Justice Reform

The United States incarcerates more of its residents than any other nation. Though home to five percent of the global population, the United States has nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners - a total of over two million people. This number continues to steadily rise. Over the past 40 years, the number of people behind bars in the United States has increased by 500 percent.

40-year experience and investigation of the criminal justice system to find a solution to the nation's crime problem. Authors criminal justice education and skills span 40 years beginning in college and concluding in the present, with a compelling, urgent call for action. Building a persuasive case, the author's journey includes his extensive criminal justice career, beginning in college studying criminology during the Carter administration. In 1976 he turned in his "Crime Problem" thesis detailing what was wrong what needed to be fixed. He then went work in almost all aspects of in the ...

Judge Cordell, the first African American woman to sit on the Superior Court of Northern California, knows firsthand how prejudice has permeated our legal system. And yet, she believes in the system. From ending school segregation to legalizing same-sex marriage, its progress relies on legal professionals and jurors who strive to make the imperfect system as fair as possible. Her Honor is an entertaining and provocative look into the hearts and minds of judges.

What if the Republic you thought you lived in… no longer exists? In The Rise and Fall of a Republic, RJ delivers a piercing indictment of America’s slow but deliberate descent into authoritarianism. From warrantless surveillance and militarized policing to technocratic governance and the silencing of dissent, this provocative work traces how the foundational principles of liberty, justice, and self-rule have been eroded—not by invasion, but by institutional betrayal. Drawing on history, legislation, Supreme Court rulings, and real-world examples, this book exposes: The hidden ...

How can we be proud of a system of justice that often pressures the innocent to plead guilty? How can we claim that justice is equal when we imprison thousands of poor Black men for relatively modest crimes but rarely prosecute rich white executives who commit crimes having far greater impact? Federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a leading authority on white-collar crime, explores these and other puzzles in Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free, a startling account of our broken legal system.

A Just Future addresses the precarious future of American higher education and diversity and inclusion initiatives along with it. From a global pandemic to a national reckoning with anti-Blackness, the 2020 historical conjuncture brutally revealed the impact of structural inequalities on historically marginalized communities and galvanized college students, diversity officers, and educators on a scale not seen since the 1960s. In so doing, it exposed the unfinished business of the civil rights era and the limits of diversity and inclusion reforms.

Vincent Schiraldi was New York City probation commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg, supervising a system charged with monitoring 30,000 people on a daily basis. In Mass Supervision, he combines firsthand experience with deep research on the inadequately explored practices of probation and parole, to illustrate how these forms of state supervision have strayed from their original goal of providing constructive and rehabilitative alternatives to prison. They have become instead, Schiraldi argues, a "recidivism trap" for people trying to lead productive lives in the wake of a criminal conviction.

Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Messenger offers the first humane, journalistic expose of an American tragedy: modern-day debtor's prisons and how they've destroyed the lives of poor Americans.

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.

Government for the People: Promoting the Common Good In an era of chaos and division, uniting to promote the common good has never been more crucial. "Government for the People: Promoting the Common Good" is your guide to understanding the dysfunctions in our society and how we can transform them by prioritizing everyone's well-being. Feeling disillusioned by political corruption and social injustices? You're not alone. This book serves as a beacon of hope, reminding us that change is possible when we work towards shared goals. The concept of the common good, often overlooked in our fast-...

In 2025, the legacy of the One-Drop Rule still lingers, shaping society’s view of race and identity. Despite advances in science and growing global conversations on race, the concept of racial purity continues to influence how we categorize individuals, often limiting the complex, multifaceted nature of identity. In this groundbreaking exploration, Kaiim Daids takes readers on a compelling journey to unravel the historical roots of the One-Drop Rule, the struggle for multiracial recognition, and the movement toward racial fluidity in today's world. This book is more than just an academic ...

"In God's Will" "In God's Will" is a gripping, emotionally charged journey through the eyes of Demetric Richardson, a 19-year-old Black teenager from Saginaw, Michigan, wrongfully convicted of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life in prison, Demetric's world collapses as he loses his family, his hope, and nearly his life. But fate intervenes when he finds an ancient bottle in the prison yard that holds a powerful genie, offering him three wishes that will change the course of his destiny. This hauntingly beautiful story explores the depths of loss, the struggle for justice, and the ...

In Get Off My Neck, Debbie Hines draws on her unique perspective as a trial lawyer, former Baltimore prosecutor, and assistant attorney general for the State of Maryland to argue that US prosecutors, as the most powerful players in the criminal justice system, systematically target and criminalize Black people. Hines describes her disillusionment as a young Black woman who initially entered the profession with the goal of helping victims of crimes, only to discover herself aiding and abetting a system that prizes plea bargaining, speedy conviction, and excessive punishment above all else.

Bobby and Cheryl Love were living in Brooklyn, happily married for decades, when the FBI and NYPD appeared at their door and demanded to know from Bobby, in front of his shocked wife and children: “What is your name? No, what’s your real name?” Bobby’s thirty-eight-year secret was out. As a Black child in the Jim Crow South, Bobby found himself in legal trouble before his 14th birthday. Sparked by the desperation he felt in the face of limited options and the pull of the streets, Bobby became a master thief.

With its manicured lawns and well-kept college-style buildings, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida-the largest reform school in the country-always seemed like a model for how to turn wayward teens back into productive members of society. But for decades, the century-old school's alumni whispered about a nightmarish reality that lurked behind the gleaming facade - a legacy of beatings, sexual abuse, and even murder, the evidence buried in unmarked graves on the overgrown fringes of the property.

What would happen if the systems within our society focused on care and healing instead of growth and profit? In A Case for Compassion: What Happens When We Prioritize People and the Planet, Sara Schairer—a leader in the compassion field—examines five of our most influential systems: education, health care, corrections, law enforcement, and the workplace. Using personal narratives, research, thought-leader interviews, and examples of compassionate institutions, Schairer shows us that compassion can solve many of our society’s most pressing problems. You’ll read inspiring stories ...

This definitive people’s history of the recovery movement spans the 1970s to the present day and proves to readers just how essential mental health activism is to every person in this country, whether you have a current psychiatric diagnosis or not. In Fighting for Recovery, professor and mental health advocate Phyllis Vine tells the history of the former psychiatric patients, families, and courageous activists who formed a patients’ liberation movement that challenged medical authority and proved to the world that recovery from mental illness is possible.

Educators all over the country are waking to a collective realization: The hope and compassion they have for their students is not enough to counteract the inequitable policies and practices of the school system. Students and communities who have been historically disenfranchised along lines of race and disability continue to face predictable barriers to opportunity and independence. In Build Equity, Join Justice, the authors present a new path forward that leads away from deficit-focused policies and toward strengths-based practices.

For more than a generation, American education has been structured as though it was built of and for concepts, not people. This has transformed education into a vast assessment, scoring, and ranking enterprise; a sales platform for high-tech entrepreneurs; and a fiercely competitive arena of advantage and status that grinds the poor and propels the middle class into debt. In When the Light Goes On, educator Mike Rose features the stories of people of all ages and backgrounds to illuminate how education has added meaning to their lives.

A new collection of compelling and challenging essays from one of the nation's leading voices on criminal justice reform, 'Reducing Crime, Reducing Incarceration' makes the argument that sometimes small changes on the ground can add up to big improvements in the criminal justice system. How do you launch a new criminal justice reform? How do you measure impact? Is it possible to spread new practices to resistant audiences? And what’s the point of small-bore experimentation anyway? Greg Berman answers these questions by telling the story of successful experiments like the Red Hook ...