Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal
Description
America’s justice system is often judged by its most dramatic crimes, but this book turns the spotlight to the “lowly” misdemeanor—the engine that generates millions of cases each year and quietly reshapes lives. Through extensive original research, Alexandra Natapoff explains how the misdemeanor machine moves people from arrest to punishment with limited legal protection, rapid court processing, and near-automatic guilty pleas, frequently before guilt is truly established. The result is a system that can punish the innocent, criminalize conduct that may not deserve criminal status, and deepen inequality by imposing fines, fees, and collateral consequences that fall hardest on poor communities and people of color. Blending legal analysis with a sharply human perspective, Natapoff reveals how these everyday cases expose the broader logic of American punishment and the structural forces driving widening economic and racial divides.
Available Editions
paperback
Basic Books
Published Dec 31, 2018
ISBN: 9780465093793
Reviews
No ratings yet. Be the first!
No written reviews yet.
Details
First Published
2018
Language
eng
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal by Alexandra Natapoff.