A valuable platform for advocates of judicial, penal, and police reform.
A searching examination of the criminal justice system in America, each of whose components is found wanting.
“American criminal justice is in crisis. It doesn’t do nearly enough to prevent crime, and it doesn’t deliver nearly enough justice.” So writes Stanford law professor and former U.S. attorney Sklansky. The four major elements of the justice system, from policing to punishment with prosecution and adjudication in between, are all hopelessly broken, the author argues. Policing focuses, oppressively, on poor people of color, most of whom would welcome equitable treatment, since “crime has devastating, disproportionate impacts on poor people and people of color, especially Black Americans.” Sklansky is not an advocate of defunding the police, but he does see numerous ways in which meaningful reforms can be carried out. Reforms in the other three areas of justice are also wanted. As Sklansky writes, prosecutors wield too much power overall, and much legal defense falls either on overworked and underpaid civil servants or on attorneys in private practice who effectively subcontract to governments of various levels. One way of reining in prosecutorial power, Sklansky writes in a provocative turn, is to put more responsibility on juries’ shoulders by explaining to them the possible outcomes of their decisions and having those juries do the sentencing: “Telling them forthrightly about the practical stakes of their verdict, whether or not they can weigh in on the sentence, will encourage them to take collective responsibility—as adjudicators and later, after the trial, as citizens.” To make this happen effectively, Sklansky adds, juries must be fair—which means they must be representative of the population, which means they must be far more diverse. Finally, reforms in sentencing toward restorative justice and away from creating a permanent underclass of criminals and ex-cons are badly needed.
A valuable platform for advocates of judicial, penal, and police reform.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780674293663
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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