by Greg Berman & Julian Adler ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2018
A brisk, thoughtful guide to mass incarceration alternatives, of interest to activists, lawyers, and forward-thinking law...
A clearly written, optimistic road map for moving beyond mass incarceration.
Berman and Adler are directors at the Center for Court Innovation, a think tank that “has created a broad range of alternative-to-incarceration and crime prevention programs in the New York area.” Their thesis is that such finely grained responses can change the ongoing narrative of racially discriminatory penalties, which have led to the current crisis in overimprisonment. They argue their focus in this book is not theoretical but relies on “real-life reforms that state and local policymakers and practitioners can make in the here and now to reduce our reliance on incarceration.” These are expressed in eight brief, punchy chapters, each built around an opening graph or statistic—e.g., a breakdown of who is behind bars or distinctions between high- and low-risk offenders. These lead into examinations of actual narratives of specific cities, such as community-based responses to Newark’s “horrible” municipal jail. There, attempts were made “to offer alternatives to jail and fines for misdemeanors,” changing the overall dynamic. Similarly, the authors argue that the public should accept a different definition of risk than the tough-on-crime model. “Researchers have documented that there are safe and effective alternatives to incarceration….At the heart of the Risk-Need-Responsivity model,” they write, “is the idea that it is possible to make more informed decisions about who is potentially dangerous and who isn’t.” Looking at Rikers Island, which some politicians wish to close, they note “perhaps the best hope for reducing New York City’s jail population is a new, citywide pretrial supervised release program.” They cover similar programs elsewhere to address domestic abuse and parole violation, finding surprising innovations in conservative states like Utah and Mississippi. Their case studies are well-researched and derived from activism and scholarship as well as the rehabilitative experiences of offenders, but their perspective remains realistic. They admit, “undoing America’s over reliance on incarceration will be difficult.”
A brisk, thoughtful guide to mass incarceration alternatives, of interest to activists, lawyers, and forward-thinking law enforcement professionals.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62097-223-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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by Greg Berman & Aubrey Fox
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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