Social Movements & the Law

"What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle."--Page 4 of cover.

"Police power was built on women's bodies. Men, especially Black men, often stand in as the ultimate symbol of the mass incarceration crisis in the United States. Women are treated as marginal, if not overlooked altogether, in histories of the criminal legal system. In The Streets Belong to Us - the first history of women and police in the modern United States - Anne Gray Fischer narrates how sexual policing fueled a dramatic expansion of police power. The enormous discretionary power that police officers wield to surveil, target, and arrest anyone they deem suspicious was tested, legitimized, and legalized through the policing of women's sexuality and their right to move freely through city streets. Throughout the twentieth century, police departments achieved a stunning consolidation of urban authority through the strategic discretionary enforcement of morals laws, including disorderly conduct, vagrancy, and other prostitution-related misdemeanors. Between Prohibition in the 1920s and the rise of 'broken windows' policing in the 1980s, police targeted white and Black women in distinct but interconnected ways. These tactics reveal the centrality of racist and sexist myths to the justification and deployment of state power. Sexual policing did not just enhance police power. It also transformed cities from segregated sites of 'urban vice' into the gentrified sites of Black displacement and banishment we live in today. By illuminating both the racial dimension of sexual liberalism and the gender dimension of policing in Black neighborhoods, The Streets Belong to Us illustrates the decisive role that race, gender, and sexuality played in the construction of urban police regimes"--

"This book explores the private weaponization of racial fear that drives modern-day enforcement of these Black and white spaces. More than any express hatred of African Americans or desire to return to formal segregation, private white actors today react to deeply ingrained, systemic, and often unconscious racial fear of Black people who appear "out of place" in their public environment. They weaponize this racial fear in a variety of ways, including by abusing 911 to enforce formal social control via armed government agents, by trafficking in racial fear to whitewash their own misdeeds through "racial hoaxes," and by exacting vigilante justice through extrajudicial killing under the guise of self-defense and standing one's ground. Each of these approaches perverts and exploits the weapon of choice - the criminal justice system - with violent repercussions for the Black targets of this subformal apartheid. More often than not, private actors employing these methods enjoy the express or implicit support of government officials at all levels, from local police departments to state legislatures to the United States Supreme Court"--

"Tens of thousands of innocent people are behind bars for offenses ranging from misdemeanors to capital crimes. But proving their innocence in the court of law is extraordinarily difficult. After conviction, the presumption of innocence vanishes, and a new presumption of guilt forms and ossifies over time. Our criminal justice system values finality over accuracy, even if it comes at the cost of an innocent person's wrongful conviction and even when there's good evidence they haven't committed the crime. In Barred, acclaimed legal scholar and pioneering innocence advocate Daniel Medwed argues that our justice system's stringent procedural rules are to blame for the ongoing punishment of the innocent. Every state gives criminal defendants just one opportunity to appeal their convictions to a higher court. Afterward, the wrongfully accused can pursue various post-conviction remedies, but all too often they fall short in leading to exoneration. Because of narrow guidelines and deferential attitudes toward lower courts, higher courts tend to uphold convictions, even when there is compelling evidence of a miscarriage of justice. And although the executive branch holds the power to release people who are in custody, it exercises this power sparingly and views with intense suspicion those who insist upon their innocence. The result is that a startling number of people are incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit; highly-publicized death-row exonerations are just the tip of the iceberg. The regime is stacked against the innocent, Medwed concludes, and the appellate and post-conviction process must be entirely overhauled. Through heart-wrenching real-life stories, alongside accessible descriptions of complex legal procedures, Barred exposes how our legal system perpetuates gross injustice and issues a powerful call for change"--

"Dr. Baden chronicles his six decades on the front lines of the fight for accountability within the legal system-including the long history of medical examiners of using a controversial syndrome called excited delirium (a term that shows up in the pathology report for George Floyd) to explain away the deaths of BIPOC restrained by police"--

"An urgent and definitive examination of how the legal system prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country's leading scholars on policing"--;Despite recent high-profile murders that have brought attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct, it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power. Schwartz exposes the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, with analysis about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants. He paints a compelling picture of the human cost of our failing criminal justice system, and reveals what tragically familiar calls for "justice" truly entail. -- adapted from jacket

"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

The city of White Plains, New York, has settled a lawsuit by the family of a man who was shot in his home by police after accidentally pressing his medical alert badge in 2011. Kenneth Chamberlain repeatedly told police he was fine and asked them to leave, but they refused, called him racial slurs and broke into his home before killing him. After a decade of legal action, the family agreed to a $5 million settlement with the city, but the local police association blasted the agreement and said it was not an admission of misconduct. “It doesn’t equate to accountability,” says Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., who now works to challenge police brutality and continues to ask for unsealed records related to his father’s death. “We need actual structural change,” says Mayo Bartlett, a human rights lawyer representing the Chamberlain family, who argues police misconduct must be addressed through legislation. “It has to be something that’s codified in law.”

"[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"--

We speak with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors about her new book, “An Abolitionist’s Handbook,” which lays out her journey toward abolition and 12 principles activists can follow to practice abolition, which she describes as the elimination of police, prisons, jails, surveillance and the current court system. “We have to imagine what we would do with these dollars, with these budgets, and they have to really be an imagination that’s grounded in care,” says Cullors. She also speaks about her community organizing in Los Angeles, which fought $3.5 billion worth of jail expansion, and her multi-year contract with Warner Bros. Television Group to create original storytelling content around abolition.

"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"--