Love that so many people in the justice system are resistant to understanding scientific progress and applying it to serving actual justice. The endinLove that so many people in the justice system are resistant to understanding scientific progress and applying it to serving actual justice. The ending in which the author is hopeful that the Biden administration will better serve justice than Trump did is like a knife in the chest, given we are now less than a week into a second Trump presidency. Any movement toward progress the justice system may have made in the last 4 years is going to be totally erased.
Does not surprise me that most modern refusals to entertain junk science was applied to civil cases in which the wealthy were the plaintiffs. Each system we have in this country is built for them and will only be changed for their benefit....more
3.5 stars. It's a textbook on a broad concept, so the topics aren't covered exhaustively, but it is a good overview of current & past influences betwe3.5 stars. It's a textbook on a broad concept, so the topics aren't covered exhaustively, but it is a good overview of current & past influences between how law shapes society and how society shapes the law....more
"Unlike the fantasies woven by politicians and practitioners of prison-like solutions, these [alternatives to prison] projects don't come premade and
"Unlike the fantasies woven by politicians and practitioners of prison-like solutions, these [alternatives to prison] projects don't come premade and perfectly packaged, ready to slip in to replace prisons. Instead, they all require a process of ongoing building: a process that's collaborative and doesn't depend on a hierarchal power to put it in place. It can't because, in order to truly move beyond prisons, we need to move beyond relying on all-powerful institutions."
Reading this has been dramatically transformative for my personal ethics and career goals. Anyone even remotely interested in social justice, human rights and/or prison abolition should pick it up....more
Read for CRJ201: Crime Control. Interesting text, in that it would lay out all the concepts of crime control that have been used/are being currently uRead for CRJ201: Crime Control. Interesting text, in that it would lay out all the concepts of crime control that have been used/are being currently used in the United States and then tell you that empirical studies have not proven the veracity of any of the policies. At most, you're given a slight nudge toward a possible positive/negative correlation, but with an added avalanche of disclaimers regarding the difficult of removing variables from the sociological aspect of the work and therefore the results should always be taken with a grain of salt. A shaker of it. A goddamn salt lick. Basically, don't ever trust studies to be conclusive....more
"The notion that all of these reforms can be accomplished piecemeal—one at a time, through disconnected advocacy strategies—seems deeply misguided. Al"The notion that all of these reforms can be accomplished piecemeal—one at a time, through disconnected advocacy strategies—seems deeply misguided. All of the needed reforms have less to do with failed policies than a deeply flawed public consensus, one that is indifferent, at best, to the experience of poor people of color. [...] Those who believe that advocacy challenging mass incarceration can be successful without overturning the public consensus that gave rise to it are engaging in fanciful thinking, a form of denial."
One of my biggest take aways from this book, outside of the truly horrifying recounting of America's racism, is that reform should be consciously movement-building in order to achieve forward motion. It taught me that challenging legal routes and financial backers are not the (only) way to change, because it will just perpetuate new forms of the same systems of control. ...more