The fear of too much justice Race, poverty, and the persistence of inequality in the criminal courts

The U.S. criminal justice and carceral systems seem to serve many purposes. Unfortunately, actual justice does not usually seem to sit atop that list. Law professor Kwak and lawyer Bright make the case for a humane system that supports the primacy of justice over other, often-conflicting priorities. They break down many contradictory and interconnected issues, from various prosecutors to the judge pipeline to excessive fees from private bond companies that lead to a system in which poverty, race, and mental-health status become detrimental to fairness. It is a thorough examination, providing an abundance of examples and cases from across the country and also from court decisions on up to those of the U.S. Supreme Court. This includes hopeful decisions that never fulfill their promise to frustrating cases denied on the merest nuance or technicality. While the overall style is direct, this is also a passionate and eye-opening behind-the-scenes account of the world of criminal justice and the lives impacted by the system's injustices, the men and women facing loss of liberty, loss of hope, and even death.

Yale law professor Bright and legal scholar Kwak (Economism) delineate in this urgent call to action the ways in which inequality "continues to infect our criminal legal system." According to the authors, many defendants are assigned incompetent counsel, leaving them as good as defenseless; prosecutors exercise tremendous power with little oversight (for example, they threaten defendants with excessive jail time in order to force them into plea bargains); judges "make rulings with an eye on their upcoming elections," which have become "contests over who the most determined to execute people"; fees imposed by the court system keep people who cannot pay in jail, while warrants are issued for the arrest of those in arrears; and private prisons profit when the imprisoned population increases. Bright and Kwak provide extensive insight into problems with the current procedures and protocols of the criminal justice system, and propose reasonable solutions like banning court fees and for-profit incarceration, the elimination of judicial elections, and limits on prosecutors' power. This is an invaluable resource for advocates of criminal justice reform. (June)