Radical Acts of Justice: Shifting Power in the Criminal Justice System

(Hardback)

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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 togetherwritten by a leading authority on bail reform and social movements

From reading books on mass incarceration, one might conclude that the way out of our overly punitive, racially disparate criminal system is to put things in the hands of experts, technocrats able to think their way out of the problem. But, as Jocelyn Simonson points out in her groundbreaking new book, the problems posed by the American carceral state are not just technical puzzles; they present profound moral questions for our time.

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 someones 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.

Reviews

Praise forRadical Acts of Justice:
AMs.Magazine Most Anticipated Book

Jocelyn Simonson is one of the great up-and-coming legal intellectuals. But this book is much more than something very smart and well-written. It is an exploration of an essential new shift in forms of participatory democracy, and everyone should read it and then get involved in their local community with these new forms of community empowermentthe significance of which she so expertly explains to a wider audience.
Alec Karaktsanis, founder and executive director of Civil Rights Corps and author of Usual Cruelty

An important, sophisticated, and often inspiring book about how the human beings most affected by our criminal system are challenging and changing it from within. With scholarly rigor, passion, and deep on-the-ground expertise, Simonson reveals a vibrant world of ongoing collective action and offers a rich new understanding of public safety.
Alexandra Natapoff, professor of law, Harvard Law School, and author of Punishment Without Crime

A deeply inspiring account of communities coming together to reclaim and reshape fundamental definitions of safety, justice, and the law itself. A lesson and a road map for organizers everywhere.
Baz Dreisinger, professor of English, John Jay College, founder of Prison-to-College Pipeline, and author of Incarceration Nations

Jocelyn Simonson provides a lucid birds-eye view of the essential sites of organizing and collective work against the carceral statebail funds, participatory defense hubs, peoples budgets and morethat have proliferated in the last decade. This book is indispensable for anyone trying to understand racial justice politics and criminal law reform today.
Amna Akbar, professor of law, Ohio State University

Author Bio

A former public defender, Jocelyn Simonson is professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and the leading national authority on community bail funds. Her work has been cited by the Supreme Court and discussed in The Atlantic, the New Yorker, and the Associated Press, and she has written for the New York Times, The Nation, n+1, the Washington Post, and others. Radical Acts of Justice (The New Press) is her first book. She lives in New York City.