In their names : the untold story of victims' rights, mass incarceration, and the future of public safety

In their names The untold story of victims' rights, mass incarceration, and the future of public safety

Lenore Anderson

Book - 2022

"When twenty-six-year-old recent college graduate Aswad Thomas was days away from starting a professional basketball career in 2009, he was shot twice while buying juice at a convenience store. The trauma left him in excruciating pain, with mounting medical debt, and struggling to cope with deep anxiety and fear. That was the same year the national incarceration rate peaked. Yet, despite thousands of new tough-on-crime policies and billions of new dollars pumped into "justice," Aswad never received victim compensation, support, or even basic levels of concern. In the name of victims, justice bureaucracies ballooned while most victims remained on their own. In In Their Names, Lenore Anderson, president of one of the nation...9;s largest reform advocacy organizations, offers a close look at how the political call to help victims in the 1980s morphed into a demand for bigger bureaucracies and more incarceration, and cemented the long- standing chasm that exists between most victims and the justice system. She argues that the powerful myth that mass incarceration benefits victims obscures recognition of what most victims actually need, including addressing their trauma, which is a leading cause of subsequent violent crime. A solutions-oriented, paradigm-shifting book, In Their Names argues persuasively for closing the gap between our public safety systems and crime survivors"--

Saved in:
Place a Hold Save to List Email this

2nd Floor Show me where

364.6/Anderson
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 364.6/Anderson Checked In
Subjects
Discrimination in criminal justice administration > United States.
Racial profiling in law enforcement > United States.
Murder victims > United States.
Murder victims' families > United States.
Racism > United States.
Discrimination in criminal justice administration.
Murder victims.
Murder victims' families.
Race relations.
Racial profiling in law enforcement.
Racism.
United States > Race relations.
United States.
Published
New York : The New Press 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Lenore Anderson (author)
Physical Description
340 pages ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781620977125
  • Part I. A Marriage of Convenience
  • 1. A Traumatized Nation
  • 2. How the Call for Victims' Rights Led to Mass Incarceration
  • Part II. The Hierarchy of Harm
  • 3. Victims Seen and Unseen
  • 4. A Tale of Two Cities
  • 5. Good Victims, Bad Victims
  • Part III. Poisonous Priorities
  • 6. Up Is Down and Down Is Up
  • 7. The Public Safety Myth
  • Part IV. Hurt People and Healed People
  • 8. The Cycle of Trauma
  • 9. The Trauma of the Justice System
  • Part V. A New Safety Movement
  • 10. A New Victims' Right: Trauma Recovery for All
  • 11. A New Lens: Crime Survivors Speak
  • 12. A New Investment: Scaling Safety
  • 13. A New Justice: Stopping the Cycle of Trauma and Poverty
  • Conclusion: A Shared Safety
  • Author's Note
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

The idea that the rights of and justice for victims is central to criminal justice seems simple. But attorney Anderson, founder of Alliance for Safety and Justice, who has spent her career advocating for criminal justice reform, questions this notion. Historically, victim's rights movements have been allied with tough-on-crime stances shaped by the belief that victims and public safety are best served by the longest, harshest sentences possible. Anderson challenges this model of victim advocacy and its effectiveness. Who victims are, which victims are deemed worthy, and how support is or more often is not provided to them are central to understanding the need for reform. Race and socioeconomic status often leave victims entangled in the criminal justice system but outside the circle of protected victimhood. Drawing on relevant stories and pointing to successful changes at the state or city level, Anderson advocates for moving towards a community-based model to truly serve victims and those around them. This well-researched, results-driven, and readable work challenges ideas of victimhood and offers a way forward from mass incarceration to true public safety.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Anderson, the founder of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, debuts with a passionate and provocative indictment of how the victims' rights movement has warped the American justice system. Contending that victims' rights laws are a product of political expediency and opportunism, not sound policy, Anderson claims that they've contributed to mass incarceration by encouraging courts and prosecutors to value punishment over rehabilitation and police departments to "pay more attention to drug possessors than to rape survivors in communities of color." She credibly debunks public safety "myths" foundational to the victims' rights moment, including the notions that putting more people in prison translates into less crime and that "tough drug sentencing" is an effective deterrent. Her suggestions for reform include legislation to provide funds for victims as well as inmate rehabilitation programs, the implementation of community-based public safety initiatives, and more mental health resources. Throughout, Anderson documents harrowing miscarriages of justice and expresses heartfelt compassion for victims, inmates, and their families. The result is a lucid road map for a more humane criminal justice system. (Nov.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Similar Items