or investigative training to speak of, McCloskey threw himself into the man's case. Two years later, he successfully effected his exoneration. McCloskey found his calling. He would go on to establish Centurion Ministries, the first group in America devoted to overturning wrongful convictions. Together with a team of forensic experts, lawyers, and volunteers--through tireless investigation and an unflagging dedication to justice--Centurion has freed 63 prisoners and counting, When Truth Is All You Have is McCloskey's inspirational story as well as those of the unjustly imprisoned for whom he has advocated. Spanning the nation, it is a chronicle of faith and doubt; of triumphant success and shattering failure. It candidly exposes a life of searching and struggle, uplifted by McCloskey's certainty that he had found what he was put on earth to do. Filled with generosity, humor, and compassion, it is the account of a man who has redeemed innumerable lives--and incited a movement--with nothing more than his unshakeable belief in the truth"--

When Police Kill is the first comprehensive analysis of police use of lethal force in the United States. The first seven chapters of this volume provide a summary and analysis of the known facts about killings by police. Who dies from police gunfire? What circumstances provoke police to shoot? Why is the death rate from shootings by police so high? Why are civilian deaths from police attacks so much higher in the United States than in other developed nations? Why are police also so much more at risk of death by assault than police in other nations? The final five chapters of the book provide an account of how federal, state and local governments can reduce killings by police without risking the lives of police officers. There are many strategies that federal and state government can use to motivate changes by police chiefs and sheriffs, but local law enforcement agencies are the main arena for reducing the carnage from police violence in the United States.--

"Overturning more than 200 years of fear-based dehumanization, punishment and trauma, Zachary Norris presents a comprehensive new vision of care-based public safety for America that actually holds people accountable for harms rendered, that tackles the harms currently going unaddressed, and that prevents many harms from happening, through strengthened relationships, strategic investment of resources, and a stronger democracy"--

Danielle Sered's brilliant and groundbreaking Until We Reckon steers directly and unapologetically into the question of violence, offering approaches that will help end mass incarceration and increase safety. Widely recognized as one of the leading proponents of a restorative approach to violent crime, Sered asks us to reconsider the purposes of incarceration and argues persuasively that the needs of victims of violent crime are better met by asking people who commit violence to accept responsibility for their actions and make amends in ways that are meaningful to those they have hurt.

"Today, all but one U.S. jurisdiction restricts a convicted felon's eligibility for jury service. In the majority of states, this restriction is permanent. Still, the exclusion of convicted felons from juries garners little attention. Are there valid, legal reasons for banishing millions of Americans from the jury process? What are the effects of felon-juror exclusion statutes for jury systems, convicted felons, or jurisdictions that impose them? Twenty Million Angry Men provides the first full account of this pervasive yet invisible form of civic marginalization. Drawing on his groundbreaking research, James Binnall challenges the professed rationales for felon-juror exclusion and highlights the benefits of inclusion, as they relate to criminal desistance at the individual and community levels. Ultimately, this forward-looking book argues that a history of criminal justice system involvement is an asset, not a liability, when it comes to serving as a juror"--

"Torture is an open secret in Chicago. Nobody in power wants to acknowledge this grim reality, but everyone knows it happens - and that the torturers are the police. Three to five new claims are submitted to the Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission of Illinois each week. Four hundred cases are currently pending investigation. Between 1972 and 1991, at least 125 black suspects were tortured by Chicago police officers working under former Police Commander John Burge. As the more recent revelations from the Homan Square 'black site' show, that brutal period is far from a historical anomaly. For more than fifty years, police officers who took an oath to protect and serve have instead beaten, electrocuted, suffocated, and raped hundreds--perhaps thousands--of Chicago residents. In The Torture Letters, Laurence Ralph chronicles the history of torture in Chicago, the burgeoning activist movement against police violence, and the American public's complicity in perpetuating torture at home and abroad. Engaging with a long tradition of epistolary meditations on racism in the United States, from James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time to Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, Ralph offers in this book a collection of open letters written to protesters, victims, students, and others. Through these moving, questing, enraged letters, Ralph bears witness to police violence that began in Burge's Area Two and follows the city's networks of torture to the global War on Terror. From Vietnam to Geneva to Guantanamo Bay -Ralph's story extends as far as the legacy of American imperialism. Combining insights from fourteen years of research on torture with testimonies of victims of police violence, retired officers, lawyers, and protesters, this is a powerful indictment of police violence and a fierce challenge to all Americans to demand an end to the systems that support it"--Publisher's description.

This brief examines the interaction and synergy between the philosophical concepts embedded in the ideas of Community Oriented Policing (C.O. P.) and urban security aided by technological innovations. While the philosophy of C.O.P. stresses the importance of collaboration between members of the public and its police forces technology that is becoming rapidly integrated in various police tactics creates new legal challenges and operational hurdles. This approach, coined as "Next Generation Community Policing", is discussed through the chapters of the brief and illustrated with examples from a number of different countries and their approaches to this topic.This Brief will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, particularly in police studies, as well as related fields such as urban security planning and sociology.

"A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit"--;In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. It was a case of mistaken identity, and Hinton believed that the truth would prove his innocence. Sentenced to death by electrocution, he spent his first three years at Holman State Prison full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death.He resolved to find a way to live on Death Row., and for the next twenty-seven years he transformed not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates. After winning his release in 2015, Hinton shows how you can take away a man's freedom, but you can't take away his imagination, humor, or joy

"[This] is the unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement--in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana--for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge from his odyssey within America's prison and judicial systems with his humanity and sense of hope for the future intact is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the United States and around the world. Arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans, Albert was behind bars in his early twenties when he was inspired to join the Black Panther Party because of its social commitment and code of living. He was serving a 50-year sentence in Angola prison in Louisiana for armed robbery when on April 17, 1972, a white guard was killed. Albert and another member of the Panthers were immediately accused of the crime and put in solitary confinement by the warden. Without a shred of actual evidence against them, their trial was a sham of justice that gave them life sentences in solitary. Decades passed before Albert gained a lawyer of consequence; even so, sixteen more years and multiple appeals were needed before he was finally released in February 2016. Remarkably self-aware that anger or bitterness would have destroyed him in solitary confinement, sustained by the shared solidarity of two fellow Panthers, Albert turned his anger into activism and resistance. The Angola 3, as they became known, resolved never to be broken by the grinding inhumanity and corruption that effectively held them for decades as political prisoners. Albert survived to give us Solitary, a chronicle of rare power and humanity that proves the better spirits of our nature can thrive against any odds."--Dust jacket.

"Rodricus Crawford was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder by suffocation of his beautiful baby boy. After years on death row, evidence confirmed what Crawford had claimed all along: he was innocent, and his son had died from an undiagnosed illness. Crawford is not alone. A full one-third of all known exonerations stem from no-crime wrongful convictions. The first book to explore this common but previously undocumented type of wrongful conviction, Smoke but No Fire tells the heartbreaking stories of innocent people convicted of crimes that simply never happened. A suicide is mislabeled a homicide. An accidental fire is mislabeled an arson. Corrupt police plant drugs on an innocent suspect. A false allegation of assault is invented to resolve a custody dispute. With this book, former New York City public defender Jessica S. Henry sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows--even encourages--these convictions to regularly occur. Smoke but No Fire promises to be eye-opening reading for legal professionals, students, and activists alike as it grapples with the chilling reality that far too many innocent people spend real years behind bars for fictional crimes"--

"In thirteen intimate narratives, Six by Ten explores the mental, physical, and spiritual impacts of America's widespread embrace of solitary confinement. Through stories from those subjected to solitary confinement, family members on the outside, and corrections officers, Six by Ten examines the darkest hidden corners of America's mass incarceration culture and illustrates how solitary confinement inflicts lasting consequences on families and communities far beyond prison walls"--

""A Second Reckoning" tells the heartbreaking story of the murder that led to the city of Annapolis's last hanging and a broader appeal for posthumous justice, especially in racially tainted cases"--;"A Second Reckoning tells the story of John Snowden, a Black man accused of the murder of a pregnant white woman in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1917. He refused to confess despite undergoing torture, was tried-through legal shenanigans-by an all-white jury, and was found guilty on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death. Despite hair-raising, last-minute appeals to spare his life, Snowden was hanged for the crime. But decades after his death, thanks to tireless efforts by interested citizens and family members who believed him a victim of a "legal lynching," Snowden was pardoned posthumously by the governor of Maryland in 2001.A Second Reckoning uses Snowden's case to bring posthumous pardons into the national conversation about amends for past racial injustices. Scott D. Seligman argues that the repeal of racist laws and policies must be augmented by reckoning with America's judicial past, especially in cases in which prejudice may have tainted procedures or perverted verdicts, evidence of bias survives, and a constituency exists for a second look. Seligman illustrates the profound effects such acts of clemency have on the living and ends with a siren call for a reexamination of such cases on the national level by the Department of Justice, which officially refuses to consider them. "--

"Right Here, Right Now collects the powerful first-person stories of dozens of men who are living on death row in the United States, offering a glimpse into the lives of some of the most marginalized people in America"--

Outreach The United States has more people locked up in jails, prisons, and detention centers than any other country in the history of the world. Mass incarceration has become a lucrative industry, and the criminal justice system is plagued with bias and unjust practices. And the church has unwittingly contributed to the problem. Dominique Gilliard explores the history and foundation of mass incarceration, examining Christianity's role in its evolution and expansion. He then shows how Christians can pursue justice that restores and reconciles, offering creative solutions and highlighting innovative interventions. The church has the power to help transform our criminal justice system. Discover how you can participate in the restorative justice needed to bring authentic rehabilitation, lasting transformation, and healthy reintegration to this broken system.

"In [this book the authors] examine the court-imposed territorial restrictions and other bail and sentencing conditions that are increasingly issued in the context of criminal proceedings. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with legal actors in the criminal justice system, as well as those who have been subjected to court surveillance, the authors demonstrate the devastating impact these restrictions have on the marginalized populations (the homeless, drug users, sex workers and protesters) who depend on public spaces. On a broader level, the authors show how red zones, unlike better publicized forms of spatial regulation such as legislation or policing strategies, create a form of legal territorialization that threatens to invert traditional expectations of justice and reshape our understanding of criminal law and punishment"--Publisher's website.

"He was seventeen when an all-white jury sentenced him to prison for a crime he didn't commit. Now, in this unforgettable memoir, a pioneering lawyer recalls the journey that led to his exoneration-and inspired him to devote his life to fighting the many injustices in our legal system. Seventeen years old and facing nearly thirty years behind bars, Jarrett Adams sought to figure out the why behind his fate. Sustained by his mother and aunts who brought him back from the edge of despair through letters of prayer and encouragement, Adams became obsessed with our legal system in all its damaged glory. After studying how his constitutional rights to effective counsel had been violated, he solicited the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongfully convicted, and won his release after nearly ten years in prison. But the journey was far from over. Adams took the lessons he learned through his incarceration and worked his way through law school with the goal of helping those who, like himself, had faced our legal system at its worst. After earning his law degree, he worked with the New York Innocence Project, becoming the first exoneree ever hired by the nonprofit as a lawyer. In his first case with the Innocence Project, he argued before the same court that had convicted him a decade earlier-and won. In this cinematic story of hope and full-circle redemption, Adams draws on his life and the cases of his clients to show the racist tactics used to convict young men of color, the unique challenges facing exonerees once released, and how the lack of equal representation in our courts is a failure not only of empathy but of our collective ability to uncover the truth. Justice for Sale is an unforgettable firsthand account of the limits-and possibilities-of our country's system of law"--

The American Dream is that anyone who works hard enough can be successful. It is a dream premised on equal opportunity; however, millions of racial, ethnic, religious, and gender minorities have found their opportunities for success limited--even in prison. What accounts for the discriminatory treatment of people who are already imprisoned? Relying on national data and interviews conducted by the author, this book argues that American prisons are not a tool for justice but a tool for the persecution of the weak by the powerful. The book details how African American, American Indian, and Hispanic inmates receive harsher punishments, including solitary confinement, and fewer rehabilitative programs, such as substance abuse treatment and mental health counseling. It also examines other injustices, including how female inmates suffer from a lack of rehabilitative services, Muslim inmates are placed in solitary confinement for practicing their religious beliefs, American Indians are disproportionately punished, and undocumented immigrants are forced from prison to prison in the middle of the night.

"This book examines the current system of pretrial release in the United States and argues that its reliance on cash bail has led to extremely high rates of pretrial detention, particularly of the poor. The book reviews the history, purpose, and structure of bail systems in the United States, paying particular attention to jurisdictions that have moved from a cash-bail system to a system based on risk. The book synthesizes the current research on bail and discusses the social and economic consequences of pretrial detention. In addition, it explores the role of commercial bond, the development of community bail funds, and the use of pretrial risk assessment. The authors critique current bail reform efforts, pointing out the strengths and drawbacks of numerous suggestions that might improve pretrial justice processes while simultaneously reducing socioeconomic inequalities in bail and pretrial detention outcomes"--Provided by publisher.

"Utilizing narrative, statistics and history, this book identifies and dispels 21 popularly-held myths about mass incarceration"--