A Reader on Race and Justice

Papachristou’s splendid collection of essays on the “severe racial skewering” of justice sheds light on the implications of America leading the world in per-capita inmate populations—and that “more black Americans are incarcerated than ever were enslaved at one time.” The anthology leads the reader through the several stages of the criminal justice system: who gets arrested; how police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and juries really work; what sentencing practices are; how prisons operate; what “collateral consequences” in the family and broad community are, as “the punishment never stops.” Papachristou is broadly inclusive in his selection of scholarly paper, advocacy report, op-ed essay, blog, and excerpts from the most recent books mingle in this comprehensive gathering, buttressed by statistics and given historical and legal contexts. Racial profiling in New Jersey, stop and frisk in New York City, victimization by the war on drugs, peremptory strikes excluding African-American from juries, “death penalty politics,” disenfranchisement—it’s all here and more. Even as voice, tone, and focus vary, the collection has the coherence of a single narrative that’s scholarly enough to satisfy the pickiest reader and readable (and important) enough for the layman. (Nov.) . ,