Increased awareness about social justice issues has spurred more interest and advocacy for addressing mass incarceration. Many books define the problem, particularly the racialized reality of policing, justice, and prison systems in the United States. However, they don’t do enough to offer possible solutions for the interwoven issues surrounding everyday choices and decisions that impact the lives of countless incarcerated individuals.
In "Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change," editors Premal Dharia, James Forman, Jr., and Maria Hawilo compile essays from distinguished thinkers, policymakers, legal experts, and activists about different parts of the complex mass incarceration “nonsystem:” police, prosecutors, public defenders, judges, and prisons. Each is a part of disparate systems that are interrelated but mostly isolated from the other.
As a diversity educator focused on organizations, I bring knowledge of – but no direct experience in – the practices of law enforcement, legal, and prison systems. Notable contributors such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela J. Davis, and Charles Ogletree Jr., illuminate the complex, inequitable, and often inefficient dynamics that hinder justice. Dismantling Mass Incarceration encourages readers to consider various pragmatic perspectives from scholars and activists and to contemplate how they might contribute to solutions.
The editors urge readers to do what they can in their own community, to plug into the organizing that is already happening. This book, with its potential to inspire meaningful change, would serve as an excellent teaching tool for law students, social justice leaders, and others committed to social reform.
Editor's Note: This review was originally published in San Diego Book Review.
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| Pictured are co-editors (from left, clockwise) Maria Hawilo, Premal Dharia, and James Forman, Jr., |
In "Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change," editors Premal Dharia, James Forman, Jr., and Maria Hawilo compile essays from distinguished thinkers, policymakers, legal experts, and activists about different parts of the complex mass incarceration “nonsystem:” police, prosecutors, public defenders, judges, and prisons. Each is a part of disparate systems that are interrelated but mostly isolated from the other.
As a diversity educator focused on organizations, I bring knowledge of – but no direct experience in – the practices of law enforcement, legal, and prison systems. Notable contributors such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela J. Davis, and Charles Ogletree Jr., illuminate the complex, inequitable, and often inefficient dynamics that hinder justice. Dismantling Mass Incarceration encourages readers to consider various pragmatic perspectives from scholars and activists and to contemplate how they might contribute to solutions.
The editors urge readers to do what they can in their own community, to plug into the organizing that is already happening. This book, with its potential to inspire meaningful change, would serve as an excellent teaching tool for law students, social justice leaders, and others committed to social reform.
Editor's Note: This review was originally published in San Diego Book Review.
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