Justice Reform

James Comey, former FBI Director and New York Times bestselling author of A Higher Loyalty, uses his long career in federal law enforcement to explore issues of justice and fairness in the US justice system. James Comey might best be known as the FBI director that Donald Trump fired in 2017, but...

What do you do when divine law and the justice demanded by your conscience clash? Muslims have wrestled with this problem since the earliest caliphates. The mazalim courts, dating back to the eighth century, were the answer: courts where any subject could appeal directly to an Islamic ruler regarding any matter of justice. Mazalim courts, which were not bound by the rulings of an established school of Islamic law, could address crises in authority and order that Sharia courts could not.

Nicole Daedone entered federal custody on charges tied to her life’s work—the teaching of Orgasmic Meditation—and found herself inside the “belly of the beast,” the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. What she encounters there is a nation’s shadow made visible, and within it, an unexpected field of grace. Daedone meets women of immense courage and wit—OGs, hustlers, ministers, mystics—and even correctional officers whose quiet humanity breaks through the steel divide. Each holds a fragment of forgotten wisdom. Together, they turn the fluorescent corridors of ...

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Gilbert King comes a chilling exploration of one of America’s most haunting wrongful conviction cases. Based on the hit podcast, Bone Valley dives into the dark heart of rural Florida, where a young man’s life was upended by a tragic miscarriage of...

Despite reform efforts that have grown in scope and intensity over the last two decades, the machine of American mass incarceration continues to flourish. In this powerful polemic, formerly incarcerated activist, essayist, and organizer Emile Suotonye DeWeaver argues that the root of the problem is white supremacy.

An eye-opening exploration of American policy reform, or lack thereof, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement and how the country can do better in the future from Fredrik deBoer, “one of the sharpest and funniest writers on the internet” (The New York...

An accessible guide for activists, educators, and all who are interested in understanding how the prison system oppresses communities and harms individuals. The United States incarcerates more of its residents than any other nation. Though home to 5% of the global population, the United States...

"What if prison did not punish but actually healed? In The Prison Cure, Jesse J. Jacoby offers a revolutionary blueprint for reform. One born not from politics or theory, but from personal experience behind the walls. Incarcerated as a teenager, and later again as an adult for cannabis charges, Jacoby witnessed firsthand how the system breaks people further instead of helping them rise. While most surrendered to the cycle, he chose another path: Purity. Discipline. Nutrition. Inner transformation. Refusing to eat toxic meals designed to dull the spirit, he fasted for 94 days, lost 40 pounds...

A "persuasive and essential" (Matthew Desmond) work that will forever change how we look at life after prison in America through Miller's "stunning, and deeply painful reckoning with our nation's carceral system" (Heather Ann Thompson). Each year, more than half a million Americans are released...

An acclaimed legal scholar exposes the Supreme Court’s increasing use of unsigned, unexplained orders to change the law—all behind closed doors The Supreme Court has always had the authority to issue emergency rulings in exceptional circumstances. But since 2017, the Court has dramatically...

Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR This inspirational memoir serves as a call to action from prison reform activist Yusef Salaam, of the Exonerated Five, to turn our stories into tools for change in the pursuit of racial justice. They didn't know who they had. So begins Yusef Salaam telling his...

Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent 15 years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations - the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons - tell us much less than we think.

The explosive true story of America's most corrupt police unit, the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), which terrorized the city of Baltimore for half a decade. When Baltimore police sergeant Wayne Jenkins said he had a monster, he meant he had found a big-time drug dealer—one that he wanted to rob...

In his impassioned-yet-measured book, Rafael A. Mangual offers an incisive critique of America's increasingly radical criminal justice reform movement, and makes a convincing case against the pursuit of "justice" through mass-decarceration and depolicing. After a summer of violent protests in...

This Book speaks from the point of view of criminal justice reform and there are significant references to the impact on post incarcerated individuals of the existing framework of Occupational Licensing and how reform will assist in job creation.The proposed reforms come from a standpoint of job creation and improving entrepreneurial opportunities within California and beyond. This book is fact based with significant documentation and research and is a personal plea for reform to not only California legislators but those across the nation.

This book is the culmination of a lifetime of love and lessons that have shaped my personal journey from a young man in crisis to a champion for children. There were critical moments in my story where self-appointed “Hope Dealers” like my mother, Alice Lovelace, and my educator, Dr. Lorraine Wilson, intervened in my projected course to failure. The lessons I learned from them became the foundation of my own work with and for young people facing challenges that they often did not believe they can face alone: hopelessness, shame, disability, tragic home life, generally summed up as the ...

Judge Cordell, the first African American woman to sit on the Superior Court of Northern California, knows firsthand how prejudice has permeated our legal system. And yet, she believes in the system. From ending school segregation to legalizing same-sex marriage, its progress relies on legal professionals and jurors who strive to make the imperfect system as fair as possible. Her Honor is an entertaining and provocative look into the hearts and minds of judges.

In Get Off My Neck, Debbie Hines draws on her unique perspective as a trial lawyer, former Baltimore prosecutor, and assistant attorney general for the State of Maryland to argue that US prosecutors, as the most powerful players in the criminal justice system, systematically target and criminalize Black people. Hines describes her disillusionment as a young Black woman who initially entered the profession with the goal of helping victims of crimes, only to discover herself aiding and abetting a system that prizes plea bargaining, speedy conviction, and excessive punishment above all else.

The audiobook features an introduction written and read by Prentis Hemphill as well as an exclusive bonus conversation with the author and adrienne maree brown. In AN ABOLITIONIST’S HANDBOOK, Cullors charts a framework for how everyday activists can effectively fight for an abolitionist...

Vision of a Better World: Exploring the Enduring Ideas of Thomas More invites readers into the life, writings, and moral convictions of one of history’s most influential thinkers. Lawyer, statesman, humanist, and author of Utopia, Thomas More lived during a time of dramatic change as Renaissance humanism flourished and the Reformation began to reshape Europe. His ideas about justice, conscience, property, education, and the common good continue to spark debate five centuries after his death. This book explores More’s vision in depth, examining the foundations of his humanist thought, ...