Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration | Jocelyn Simonson
Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration | Jocelyn Simonson
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An original argument that the answer to mass incarceration lies not with experts and pundits, but with ordinary people taking extraordinary actions together--written by a leading authority on bail reform and social movements
Radical Acts of Justice tells the stories of ordinary people joining together in collective acts of resistance: paying bail for a stranger, using social media to let the public know what everyday courtroom proceedings are like, making a video about someone's life for a criminal court judge, presenting a budget proposal to the city council. When people join together to contest received ideas of justice and safety, they challenge the ideas that prosecutions and prisons make us safer; that public officials charged with maintaining "law and order" are carrying out the will of the people; and that justice requires putting people in cages. Through collective action, these groups live out new and more radical ideas of what justice can look like.
In a book that will be essential reading for those who believe our current systems of policing, criminal law, and prisons are untenable, Jocelyn Simonson shows how to shift power away from the elite actors at the front of the courtroom and toward the swelling collective in the back.