Until we reckon : violence, mass incarceration, and a road to repair

Until we reckon Violence, mass incarceration, and a road to repair

Danielle Sered

Book - 2019

In the eloquent tradition of Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, an award-winning leader in the movement to end mass incarceration takes on the vexing problem of violent crime. Although over half the people incarcerated in America today have committed violent offenses, the focus of reformers has been almost entirely on nonviolent and drug offenses. Danielle Sered's brilliant and groundbreaking Until We Reckon steers directly and unapologetically into the question of violence, offering approaches that will help end mass incarceration and increase safety. Widely recognized as one of the leading proponents of a restorative approach to violent crime, Sered asks us to reconsider the purposes of incarceration and argues persuasively that the ...needs of survivors of violent crime are better met by asking people who commit violence to accept responsibility for their actions and make amends in ways that are meaningful to those they have hurt--none of which happens in the context of a criminal trial or a prison sentence. Sered launched and directs Common Justice, one of the few organizations offering alternatives to incarceration for people who commit serious violent crime and which has produced immensely promising results. Critically, Sered argues that the reckoning owed is not only on the part of those who have committed violence, but also by our nation's overreliance on incarceration to produce safety--at great cost to communities, survivors, racial equity, and the very fabric of our democracy.

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Subjects
Restorative justice.
Published
New York : The New Press 2019.
Language
English
Main Author
Danielle Sered (author)
Physical Description
305 pages ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781620974797
  • Introduction
  • 1. Across the River of Fire
  • 2. Prison's Broken Promise
  • 3. In Praise of Accountability
  • 4. Displacing Incarceration
  • 5. Policy and Power
  • 6. The Opposite of Violence
  • 7. Our Reckoning
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index of Names
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this passionate plea for change, Sered, founder and director of Common Justice, argues for an alternative to punitive jailing to address violent crime and its effects on victims, perpetrators, and communities. In contrast to the approach of punitive incarceration, which, in Sered's view, decreases safety, healing, and recidivism rates, Sered's program focuses on restorative justice, an alternative centered on accountability: acknowledging responsibility for one's actions, acknowledging the impact of one's actions on others, expressing genuine remorse, taking actions to repair the harm (when feasible) as guided by the victims, and no longer committing similar harm. She methodically refutes many tenets of the "deterrence theory," which relies on incarceration to prevent crime, noting the influence of structural racism, and points out that restorative justice has been shown in studies of the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. to reduce "recidivism rates by as much as 44 percent." The book is at its strongest and most convincing when Sered provides real-life stories of restorative justice, as when the perpetrator of a mugging teaches his victim self-defense techniques that allow him to overcome the fear of walking in public the mugging had sparked. This proposal to change the way American society deals with violent crime will expand readers' horizons. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Review by Kirkus Book Review

In her first book, the founder of Brooklyn-based Common Justice convincingly attacks the conventional wisdom about violent crimes, appropriate punishment, and how to repair the criminal (in)justice system.Sered's organization brings together crime victims and perpetrators to experience a process known as restorative justice. Common Justice always begins with the crime victims, who are rarely heeded and often downright ignored by police, prosecutors, and judges. The author and her small staff listen carefully to victims of all kinds of violence. In most jurisdictions, a large percentage of perpetrators are never arrested. If an arrest occurs, well over 90 percent never reach the trial stage, and the vast majority of plea-bargained convictions terminate in private, with the victim nowhere near the negotiating venue. Even when conventional wisdom maintains that a prison sentence is a positive outcome for the victim, Sered has learned that rarely do victims heal quicklyif ever. The physical injuries and/or mental anguish do not disappear simply because a perpetrator is incarcerated. In addition to destroying myths about victimhood, the author attacks incarceration as a positive outcome for anybody, especially because prisons offer no accountability from the perpetrator that reaches the victim and no rehabilitation that benefits society eventually. Violence in every neighborhood must be attacked at its roots, Sered argues convincingly, and the evidence is overwhelming that mass incarceration never halts ongoing neighborhood violence. "If incarceration worked to secure safety," she writes, "we would be the safest nation in all of human history.If incarceration worked to stop violence, we would have eradicated it by nowbecause no nation has used incarceration more." The author provides clear, specific evidence for her contention that the new conventional wisdom must be survivor-centered, accountability-based, safety-driven, and racially equitable. The case studies of restorative justice that punctuate every chapter offer undeniable proof that Common Justice's tactics are succeeding and should be more widely applied.A top-notch entry into the burgeoning incarceration debate. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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