Maya Schenwar

Eye Opening Yet Flawed. From a standard sociological talking point side, this book is eye opening yet also perfectly in-line (almost within perfect lock-step, in fact) with current sociological understanding - or at least my own understanding of current sociological understanding. (And this, from a guy that *long ago* presented at a sociological conference as a college freshman - just to establish that I do in fact have a *modicum* of academic understanding here. ;) ) In the forward, Michelle Alexander shows that despite the years, her own blinders and biases are still perfectly in place - but also sets the overall tone for the book. In short, this does for government controls outside the actual mass incarceration system what Alexander's The New Jim Crow did for the mass incarceration system and what Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop did for the actual history of police militarization and brutality in the US. Indeed, ultimately this is a book that belongs in the same libraries and conversations as those two magnum opuses as a definitive text on the issue that every single person in America needs to read. Yes, it is *that* powerful, even for someone who has read both of the aforementioned books, who has been an activist for quite some time, and know knows more about these issues than many, perhaps most, people currently talking about them in media (either professional or social).

Its critical flaws are similar to Alexanders' own: it has a near laser focus on race as the root cause. Where this book gains the extra star above Alexander's book is that key word "near". Schenwar and Law do a commendable job of listing other leading causes of these issues - chiefly, being poor no matter the color of your skin - even while most often listing race as the most common cause. At that point, I'm more willing to call six of one/ half a dozen of the other, it is so well balanced here.

But arguably the biggest flaw of the book is that even while constantly preaching about the perils of government control systems, it still manages to advocate for *more*... government control systems, simply targeting other people. Even as it preaches community and alternatives to police, prison, and the various systems described in the book, it still ultimately demands ever more government programs rather than the true community Schenwar and Law claim to want. Rather than praising Anarchy and demanding a complete overthrow of the very government systems that cause the very problems they so accurately describe, they ultimately choose to love Big Brother even while asking him to be a little bit nicer.

And just as this ending is the ultimate tragedy of Orwell's 1984, so too it is the ultimate tragedy of this otherwise stupendous polemic. Recommended.… (más)

A hugely important book to read for folks looking and thinking about alternatives to incarceration and the ways that most of the "reforms" that are being currently offered are in fact functionally the same as prison and may, in some cases, be worse in terms of stretching out a person's punishment for far longer than if they had been sent to prison for the original crime they were accused of.

It's infuriating at every step (I started out reading this book right before I went to bed and ended up having to swap up my book line up because I would get so angry I couldn't sleep,) and I could see people reading this and being frustrated that more time isn't spent on alternatives that are actually useful (though they do discuss alternatives a little bit, it's not the entire focus of this book and really only shows up in the last chapter,) though I felt like it was fine and does the work it's meant to.

In a larger line up of books about ending the PIC, I would put it a little later (it's a great follow up to We Do This 'Til We Free Us,) but nonetheless it's a hugely critical read that energized me to continue to try to fight these forms of punishment and confinement that do nothing to stop harm and in fact only increase its prevalence.… (más)

A solid, interesting collection. I think if you're reading alongside other work about policing and police abolition right now (as I know many of us are, myself included,) I don't know that there's a whole lot here that is super new that isn't covered in more detail elsewhere. I think these short pieces through definitely could be used in excerpt, and I do think that the chapter on police violence against pregnant women in particular was the most new information to me and the most enraging in part because of that. If you want an easy entry, this is definitely a great place to start, and there are number of different voices from activists and writers, if you would prefer that to some other books out there that might be more academic (which isn't to say this isn't rigorous, but I think this is maybe an easier read than even like The End of Policing, which I read right before this.)

Definitely pick up if you're interested in teaching short pieces on police violence! Super worth it from a teaching perspective, I think.… (más)