An impressively synoptic treatment of a complex and important subject.
Sullivan provides a comprehensive overview and sharp critique of the ways in which innocent children are harmed by the criminal justice system.
The author, an associate professor of international studies and global affairs at St. Mary’s University, begins his remarkably thorough study by observing that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world; while this is pointed out often enough, the consequences of this fact for the children of those imprisoned and detained is a strangely neglected subject. Sullivan focuses on these “collateral consequences,” the many ways in which the blameless children of those arrested, detained, or deported suffer from a “vicarious punishment.” Several categories of these sanctions are explored, including the denial of citizenship to the children of non-citizens deported or detained, family separations imposed at the border that leave children without their parents, the “denationalization” of children of those accused of terrorist activity, and the separation of Indigenous children from families that were seen as resistant to full assimilation. The author prosecutes a persuasive case detailing the unacceptable imbalance between the needs of preventive justice and deterrence on the one hand and the rights of children on the other: “Preventive justice approaches prioritize risk management over individual civil liberties and the presumption of innocence.” He discusses the practice of meting out “stealth punishments disguised as administrative sanctions,” disingenuously strategic ways to legally impose harsh penalties upon those who have committed no crime. Sullivan also lucidly discusses technically prohibitive subjects such as competing theories of punishment, rendered in admirably accessible language. The author can advocate too unreservedly for rehabilitation, especially given its spotty empirical track record. And some may object to the idea that, in the case of detention for an immigration violation, job training and education should be provided to “help the detainee to grow as a human being,” as this assertion goes far beyond the respect of individual liberties. Still, this is a rigorously researched and argued assessment of the ways in which the criminal justice system unduly disadvantages children who have committed no offense.
An impressively synoptic treatment of a complex and important subject.Pub Date: May 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780197671238
Page Count: 264
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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
PERSPECTIVES
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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