The price of mercy

For readers unfamiliar with the United States criminal justice system, this book offers an overview of how a criminal case proceeds and how everyday people can get trapped in the system through no fault of their own, as well as the experience of overwhelmed public servants. Defense attorney Almanza shares stories of previous clients who were involved with criminal activity to various degrees and their experiences of navigating police interactions, court dates, jail or prison time, and the aftermath. She elaborates on the ways taxpayer dollars continue cycles that seem to enforce bad behavior from all sides of a criminal case and how popular media's depiction of the court system skews public understanding of how it really functions. She concludes the book with multiple solutions for reforming the justice system; many of these are currently being tested in pilot programs around the country, demonstrating that change can be made, with positive outcomes. VERDICT This is a necessary work, a welcome addition to all general collections, and an excellent choice for book clubs.--Amanda Ray

A legal activist chronicles the many ways in which the justice system targets the poor. It's not news that judicial outcomes are often tied to the wealth and influence of a defendant: Not only do the well-to-do have the resources to hire good lawyers, but juries themselves tend to be made up of older, wealthier, white people. A predictable result, writes Galvin Almanza, is that defendants of color, represented by appointed public defenders, pull longer sentences and are disproportionate in the populations of jails and prisons. Consider, as she writes, that three miscreant white fraternity brothers are not likely to be branded a gang, but three teenage Black kids are. Shockingly, Galvin Almanza notes, "70 percent of people in jails are being held pretrial, not having been convicted of any crime." The wealthy and white are not usually among them. The author details the many failings of a system so strongly tied to class and ethnicity, despite the purported equality of law. Merely charge a person with a crime, she writes, and the chances are very good that he or she will soon be out of a job, whether summarily or because of having to miss work for endless court dates. Since much public housing assistance is contingent on a clean record, another consequence is often homelessness--and then, in many jurisdictions, being subject to arrest anew for sleeping on the street or in a park. "Bad rules and regulations and policies got us to this in the first place," Galvin Almanza urges. She adds that there are plenty of remedies available for them: abolishing three-strikes sentencing laws in favor of judicial discretion; expanding treatment and diversion programs; outsourcing crime labs (most of which are within police departments); and otherwise crafting a more humane process of restitution and rehabilitation over punishment, since "the data leads to an unavoidable conclusion that helping people is good." A thoughtful, persuasive call for a truly just system of justice. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.