Summary: The number of Americans who live behind bars has increased by 550 percent over the last 40 years. This has been the result of aggressive tough-on-crime legislation that had more harmful effects than lawmakers could have foreseen. Experts now see the problem but disagree on the solutions. Does incarceration limit crime, or does it simply feed into a cycle of problems that harm society and create...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Greenhaven Publishing, LLC 2018

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Young Adult Non-fiction, Call number: YA 365 MAS

Beety, Valena E.

Summary: "From a former federal prosecutor turned champion of the wrongfully convicted, this powerful and profound book follows the stories of women reclaiming their freedom and creates a new blueprint for remaking our deeply flawed criminal legal system." -- Inside front jacket flap.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Citadel Press, Kensington Publishing Corp. 2022

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 345.73 BEE

Dreisinger, Baz

Summary: "Beginning in Africa and ending in Europe, Incarceration Nations is a first-person odyssey through the prison systems of the world. Professor, journalist, and founder of the Prison-to-College-Pipeline, Dreisinger looks into the human stories of incarcerated men and women and those who imprison them, creating a jarring, poignant view of a world to which most are denied access, and a rethinking...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Other Press 2016

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 365 DRE

Spence, Gerry

Summary: "We all want to feel safe. But safe from what, and from whom? In his 60-plus years as a trial lawyer, Gerry Spence has never represented a person accused of a crime in which the police hadn't themselves violated the law. Whether by covering up their own corrupt dealings, by the falsification or manufacture of evidence, or by the outright murder of innocent civilians, those individuals charged...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: St. Martin's Press 2015

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 363 SPE

Pfaff, John F.

Summary: "Pfaff argues that existing accounts of the causes of mass incarceration are fundamentally misguided. The most widely accepted explanations--the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons--actually tell us much less than we like to think. Instead, Pfaff urges us to look at other factors, including a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Basic Books 2017

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 365 PFA

Summary: How do wrongful convictions happen, and what are the consequences for the lucky few who are acquitted, years after they are proven innocent? Fourteen exonerated inmates narrate their stories, while another exoneree's case is explored. They detail every aspect of the experience of wrongful conviction, as well as the remarkable depths of endurance sustained by each exoneree who never lost hope.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Liveright Publishing Corporation 2017

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 364.973 CAL

Summary: Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne begins making a film for Zachary, son of his oldest friend who was murdered by Zachary's mother. The film's focus shifts to Zachary's grandparents as they fight to win custody of Zachary from the woman who took their son's life.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Oscilloscope Pictures 2009

Copies Available at Woodmere

2 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC DEA

Brown, Julie K.

Summary: "Dauntless journalist Julie K. Brown recounts her uncompromising and risky investigation of Jeffrey Epstein's underage sex trafficking operation, and the explosive reporting for the Miami Herald that finally brought him to justice while exposing the powerful people and broken system that protected him"--

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Dey Street 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 306.3 BRO

Larson, Doran

Summary: "In Inside Knowledge incarcerated people step forth as the primary witnesses and documentarians of the American prison's historical and ongoing defeat of the four cardinal rationales for the legal caging of human beings: rehabilitations, deterrence, containment, and retribution"--

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: New York University Press 2024

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in New Non-fiction, Call number: 365 LAR

Alexander, Michelle

Summary: Argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.

Format: sound recording-nonmusical

Publisher / Publication Date: Recorded Books 2020

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Compact Disc Audio Book, Call number: CD 364.973 ALE

Cordell, LaDoris H.

Summary: 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. Cordell takes you...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Celadon Books 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 CORDELL, LADORIS H. COR

Copies Available at Peninsula

1 available in Adult, Call number: B CORDELL COR

Comey, James B.

Summary: "James Comey, former FBI Director and New York Times bestselling author of A Higher Loyalty, uses his long career in federal law enforcement to explore issues of justice and fairness in the US justice system. James Comey might best be known as the FBI director that Donald Trump fired in 2017, but he's had a long, varied career in the law and justice system. He knows better than most just what a...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Flatiron Books 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 363.25 COM

Copies Available at Peninsula

1 available in Adult, Call number: 363.2509 COM

Senghor, Shaka

Summary: "In 1991, Shaka Senghor was sent to prison for second-degree murder. Today, he is a lecturer at the University of Michigan, a leading voice on criminal justice reform, and an inspiration to thousands. In life, it's not how you start that matters. It's how you finish. Shaka Senghor was raised in a middle class neighborhood on Detroit's east side during the height of the 1980s crack epidemic. An...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Convergent Books 2016

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 SENGHOR, SHAKA SEN

Cruz, Ted

Summary: "The left has corrupted the U.S. legal system. Wielding the law as a weapon, arrogant judges and lawless prosecutors are intimidating, silencing, and even imprisoning Americans who stand in the way of their radical agenda. Their "enemies list" even includes parents who dare to speak up for their children at school board meetings. In this shocking new book, Senator Ted Cruz takes readers inside...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Regnery Publishing 2022

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 349.73 CRU

Tuerkheimer, Deborah

Summary: Sexual misconduct accusations spark competing claims: her word against his. How do we decide who is telling the truth? The answer comes down to credibility. But as this book reveals, invisible forces warp the credibility judgments of even the well-intentioned among us. We are all shaped by a set of false assumptions and hidden biases embedded in our culture, our legal system, and our psyches....

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: HarperCollins Publishers 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 363.25 TUE

Winston, Ali

Summary: "Over the last 60 years, more has been done in Oakland to reform policing than any other American city-and yet, Oakland has failed to reign in the tendencies of its police to prey upon, rather than protect, its communities. Why is this, and what does it mean both for Oakland, and for America? THE RIDERS COME OUT AT NIGHT will be the first authoritative account of the Oakland Police Department's...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Atria Books 2023

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 363.2 WIN

Shankar, Ravi

Summary: "The first time Ravi Shankar was arrested, he spoke out against racist policing on National Public Radio and successfully sued the city of New York. The second time, he was incarcerated when his promotion to full professor was finalized. During his ninety-day pretrial confinement at the Hartford Correctional Center -- a level 4, high-security urban jail in Connecticut -- he met men who shared...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: The University of Wisconsin Press 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 SHANKAR, RAVI SHA

Steinberg, Robin

Summary: "How would you like to be judged for the rest of your life by the worst thing you've ever done? We all think we are compassionate just like we all think we are honest. But true compassion is not innate. Compassion for others, especially those that we don't know or understand, must be learned. Our lack of compassion is perhaps most extreme in the exercise of criminal justice, where a person's...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Optimism Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 2023

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 340.092 STE

Goffman, Alice.

Summary: Forty years in, the tough on crime turn in American politics has spurred a prison boom of historic proportions that disproportionately affects Black communities. It has also torn at the lives of those on the outside. As arrest quotas and high tech surveillance criminalize entire blocks, a climate of fear and suspicion pervades daily life, not only for young men entangled in the legal system,...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Picador 2015

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 307 GOF

Stevenson, Bryan

Contents: Introduction: Higher ground -- Mockingbird players -- Stand -- Trials and tribulation -- The old rugged cross -- Of the coming of John -- Surely doomed -- Justice denied -- All God's children -- I'm here -- Mitigation -- I'll fly away -- Mother, mother -- Recovery -- Cruel and unusual -- Broken -- The stonecatchers' song of sorrow -- Epilogue.

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: 2015

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Book Club Kit, Call number: Book Club Kit 345 Stevenson

Haynes, Keeda J.

Summary: "Just weeks after graduating from the Dean's List from Tennessee State University, Keeda Haynes became an inmate at Alderson Federal Prison Camp, all for a crime she didn't commit. This was never meant to be her story. Her childhood was spent in church, band practice, and Girl Scouts meetings, and when she enrolled at TSU, the path ahead had seemed bright. Then one day her boyfriend had asked...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Seal Press 2021

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 HAYNES, KEEDA J. HAY

Summary: The encyclopedia of crime & justice not only discusses many different kinds of crime--from perjury to terrorism--but also looks at law enforcement, legal procedures and penalties and the social causes and wide-ranging impact of crimes on society. The articles reflect issues dominating the news and entertainment media--topics that are frequently discussed or assigned in both high school and...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Macmillan Reference USA 2002

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Reference, Call number: R 364.03 Enc

Summary: The encyclopedia of crime & justice not only discusses many different kinds of crime--from perjury to terrorism--but also looks at law enforcement, legal procedures and penalties and the social causes and wide-ranging impact of crimes on society. The articles reflect issues dominating the news and entertainment media--topics that are frequently discussed or assigned in both high school and...

Format: text

Publisher / Publication Date: Macmillan Reference USA 2002

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Reference, Call number: R 364.03 Enc