This impressively cogent work about mass incarceration provides concrete actions to curb the excesses of a government...
A book delivers a scathing indictment of the American criminal justice system.
It’s clear that a social issue has reached critical mass when folks all across the political spectrum publicly recognize it as a fundamental problem. Such is the case with mass incarceration in the United States. As Woltz (The Path, 2014, etc.) points out in this ambitious work, the Department of Justice estimated in 2010 that 25 percent of American adults carry the burden of a criminal record. The author presents similarly alarming statistics throughout the text, but he also explains how things got to this point by means of concise historical analysis. Topics range from parole and plea bargains to jury rights and conspiracy statutes. In each chapter, Woltz examines the issue at hand, offers “action items,” and presents a case (often maddening and Kafkaesque in nature) to exemplify his argument. (On several occasions, he mentions his own bizarre encounters with the criminal justice system, but he recounts them in depth elsewhere.) Even the most politically astute readers may be surprised to learn that the much-criticized Citizens United Supreme Court decision “is actually the culmination of 130 years of misinterpretation by that same Court, ostensibly beginning with an offhand comment that was made by a Supreme Court justice in 1886 before the case [Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company] was even heard, but was left on the record.” Woltz paints such a bleak picture that some may wonder if the situation is essentially intractable due to the deep-seated financial and political interests at play. Others may question the viability of his recommendations, such as the abolishment of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Woltz seems aware of this potential hesitation, as he writes: “However, the nation has become so accustomed to these organizations being in power that it sounds foreign—almost insane—to talk about putting them back in the unconstitutional hole from which they sprang.” Thus, he concludes the book with what is perhaps a more achievable goal: “limit any donation to any politician to those living, breathing human beings who reside in their district of election.” This seemingly simple act, which would necessarily entail the overturning of Citizens United, would have far-reaching implications throughout the entire political landscape.
This impressively cogent work about mass incarceration provides concrete actions to curb the excesses of a government apparatus spinning out of control.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-938015-47-2
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Hybrid Global Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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