A provocative addition to the literature calling for criminal justice reform.
A multifaceted look at the problem of crime, punishment, and injustice.
Many of the contributors to this assemblage by law school professors Dharia, Forman, and Hawilo note that the U.S. is a carceral state. Owing to the Nixon-era war on crime, the country “began to expand the criminal system in a way that was so wide-ranging it enveloped whole communities…[and] punished an ever-increasing number of behaviors for ever-longer periods of time.” One result is that communities of color are vastly overrepresented in the carceral system, with Black males imprisoned at five times the rate of whites. This is both deliberate and in some respects an unintended consequence: The criminal system, write the editors, “isn’t a system at all” but instead “a series of largely disconnected actors, structures, and bureaucracies, each following their own incentives and logics.” In this system, blame is easy to assign; prosecutors blame judges for harsh sentences, judges blame prosecutors for funneling so many cases to the bench and legislatures for imposing minimum sentencing requirements, and so forth. The numbers the contributors adduce are staggering: More Americans work in the criminal justice system than in the auto-manufacturing sector, and nearly a tenth of the nation’s population has been arrested or jailed. While it is true that, as crime reporter Jill Leovy notes, “victims get no press coverage,” much of the criminal justice system works in the shadows, with many criminals whisked away in plea bargains that may net them worse punishment than if they had gone to trial. While some of the contributors support abolition or defunding of police forces, others take a far more conservative position. All agree, however, that the present system is both flawed and fundamentally unjust. Other contributors include Angela Y. Davis, Clint Smith, and Emily Bazelon.
A provocative addition to the literature calling for criminal justice reform.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780374614492
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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