About this item
A revelatory account of the misdemeanor machine that unjustly brands millions of Americans as criminalsPunishment Without Crime offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Based on extensive original research, legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a massive petty offense system that produces over 13 million cases each year. People arrested for minor crimes are swept through courts where defendants often lack lawyers, judges process cases in mere minutes, and nearly everyone pleads guilty. This misdemeanor machine starts punishing people long before they are convicted; it punishes the innocent; and it punishes conduct that never should have been a crime. As a result, vast numbers of Americans--most of them poor and people of color--are stigmatized as criminals, impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of drivers' licenses, jobs, and housing.For too long, misdemeanors have been ignored. But they are crucial to understanding our punitive criminal system and our widening economic and racial divides.
About the Author
Alexandra Natapoff is an award winning legal scholar, a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, and Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine. An expert on the criminal justice system, she has helped draft legislation at both the state and federal levels and is quoted frequently by major media outlets. She has also been a federal public defender, a community organizer, and the recipient of an Open Society Institute Community Fellowship.
