On the Run

Fugitive Life in an American City

By: Alice Goffman

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

A riveting, groundbreaking account of how the war on crime has torn apart inner-city communities. 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 but for their family members and working neighbors. Alice Goffman spent six years in one Philadelphia neighborhood, documenting the routine stops, searches, raids, and beatings that young men navigate as they come of age. In the course of her research, she became roommates with Mike and Chuck, two friends trying to make ends meet between low-wage jobs and the drug trade. Like many in the neighborhood, Mike and Chuck were caught up in a cycle of court cases, probation sentences, and low-level warrants, with no clear way out. We observe their girlfriends and mothers enduring raids and interrogations, "clean" residents struggling to go to school and work every day as the cops chase down neighbors in the streets, and others eking out livings by providing clean urine, fake documents, and off-the-books medical care. This fugitive world is the hidden counterpoint to mass incarceration, the grim underside of our nation's social experiment in punishing Black men and their families. While recognizing the drug trade's damage, On the Run reveals a justice system gone awry: It is an exemplary work of scholarship highlighting the failures of the war on crime and a compassionate chronicle of the families caught in the midst of it.

©2014 The University of Chicago (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A remarkable feat of reporting.... The level of detail in this book and Goffman's ability to understand her subjects' motivations are astonishing - and riveting." ( The New York Times Book Review)

The Only Bad thing about this book.

The changed titles of the individuals that truly questions if the things said were real. I kept wondering like who the actual characters were and where did this take place. It sometimes felt that she Alice Goffman didn't belong there and her presence might have altered some of the events. I feel that the story was making excuses of why these people were committing 'attempted murders', drug dealing, and other criminal activity.

A view from one side of the street......

Any additional comments?

Alice Goffman undertook a massive project for her academic dissertation in sociology - an ethnographic study documenting the lives of a group of people living in a predominately black, crime ridden neighborhood in Philadelphia. She ended up doing more than documenting - she lived in and around the 'hood for six years, becoming roommates with two of the young men who figure prominently in her book.

Goffman ends up being accepted as part of the scenery in the pseudonymous 6th Street, welcomed by a group of young men and their families to document their lives. And those lives are full of trouble - crime, drugs, poverty, arrests, warrants and any other number of hardships. Goffman immerses herself in part their lives, crossing the impartial observer line in many cases to become a participant.

Her statistics regarding young, poor black men are frightening. This book does serve to underscore what we see almost every day on news feeds. We also get to know the friends and families of this core group. Goffman does also make connections with people in the neigbourhood who are 'clean' and trying to make a good life without the crime, guns etc. These subjects are just as interesting, but receive less focus.

I did find that some stories were repeated in more than one chapter - Goffman seems to be using certain compelling incidents to illustrate numerous points she wants to highlight. I found the appendix of her own journey to and through the book quite fascinating.

On the Run is an accounting from one side of the street. There are some questions as to the veracity of some of the anecdotes and interactions that Goffman describes. Some of her own motives, behaviors and recollections have been called into question. Despite that, On the Run does provide much food for thought - and discussion.

Robin Miles was the narrator. She has a voice that is easy to listen to, clear and well modulated She is able to emphasize and empathize with a change in tenor and tone. She's also able to provide suitable voices when one of the subjects of the book is 'speaking'. I thought she interpreted the book well

Sociology as gripping as a novel

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This book is a repackaged sociology PhD thesis. It sets forth the results of research by a white, female student who embedded herself for several years in the world of young African-American men living in a poor urban neighborhood, many of whom are on probation or parole or have outstanding arrest warrants. She seeks to understand how their lives, and the lives of their families and neighborhood, are affected by this fact.

Some parts of the book are dense. True to its form, the book is organized thematically rather than as a continuous narrative. Moreover, the author devotes some space to a careful and sophisticated consideration of how problematic the project is. So, it requires some initial patience and persistence on the part of the reader. It cannot be listened to (or read) in a single sitting.

But as we get to know the principal characters and their stories, the book acquires the resonance, narrative arc and momentum of a tragic novel. The final chapter--a methodological appendix in which the author merely explains how she tried to embed herself in this world and to function as an invisible observer--tells the most powerful and shocking stories of all.

The artfulness of this book--and it is very artful and well written--lies in its appearance of artlessness. It presents itself as a PhD thesis that just happens to grip the reader with the power of a novel.

Any additional comments?

This book is a very good companion to Jill Leovy’s ‘Ghettoside,’ which is also available as an audio book. The two books describe the same phenomenon but from opposite sides of the blue line. Curiously, Leovy, a journalist who set out successfully to write popular true crime non-fiction with police officers as heroes, is the more analytical of the two. She provides an explanation of how wrong-headed policing values and policies have had bad consequences and how different values and policies might have different consequences. Goffman, the academic, has told the more affecting set of human stories, stories that illustrate the consequences of the values and policies that Leovy describes

I. love. this. book

This book was amazing. I will be replaying this soon. author also has a great ted talk

Assignment Turned Activity

I purchased this title as a requirement for my Urban Studies class. However, the author's diligence as a researcher, her dedication as a sociologist, and her compassion, bravery, and resolve as an individual-Made my assigned reading seem like recreation. There was not happy ending to this book, and although it's a on-fiction piece, I truly wished that there was.
There's been a "happy ending" of sorts for the author, despite the amount of backlash from law enforcement.

NO EXIT

Goffman spends six years of her life in a poor black neighborhood while commuting to college in Philadelphia, an amazing commitment for any well educated white American. “On the Run” is a picture of life in a low to no income inner-city neighborhood in America. Its focus comes from a white sociologist’s immersion in black families lives.

Goffman explains running, to many born in this environment, entails lying about your name, where you are going, who your family and friends are, and where you stay at night. The reason is that who you know, and where you sleep makes you vulnerable to the police or anyone searching for you. A good policeman will ask questions and take notes on everyone he/she talks to about someone they are looking for in the neighborhood.

Those who get caught for a crime are trapped in a circle of arrest, incarceration, bail, parole, non-payment of fines, re-arrest, more incarceration, more unpaid fines, and re-arrest. This systematic recycling of arrest and release is maddening and disturbing to reader/listeners of Goffman’s book. On the one hand you have people committing crimes against other people and on the other you have law enforcement doing its duty to reduce crime. Goffman offers a dismal picture of life in big city poor neighborhoods that recycle themselves with little hope for those seeking a better life.

Well-Written Look at Inner-city Black Life

First of all, Robin Miles' narration is excellent! There are a handful of cases where she places the emphasis on the wrong word, but overall, her fluid ability to switch back and forth between American Standard English and Black English makes this truly enjoyable to listen to.

The author's field work is very enlightening also. I finished listening to this book while I was also reading Peter Moskos' "Cop in the Hood," in which a Harvard-educated sociologist became a Baltimore City police officer for a year and a half to research and describe policing in inner-city neighborhoods. The two books in tandem provide a comprehensive look at both sides of a world that many middle and upper class people never experience (and actively avoid). I highly recommend them both.

Great narrative

The audio was everything inside the book. Excellent. Except that it didn’t narrated the acknowledgements but great anyway.

Best book out of the last 30

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Super interesting. I learned so many things! Very different from anything I'm familiar with

Constructive Look at Race in America

I found this highly entertaining as well as informative. As a sociological study or ethnography, it's more descriptive than opinionated. I grew up in a white suburb and have now lived in Detroit for over 40 years. I felt this book would help me to understand my adoptive city and it delivered. I'll think and feel a bit differently the next time I read in the local papers about a drive by shooting or drug crime. There few real villains in the book. Rather, it shows how the system works in this subculture and thus can help us to constructively engage with one another to improve our community.