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Locking up our own : crime and punishment in black America / James Forman Jr.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017Copyright date: ©2017Edition: First editionDescription: 306 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 9780374189976
  • 0374189978
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 364.973089/96073 23
LOC classification:
  • HV9950 .F655 2017
Other classification:
  • SOC001000 | SOC004000 | POL014000
Contents:
Introduction -- Part I. Origins. Gateway to the war on drugs : marijuana, 1975 -- Black lives matter : gun control, 1975 -- Representatives of their race : the rise of African American police, 1948-78 -- Part II. Consequences. "Locking up thugs is not vindictive" : sentencing, 1981-82 -- "The worst thing to hit us since slavery" : crack and the advent of warrior policing, 1988-92 -- What would Martin Luther King, Jr., say? : stop and search, 1995 -- Epilogue : the reach of our mercy, 2014-16.
Summary: "An original and consequential argument about race, crime, and the law today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics--and their impact on people of color--are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. 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. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime. As Forman shows, the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office around the country amid a surge in crime. 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. Some politicians and activists saw criminals as a "cancer" that had to be cut away from the rest of black America. Others supported harsh measures more reluctantly, believing they had no other choice in the face of a public safety emergency. Drawing on his experience as a public defender and focusing on Washington, D.C., 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. The result is an original view of our justice system as well as a moving portrait of the human beings caught in its coils."--Summary: "Recounts the tragic role that some African Americans--as judges, prosecutors, politicians, police officers, and voters--played in escalating the war on crime"--
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Holdings
Item type Current library Home library Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Book Book La Retama Central Library La Retama Central Library Nonfiction 364.97308996 FOR (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 43185002088100
Total holds: 0

Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-286) and index.

Introduction -- Part I. Origins. Gateway to the war on drugs : marijuana, 1975 -- Black lives matter : gun control, 1975 -- Representatives of their race : the rise of African American police, 1948-78 -- Part II. Consequences. "Locking up thugs is not vindictive" : sentencing, 1981-82 -- "The worst thing to hit us since slavery" : crack and the advent of warrior policing, 1988-92 -- What would Martin Luther King, Jr., say? : stop and search, 1995 -- Epilogue : the reach of our mercy, 2014-16.

"An original and consequential argument about race, crime, and the law today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics--and their impact on people of color--are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. 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. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime. As Forman shows, the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office around the country amid a surge in crime. 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. Some politicians and activists saw criminals as a "cancer" that had to be cut away from the rest of black America. Others supported harsh measures more reluctantly, believing they had no other choice in the face of a public safety emergency. Drawing on his experience as a public defender and focusing on Washington, D.C., 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. The result is an original view of our justice system as well as a moving portrait of the human beings caught in its coils."--

"Recounts the tragic role that some African Americans--as judges, prosecutors, politicians, police officers, and voters--played in escalating the war on crime"--

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