I am an avid reader, and I have probably 100 books or more packed around my bed and in cabinets as part of my TBR pile. I read the New York Times, the NYTRB, the London Review, World Literature Today, and the Paris Review, among other publications daily and weekly. I regularly grab seven or eight or more library books of new releases, just to check out what's new and interesting in US and UK publishing. (The librarians always look at me a little bit funny with my stack of 10 or 12 new novels and non-fiction.)

But once I read a book, I rarely read it again or go back to it. That has not been the case with Emily Bazelon's Charged. If you follow the issues surrounding incarceration in the United States even just a little bit, you're aware that certain people are incarcerated at rates that are astronomical compared to others'. There is (finally and appropriately) an enormous amount of media attention, research, and writing right now on the US criminal justice system, racism, misapplied justice or charging, false and coerced confessions and the like. However, what sets this book apart from so much else nonfiction on the topic is the focus on how real human beings experience the system.

The book's regular personal narrative, interspersed with statistical information and data, helps a reader interpret the issue for herself rather than simply read more volumes of information designed to overwhelm the reader with how bad the problem is.

The personal narrative puts a face and name, and more than one, to this one aspect of the problem of mass incarceration in the United States at present. I have found myself thinking of this book and coming back to it to reread sections. I am a former English teacher, retired, and I wish I were teaching again when I read this book, because it is an excellent tool for education on this critical issue. If you're interested in this problem, out of all the books you could read, read this one.

Over a dozen years ago I was working on a report for a racial profiling campaign a coalition of organizations had organized. I came across a research study that looked at racial disparities in criminal justice from arrest to sentencing. I was surprised to see prosecutorial decisions, not overpolicing, identified as the most significant factor in racial disparities in incarceration. This sparked an unending interest in how we fight over-incarceration and the use of the criminal justice system as a boot on the necks of Black people.

Charged is an examination of how prosecutors have become the drivers of over-incarceration and racial disparities. Author Emily Bazelon also includes an invaluable appendix detailing several powerful reforms that are necessary to redress the problems in prosecution.

Bazelon hangs her argument on two examples of prosecutors at work and the people they hold in their power. In New York, Kevin has been charged with having a gun in his own home. In Memphis, Noura Jackson is accused of killing her mother. Kevin’s story demonstrates how a prosecutor taking a chance and allowing someone a second chance can pay off. Noura’s story tells of a prosecuto with tunnel vision, more committed to a win than to justice, withholding evidence that could help the defense and never paying a price for it.

Impunity is the reason prosecutors are so dangerous to justice. They are unpunished when they violate ethical rules and even when they break the law. They also work under the moral hazard of sending people to prison and having the state, not the county, pay the bill, never having to account for their expenditures.



The appendix is reason enough to read Charged. The book is based on solid research that is well-documented. Bazelon talked to prosecutors all over the country and attended meetings of reformers. She sat in on trials and bail hearings. She tells story after story of injustice and examines how particular court decisions have exacerbated the problem. She did her homework and then some.

The stories are interesting, though often infuriating, and Bazelon does a great job of explaining complex information and distilling a large story to its essence. The one weakness is when writing about events she attended, injecting details like snacks and coffee and audience participation. I understand the idea of details making something come alive, but these details are just silly and distracting.

If you care about over-incarceration, systemic racism, or racial justice, you should read this book. If you care about effective policing and budget responsibility, you should read this book. The only people who should skip it are those who are happy with the US locking up more people than China, not per capital, more people in real numbers.

I received an e-galley of Charged from the publisher through NetGalley.

Charged at Penguin Random House
Emily Bazelon author site

This is an excellent analysis of the systemic problems of prosecutorial power in the U.S. and a very readable, well-written book. The author is clearly passionate about the issue, and I was moved by her deep caring for the two young people whose stories she tells. The facts are infuriating, but her tone is hopeful, because reform is entirely possible (and we can/must vote for it!). Definitely an addition to my list of essential books in the genre.

My friend was a prosecutor and then a defense lawyer he told me from his days as a young prosecutor ,,prosecutors have all the power in the courtroom ,if your an honest District attorney you handle the power carefully realizing what an important task you have if not sadly power can run rampant and justice will not prevail .Power in the wrong hands can be dangerous.Emily Bazelon has written a fascinating look at our judicial system covering two cases two das and their offices ,the state of our judicial system.a very important book an excellent read .#netgalley#randomhouse

Add CHARGED to your criminal justice reform reading list, along with The New Jim Crow and Just Mercy (... and what else? Comment with suggestions for me).

There's a lot to unpack here, but Bazelon takes a look at a particular piece of a justice system that is leading to mass incarceration in unsustainable numbers: the role of prosecutors. Using two very different cases as a narrative thread, Bazelon exposes the reader to a system where winning (not compromise, not restitution, and not justice) is rewarded through promotion and re-election. There's some damning evidence that mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent crimes due little more than create future criminals, and also a hopeful look at prison alternatives currently being piloted.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a review copy of this book.

The American criminal justice system is a mess. This really is an indisputable fact. For nearly a half century we've been fighting a War on Drugs, which has only succeeded in putting more drugs on the streets. We run prisons for profit, filling them with young black males and people too poor to afford bail and/or attorneys. We run a barter system with plea bargains, rather than a justice system with trials by jury. Nothing about what we do is fair.

With 'Charged', Emily Bazelon highlights the job of prosecutors, showing us exactly how much power and control they wield over the system and the people caught within it. She lays out this narrative with a focus on two young people; one whose life is destroyed by an uncaring, unjust system, and the other who benefits immensely from the compassion of a different kind of system. We have the ability to wield both types of power, so why are we so quick to destroy?

This book is disturbing, because it should be. But Bazelon also shows us glimmers of hope. In various pockets of our country, justice is becoming a reality rather than a farce. Through these stories, Bazelon shows us that compassion and justice can, in fact, go hand-in-hand.

The reality of our system is nothing like an episode of Law & Order. Money, education, status, race, and religion all weigh heavily in how a person is treated, prosecuted, and punished. There is no such thing as equal rights within our criminal justice system, at least not yet. Maybe if enough people read this book, and enough people demand change, someday we can truly claim a "justice" system.

Disclaimer: ARC via the publisher and Netgalley.

The last time I did my civic duty of jury duty it was either the day after or day that Larry Krasner fired several lawyers for the DA’s office. It was an interesting day. I’m not sure why they didn’t just cancel us coming in.

I tell you this so you know that I live in one of the cities that Bazelon writes about in her new book.

According to the studies that Bazelon cites in her book, most Americans agree that the justice system needs to be reformed and that in many cases the penalties are too harsh. True, there are some people, like one of my co-workers, who believe people like Krasner haven’t been victims of crime so they don’t care about punishment. But as someone who has lived in a city with harsh penalties, they don’t seem to work that well.

Bazelon makes an excellent and good case as to why this is as well as detailing how the country got to this point. Her book follows two people who are caught in justice in different parts of the country. There is Noura who is accused of murdering her mother, and Keith who is charged with an illegally holding a gun. Noura is white, from Memphis, and her family, well not rich, is not poor. Keith is from NYC, black, and his family is struggling finically. Both are close in age – not having graduated high school when the book opens. Both are basically innocent.

In some ways, Keith is a little luckier because NYC has/had programs that could help him and the idea of punishment was changing. This is not to say that his race, economic background, and neighborhood did not play a role in his charge and his subsequent interaction with police and the system. It is though Keith that Bazelon illustrates the cost to the average person when it comes to the justice system. It isn’t just the charge, but the time that is put on hold, the missed wages, the struggle to move forward on a good path when everything seems to be or is out to get you. Chances are that if you live in a big urban area, you know someone like Keith.

Noura’s case is different and illustrates what happens when a prosecutor doesn’t play by the rules and abuses power. (Noura’s case was also first reported on Bazelon for the New York Times). She is charged and eventually found guilty of murdering her mother. She spends years in jail. You might not know someone like Noura, but Noura’s case also illustrates how power can be horribly abused, and her friendships in prison illustrate, as Noura herself points out, that she is hardly alone in suffering a miscarriage of justice; she just has the benefit of being white.

What is also important is that the long-lasting effects of being charged are shown. It isn’t just the time and money that is loss, but the emotional and mental damage as well. Bazelon does directly tackle how race plays into what happens. The stories of Keith and Noura also lead to discussions with DA’s, defense lawyers, judges, and activists, some good, some bad – some pushing for change, some frustrated because their hands are tied. The book isn’t anti cop or anti-justice – it is pro-humanity.

Reading this right after finishing The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist is enough to make you want to go around smacking people. Thankfully, Bazelon includes a step by step proposal for reforming the justice system, including what people who read her book can do. Not only is the planned sketched out but she also provides cited examples of each step working

Highly recommended.

Americans like to think their criminal justice system is the fairest in the world, that innocents can’t be proven guilty because of all the constitutional protections in the system. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Emily Bazelon found in Charged. Her latest book looks at the justice system at the prosecutor level. It is a family tree of branches, many of them diseased or rotten. Both prosecutors and defendants can find themselves on the wrong one at any time. It’s a fascinating tour, aided by Bazelon’s intimate knowledge, involvement and exhaustive contacts.

Bazelon details two tormented cases, of a gun possession in Brooklyn and a murder in Memphis, to help readers live the blind maze that might or might not lead to justice, years after the facts. In between, she describes the offices, officers and environment that the justice system operates in. She finds it not just faulty, but working against its own best interests, the interests of the accused, and the interests of the public. She quotes Erin Murphy, an NYU Law Professor: “We don’t have strong citizen oversight of police, it is highly politicized work, and civil remedies have been totally neutered.”

States have been abandoning diversions, education, retraining and supervision in favor of more and longer sentences. The United States now holds 2.2 million in jail, one quarter of those held in the whole world. In addition, there are nearly five million on parole or control of some sort. It is a nation of criminals, apparently.

That is not only costly, but hopelessly unworkable. In numerous field trials, those alternatives show themselves to be less expensive and lead to less recidivism than locking people up for the slightest infraction. A good half a million are in jail just because they couldn’t pay the fine or make bail. To Bazelon, this sort of debtors’ prison alone costs the country $25 million a day. It’s the system that needs reforming as much as the accused.

There is a special place hell for plea bargaining in Charged. It is a weapon wielded by prosecutors, who threaten sentences three times as long if the accused prefers to take a chance in court. As Judge Jed Rakoff wrote: “In 2012, the average sentence for federal narcotics defendants who entered any kind of plea bargain was five years and four months, while the average sentence for defendants who went to trial was sixteen years.” After months or years of waiting, most cave – 95% of criminal cases end in a plea-bargain. It wouldn’t be so bad if so many weren’t innocent, or if prosecutors didn’t withhold evidence, or if police didn’t lie (testilying ,they call it) or deny the accused their rights. “Once you get used to it, you don’t even notice the injustice,“ Albert Altschuler, University of Chicago law professor says of plea-bargaining.

Power has shifted to the prosecutors, as judges are now restricted to formularies. Prosecutors forced to go to trial go for crimes with the longest sentences. Judges are forced to go along. This adds greatly to the power of the plea-bargain. Asked in court if they chose the plea voluntarily, all defendants commit perjury by saying yes.

Charged ends powerfully with 21 reasonable, doable recommendations to fix the system. They are listed with clarifications and variations, and then with places where they have been successfully implemented. Because it’s not all bad news. There are innovative, reformers in many jurisdictions, notably Houston, Brooklyn and Philadelphia.
1. Make diversion the rule
2. Charge with restraint and plea-bargain fairly
3. Move toward ending cash bail
4. Encourage the treatment (not criminalization) of mental illness
5. Encourage the treatment (not criminalization) of drug addiction
6. Treat kids like kids
7. Minimize misdemeanors
8. Account for consequences to immigrants
9. Promote restorative justice
10. Shrink probation and parole
11. Change office culture and practice
12. Address racial disparity
13. Create effective conviction review
14. Broaden discovery
15. Hold police accountable
16. End the poverty trap of fines and fees
17. Expunge and seal criminal records
18. Play fair with forensic evidence
19. Work to end the death penalty
20. Calculate cost
21. Employ the language of respect

The problem that Bazelon does not venture into is the near anarchy of the entire system. Rights are spelled out at the federal level, but prosecutors work at the county level. Every county has its own policies and methods. There is no consistency or predictability for someone accused of anything. They never know what they’re up against, until they’re in the vortex. Americans don’t have the same rights from one county to the next.

Possibly worse is that in the USA, prosecutors and district attorneys tend to be elected, not appointed by a commission of judges, who might know their performance records and honesty. The result is the politicization of justice, as people vote along party lines, not fairness, justice or efficiency. Counties get omnipotent little potentates, who run their departments as they alone see fit, often for their own glory. Nothing says re-elected like a lot people behind bars.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor showed she understood in Utah v Strieff: “It says that your body is subject to invasion while the courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy, but the subject of a carcereal state, just waiting to be catalogued. We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by the police are ‘isolated’. They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere.”

She said the criminal justice system “accomplishes nothing we think of as its purpose. We think we’re keeping people safe. We’re just making worse criminals.”

David Wineberg