Justice System

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson insisted that "the policeman is the frontline soldier in our war against crime", and police forces, arms makers, policy makers, and crime experts heeded this call to arms, bringing weapons and practices from the arena of war back home. The Punitive Turn in American Life offers a political and cultural history of the ways in which punishment and surveillance have moved to the center of American life and become imbued with militarized language and policies.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS A scathing portrait of an urgent new American crisis Over the last two decades, America has been falling deeper and deeper into a statistical mystery: Poverty goes up...

A troubled 21-year-old turned Columbia County, Oregon upside down within 14 minutes. January 5,2011 was about to be the last day of Ralph Painter’s life. There was no way the laid-back fun-loving Rainier Police Chief could have foreseen what was about to happen. What seemed like an average police call, to a man attempting to steal a car, turned into a gut-wrenching event. It's one that paralyzed a small Oregon town, and garnered nationwide attention. Author Rosemary Reynolds looks deep into the investigation and the evolution of one of Oregon’s longest untried court cases.

Justice Scalia served on the US Supreme Court for almost 30 years and was in many way the Conservative anchor of the court after his appointment by President Reagan in 1986. Justice Scalia was well-known for his intellectual firepower; acerbic writing; a preference for ideology over pragmatism; and conservatism based on Catholic theology, legal formalism, and economic libertarianism. This audiobook displays all of those aspects through five cases that showcase Scalia's legal perspectives.

It’s Career Day at the Brite Star School, and the class gets a visit from Brett’s parents. In What’s the Law?, Brett’s father, who is a lawyer, and Brett’s mother, who is a judge, help the class understand the basics of the court system.

Interweaving an insider’s account of the true crime saga driving Netflix sensation Making a Murderer with other controversial cases from his career, this powerful memoir from Steven Avery’s defense attorney reveals the flaws in America's criminal justice system and puts forth a provocative...

WINNER OF THE TENNESSEE BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A riveting courtroom drama about the victims of one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history—and the country lawyer determined to challenge the notion that, in America, justice can be...

In a razor-sharp legal thriller, Jack Kowalski must win two challenging trials to save his reputation and his career. Junior barrister Jack Kowalski is crushed. His client Timothy Smart appears to have committed a monstrous crime while on bail - a bail application Jack fought hard to win. When a high-profile Polish footballer is charged with rape and demands a fellow countryman represent him, Jack must overcome his guilt and get back to work.

Was a monstrous killer brought to justice or an innocent mother condemned? On an April night in 1989, Jo Ann Parks survived a house fire that claimed the lives of her three small children. Though the fire at first seemed a tragic accident, investigators soon reported finding evidence proving...

The US has the largest criminal justice system in the world. Because they spend enough time in prison to disrupt their connections to their families and their communities, they are not prepared for the difficult and often life-threatening process of reentry. As a result, the percentage of these people who return to a life of crime and additional prison time escalates each year. Beyond Bars is the most current, practical, and comprehensive guide for ex-convicts and their families about managing a successful reentry into the community.

Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data-driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost-effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment, under physical control by the state.

Crimes and violations of the law require punishment, and our legal system is set up to punish, but what if the system was recalibrated to also weigh grounds for forgiveness? What if something like bankruptcy - a fresh start for debtors - were available to people convicted of crimes? Martha Minow explores the complicated intersection of the law, justice, and forgiveness, asking whether the law should encourage people to forgive, and when courts, public officials, and specific laws should forgive.

From New York Times bestselling author and former top prosecutor Linda Fairstein comes an electrifying thriller rich with the riveting behind-the-scenes authenticity that only she can offer. Manhattan Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper is working feverishly on a tough trial, seeking justice for...

New York Times bestselling author Robert. K. Tanenbaum delivers his grittiest, most ethically challenging thriller yet, as New York chief assistant district attorney Butch Karp fights for his family in the wilds of West Virginia's coal mining country. While New York City sizzles beneath a...

Tanenbaum's done it again: Resolved is a complex, suspenseful tale of justice in the Big Apple, as a vengeful and sadistic killer sets his sights on the man who put him away -- New York Chief Assistant District Attorney Butch Karp. The fifteenth installment in Robert K. Tanenbaum's blistering...

From a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, a revelatory new account of slavery, uncovering a surprising web of relationships between Black and white people that ranges far beyond the familiar template of “master-slave” dynamics A white man hosts a wedding party for his Black servant and finds...

Deciding if a prisoner should stay in prison or be released is no mean feat. Enter the fascinating world of the parole board with Rob McKeon of BBC’s Parole. …You don’t know what you don’t know. How can you predict the future when you don’t know what you don’t know? Rob McKeon is a...

The courthouse is an important part of every story of mass incarceration in America and, too often, it is a place of powerlessness for those facing criminal charges, their families, and their communities. But the courthouse can also be an important site of resistance, a place where Americans affected by incarceration can become agents of change—even though they are not lawyers or judges.

Courtroom 302 is the fascinating story of one year in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country. Here we see the system through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, the spectators' gallery. From the daily grind of the court to the highest-profile case of the year, Steve Bogira's masterful investigation raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice in America.

America’s criminal justice system perpetuates profound social and racial harms. But despite growing recognition of its destructiveness, the vast machinery of the carceral state remains very much intact. How can its damage be undone? In this pathbreaking reader, three of the nation’s leading advocates for change provide us with tools to move from critique to action and from despair to hope. Dismantling Mass Incarceration surveys various approaches to confronting the carceral state, exploring a wide range of bold but practical interventions.