Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

Others supported harsh measures more reluctantly, believing they had no other choice in the face of a public safety emergency. Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime. The result is an original view of our justice system as well as a moving portrait of the human beings caught in its coils.. An original and consequential argument about race, crime, and the law. Many came to believe that tough measures - such as stringent drug and gun laws and "pretext traffic stops" in poor African American neighborhoods - were needed to secure a stable future for black communities. Drawing on his experience as a public defender and focusing on Washington, DC, Forman writes with compassion for individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas - from the young men and women he defended to officials struggling to cope with an impossible situation. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. As Forman shows, the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office around the country amid a surge in crime. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics - and their impact on people of color - are feeding outrage and a consensu

"Hard truths about crime control policy" according to Michael S. Scott. James Forman has done a masterful job documenting the political, social and criminal justice dynamics of the mass arrest and incarceration period, largely fueled by the crack cocaine epidemic. It’s a complex dynamic that he describes accurately and fairly. This book serves as an important corrective to some of today’s collective amnesia about how we got to the point where we are today with regard to policing and incarceration, and the disparate impact it has had on lower-class African American communities. Forman appropriately focuses on the strategic choices made—by police, prosecutors, judges, and political l. this is a really good read. You find yourself engrossed in the story Steven C. Pitts First of all, this is a really good read. You find yourself engrossed in the story as people's lives become real. Equally important: the story in powerful. Forman presents a nuanced view of the complicated relationship between the Black community and the various policy and administrative moves that brought about the rise in incarceration rates since the 70s. In addition, Forman shows how various strata of the Black community responded to and were impact by the rise in mass incarcerationfrom Black nationalists who felt fighting the war on drugs with punitive measures was part of saving the race; to pastors who felt the cry of par. Overpowering, supremely impressive and wise Fred Moody I've never read such a thoroughly nuanced discussion of the surprising history behind mass incarceration and racial disparity in law enforcement. One of the best (and most moving) books I've read on any subject, in any genre.