Books like 'Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better'
Readers who enjoyed Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better by Maya Schenwar also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
social-commentary politics crime true-crime prison justice legal
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A Normal Life: The Struggles of a Wanted Man by Vassilis Palaiokostas
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Normal Life is the autobiography of Vassilis Palaiokostas, known to the public as the “Greek Robin Hood,” to police as “The Uncatchable.” His is an illegalist existence lived in defiance of the police and of the state, and for decades, it has been a life lived as a fugitive... -
We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba, Naomi Murakawa
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Organizing is both science and art. It is thinking through a vision, a strategy, and then figuring out who your targets are, always being concerned about power, always being concerned about how you're going to actually build power in order to be able to push your issues, in order to be able to get the target to actually move in the way that you want to... -
Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny, Алексей Навальный
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe powerful and moving memoir of a fearless political opposition leader who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020... -
Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could by Adam Schiff
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the congressman who led the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump, the vital inside account of American democracy in its darkest hour, and a warning that the forces of autocracy unleashed by Trump remain as potent as ever... -
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Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop's Battle for America's Soul by Michael Fanone, John Shiffman
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAn urgent warning about the growing threat to our democracy from a twenty-year police veteran and former Trump supporter who nearly lost his life during the insurrection of January 6th.When Michael Fanone self-deployed to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he had no idea his life was about to change...Categorized as:
politics social-commentary true-crime legal non-fiction audiobook law-enforcement racism -
Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wang
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsEssays on the contemporary continuum of incarceration: the biopolitics of juvenile delinquency, predatory policing, the political economy of fees and fines, and algorithmic policing.What we see happening in Ferguson and other cities around the country is not the creation of livable spaces, but the creation of living hells... -
Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'Get your daughters to read this, but only after your partners and sons have finished it’ Jo Brand'An astute and persuasive page-turner' Observer'A blistering manifesto for change' Dr Pragya Agarwal_____________________________________________________Too often, we blame women. For walking home alone at night. For not demanding a seat at the table... -
Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney
Rated: 4.54 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsRead by Liz Cheney with 50+ audio source material clips included, Oath and Honor is a gripping first-hand account from inside the halls of Congress as Donald Trump and his enablers betrayed the American people and the Constitution—leading to the violent attack on our Capitol on January 6th, 2021—by the House Republican leader who dared to stand up to it... -
Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point by Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn this incisive and razor-sharp analysis of one of the most important issues facing us today, leading Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt draw on their combined expertise of over 40 years to examine how dictators come to power, and how they help to foster a poisonous culture of polarisation, fear and suspicion that persists even after their time in power is over... -
Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom by Norman G. Finkelstein
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe Gaza Strip is among the most densely populated places in the world. More than two-thirds of its inhabitants are refugees, and more than half are under eighteen years of age. Since 2004, Israel has launched eight devastating “operations” against Gaza’s largely defenseless population. Thousands have perished, and tens of thousands have been left homeless... -
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJustice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict's most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel's settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel's military offensives in the Gaza Strip...Categorized as:
politics legal social-commentary justice non-fiction historical colonization audiobook -
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow: an organizing guide by Daniel Hunter
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsExpanding on the call to action in Michelle Alexander's acclaimed best-seller, The New Jim Crow, this accessible organizing guide puts tools in your hands to help you and your group understand how to make meaningful, effective change... -
Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America by Dahlia Lithwick
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDahlia Lithwick, Slate Senior Editor and one of the nation's foremost legal commentators, tells the gripping and heroic story of the women lawyers who fought the racism, sexism, and xenophobia of Donald Trump's presidency--and won After the sudden shock of Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, many Americans felt lost and uncertain... -
Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric J. Robinson
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of black people and black communities as agents of change and resistance... -
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Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law by Dean Spade
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWait—what’s wrong with rights?Much of the legal advocacy for trans and gender nonconforming people in the US has reflected the civil rights and "equality" strategies of mainstream gay and lesbian organizations—agitating for legal reforms that would ostensibly guarantee equal access, nondiscrimination, and equal protection under the law... -
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric A. Stanley, CeCe McDonald
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA Lambda Literary Award finalist, Captive Genders is a powerful tool against the prison industrial complex and for queer liberation. This expanded edition contains four new essays, including a foreword by CeCe McDonald and a new essay by Chelsea Manning.Eric Stanley is a postdoctoral fellow at UCSD... -
The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis book is about the great moral issues underlying many of the headline-making political controversies of our times. It is not a comforting book but a book about disturbing and dangerous trends...Categorized as:
justice legal politics social-commentary audiobook communism non-fiction personal-growth -
The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice by Dan Slepian
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn NBC Dateline producer's cinematic account of two decades navigating a broken criminal justice system to help free six innocent men. In 2002, Dan Slepian, a veteran producer for NBC’s Dateline, received a tip from a Bronx homicide detective that would change his life... -
Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable by Joanna Schwartz
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn urgent and definitive examination of how the legal system prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country's leading scholars on policingIn recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct... -
The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America's Judicial Hero by Peter S. Canellos
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe “superb” ( The Guardian ) biography of an American who stood against all the forces of Gilded Age America to fight for civil rights and economic Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan.They say that history is written by the victors. But not in the case of the most famous dissenter on the Supreme Court... -
Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSimple Justice is generally regarded as the classic account of the U.S. Supreme Court’s epochal decision outlawing racial segregation and the centerpiece of African-Americans’ ongoing crusade for equal justice under law.The 1954 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education brought centuries of legal segregation in this country to an end... -
The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by Hugh Ryan
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century.The Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment, is now largely forgotten... -
Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom an award-winning civil rights lawyer, a profound challenge to our society’s normalization of the caging of human beings, and the role of the legal profession in perpetuating itAlec Karakatsanis is very interested in what we choose to punish... -
12 Seconds in the Dark: A Police Officer's Firsthand Account of the Breonna Taylor Raid by John Mattingly
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsYou might think you know what happened in the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor, but no one knows that better than the lead officer on the scene, Sergeant John Mattingly... -
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All God's Children by Fox Butterfield
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of China: Alive in the Bitter Sea comes the poignant story of how the tradition of white Southern violence and racism has long affected and still haunts one black family. Butterfield follows the Bosket family of Edgefield County, South Carolina, from the days of slavery to the present. Photos... -
The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay by Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAmerica’s runaway inequality has an engine: our unjust tax system.Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the ultra-rich have seen their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile, working-class Americans have been asked to pay more... -
The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America by Carol Anderson
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment—and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception... -
Getting Life: An Innocent Man's 25-Year Journey from Prison to Peace by Michael Morton
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHe spent twenty-five years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He lost his wife, his son, and his freedom. This is the story of how Michael Morton finally got justice—and a second chance at life.On August 13, 1986, just one day after his thirty-second birthday, Michael Morton went to work at his usual time... -
This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life by Nigel Poor, Earlonne Woods
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the co-creators and co-hosts of the Peabody- and Pulitzer-nominated podcast comes this unflinching, illuminating view of prison life, as told by presently and formerly incarcerated people. The United States locks up more people per capita than any other nation in the world--600,000 each year and 2.3 million in total... -
Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelon
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned journalist and legal commentator exposes the unchecked power of the prosecutor as a driving force in America’s mass incarceration crisis—and charts a way out.“An important, thoughtful, and thorough examination of criminal justice in America that speaks directly to how we reduce mass incarceration...
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