Ocean State Libraries

"From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix's The Staircase comes an essential examination of America's corrupt and abusive criminal justice system"--

"Sexual misconduct accusations spark competing claims: her word against his. How do we decide who is telling the truth? The answer comes down to credibility. But as this book reveals, invisible forces warp the credibility judgments of even the well-intentioned among us. We are all shaped by a set of false assumptions and hidden biases embedded in our culture, our legal system, and our psyches. The #MeToo movement has exposed how victims have been...

Jenny Copper, a coroner with a detective's eye, investigates the disappearance of two young Muslim students, who vanished without a trace seven years ago. The police had concluded that the boys, under surveillance for some time for suspicion of terrorism, had fled to Pakistan. Now, sufficient time has passed for the law to declare the boys legally dead, and a final declaration is left up to Jenny who isn't satisfied with this easy solution.

An accessible guide for activists, educators, and all who are interested in understanding how the prison system oppresses communities and harms individuals. The United States incarcerates more of its residents than any other nation. Though home to 5% of the global population, the United States has nearly 25% of the world's prisoners--a total of over 2 million people. This number continues to steadily rise. Over the past 40 years, the number of people...

"Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data-driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost-effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment,...