Criminal Law

On July 17, 2018, starting an unjust war became a prosecutable international crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Crime of Aggression is Noah Weisbord's riveting insider's account of the high-stakes legal fight to enact this historic legislation and hold politicians accountable for the wars they start. Weisbord, a key drafter of the law for the International Criminal Court, takes listeners behind the scenes of one of the most consequential legal dramas in modern international diplomacy.

An insightful look at how cross-racial friendships work and fail within American society. In a U.S. national survey conducted for this book, 70% of respondents strongly agreed that friendships across racial lines are essential to making progress toward improving race relations. However, further...

A revelatory account of the misdemeanor machine that unjustly brands millions of Americans as criminals. Punishment Without Crime offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Based on extensive...

Makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the Innocence Movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal. In Rectify, a former Innocence Project director and journalist Lara Bazelon puts a face to the growing number of...

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST "Compelling, insightful and important, Beneath a Ruthless Sun exposes the corruption of racial bigotry and animus that shadows a community, a state and a nation. A fascinating examination of an injustice story all too familiar and...

“A bold, new voice.” —People “A nuanced addition to the #MeToo conversation.” —Vice A young survivor tells her searing, visceral story of sexual assault, justice, and healing in this gutwrenching memoir. The numbers are staggering: nearly one in five girls ages fourteen to seventeen...

Praised by The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; Bitch Magazine; Slate; Publishers Weekly; and more, this is “a bracing corrective to a national mythology” (New York Times) around the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from...

Called “the best kind of nonfiction” by Michael Connelly, this riveting new book combines true crime, brain science, and courtroom drama. In 1991, the police were called to East 72nd St. in Manhattan, where a woman's body had fallen from a twelfth-story window. The woman’s husband, Herbert...

A psychologist's gripping, troubling, and moving exploration of the brutal murder of a possibly transgender middle school student by an eighth grade classmate On Feb. 12, 2008, at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed his classmate, Larry King, who...

A powerful look at Loving v. Virginia—the landmark case of interracial love and marriage that changed American history and inspired the 2016 film. “White supremacy has long foiled love, and love has long foiled white supremacy. Sheryll Cashin offers us this essential historical revelation...

In this heart-wrenching memoir, former NFL star Kermit Alexander tells the devastating true story of the horrific massacre of his family and his subsequent years of despair, followed by a spiritual renewal that showed him a way to rebuild his family and reclaim his life. On the morning of August...

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year
A finalist of the for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime

The inside story of how a courageous FBI informant helped to bring down the KKK organization responsible for a brutal civil rights–era killing.

By early...

A riveting investigation into a cold case asks how much control women have over their bodies and the direction of their lives. In July 1970, eighteen-year-old Paula Oberbroeckling left her house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and never returned. A cold case for fifty years, Paula’s story had been...

A comprehensive history of school choice in the US, from its birth in the 1950s as the most effective weapon to oppose integration to its lasting impact in reshaping the public education system today. Most Americans today see school choice as their inalienable right. In The Choice We Face...

One in 10 American children has a parent under criminal justice supervision - incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. One in 33 American children - and one in eight African American children - goes to sleep without access to a parent because that parent is in jail. Despite these staggering numbers, the children of prisoners remain largely invisible to society. Journalist Nell Bernstein shows, through the deeply moving stories of real families, how the children of the incarcerated are routinely punished for their parents' status.

A bold and impassioned meditation on injustice in our country that punctures the illusion of a postracial America and reveals it as a place where authoritarianism looms large. Whether the issues are protest, labor, patriotism, or class division, it is clear that professional sports are no longer...

Tired of being bullied, a scrawny, impoverished Dawood Ibrahim is looking for a saviour, Khalid Khan Bachcha, who would teach him the ropes of handling a bunch of hooligans. Instead, what he gets is a mentor who eventually transforms him into a cunning mafia boss. In Dawood's Mentor, Dawood...

"Enthralling . . . A page-turner that can hold its own with any one of the many murder-minded podcasts out there." —Jezebel From the acclaimed biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and...

In this disturbing yet elegant exposé of U.S. penitentiaries and their surrounding communities, Sasha Abramsky shows how American prisons have abandoned their long-held ideal of rehabilitation, often for political reasons. After surveying our current state of affairs-life sentences for...

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 these problems. Dominique Gilliard explores the history and foundation of mass incarceration, examining Christianity's role in its evolution and expansion. He assesses our nation's ethic of meritocratic justice in light of Scripture and exposes the theologies that embolden mass incarceration.