{"product_id":"usual-cruelty-alec-karakatsanis-9781620979143","title":"Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \"searing, searching, and eloquent\" (Martha Minow, Harvard Law School) investigation into the role of the legal profession in perpetuating mass incarceration--now in an accessible paperback format from the award-winning civil rights lawyer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eUsual Cruelty \u003c\/em\u003ecuts to the core of what is critical to understand about our legal system, and about ourselves.\"\u003cbr\u003e --Anthony D. Romero, executive director, ACLU\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlec Karakatsanis doesn't think people who have gone to law school, passed the bar, and sworn to uphold the Constitution should be complicit in the mass caging of human beings--an everyday brutality inflicted disproportionately on the bodies and minds of poor people and people of color, for which the legal system has never offered sufficient justification. \u003cem\u003eUsual Cruelty\u003c\/em\u003e offers a radical reconsideration of the American \"injustice system\" by someone who is actively--and wildly successfully--challenging it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eHailed by luminaries from James Forman Jr. and Vanita Gupta to U.S. Circuit Judge Bernice Donald, and MacArthur Award-winning poet and attorney Reginald Dwayne Betts, \u003cem\u003eUsual Cruelty\u003c\/em\u003e offers a condemnation of the whole deplorable enterprise, starting with profound questions about the specific things our system chooses to criminalize (marijuana plants, low-level gambling, petty theft) versus those we don't (tobacco plants, high-level gambling by bankers, massive wage theft by employers). It calls out a bail system that charges people money to go free despite the lack of any evidence this will make them more likely to show up in court or make anybody safer. And it explores the everyday brutality of our courts, prisons, and jails, and the ways in which the legal profession has allowed itself to become desensitized to the everyday pain these institutions inflict on our most vulnerable populations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eNow in an accessible paperback format, \u003cem\u003eUsual Cruelty\u003c\/em\u003e will cement Karakatsanis's reputation as one of the most inspiring civil rights lawyers of our time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Alec Karakatsanis\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1620979144\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781620979143\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/14\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Alec Karakatsanis","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45897723576575,"sku":"9781620979143","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_ae8c4b17-e1eb-4cba-a902-3f9c1c4d9720.jpg?v=1721374588","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/usual-cruelty-alec-karakatsanis-9781620979143","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}