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Reveals the secretive, inaccurate, and often violent ways that the
American criminal system really works Curtis Flowers spent
twenty-three years on death row for a murder he did not commit.
Atlanta police killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a
misguided raid on her home. Rachel Hoffman was murdered at age
twenty-three while working for Florida police. Such tragedies are
consequences of snitching. Although it is nearly invisible to the
public, the massive informant market shapes the American legal
system in risky and sometimes shocking ways. Police rely on
criminal suspects to obtain warrants, to perform surveillance, and
to justify arrests. Prosecutors negotiate with defendants for
information and cooperation, offering to drop charges or lighten
sentences in exchange. In this book, Alexandra Natapoff provides a
comprehensive analysis of this powerful and problematic practice.
She shows how informant deals generate unreliable evidence, allow
serious criminals to escape punishment, endanger the innocent, and
exacerbate distrust between police and poor communities of color.
First published over ten years ago, Snitching has become known as
the "informant bible," a leading text for advocates, attorneys,
journalists, and scholars. This influential book has helped free
the innocent, it has fueled reform at the state and federal level,
and it is frequently featured in high-profile media coverage of
snitching debacles. This updated edition contains a decade worth of
new stories, new data, new legislation and legal developments, much
of it generated by the book itself and by Natapoff's own work. In
clear, accessible language, the book exposes the social destruction
that snitching can cause in heavily-policed Black neighborhoods,
and how using criminal informants renders our entire penal process
more secretive and less fair. By delving into the secretive world
of criminal informants, Snitching reveals deep and often disturbing
truths about the way American justice really works.
From a prize-winning Harvard legal scholar, "a damning portrait"
(New York Review of Books) of the misdemeanor machine that unjustly
brands millions of Americans as criminals Punishment Without Crime
offers an urgent new perspective on inequality and injustice in
America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly
misdemeanor. Based on extensive original research, legal scholar
Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a massive petty
offense system that produces over thirteen million criminal cases
each year, over 80 percent of the national total. People arrested
for minor crimes are swept through courts where defendants often
lack lawyers, judges process cases in mere minutes, and nearly
everyone pleads guilty. This misdemeanor machine starts punishing
people long before they are convicted, it punishes the innocent,
and it punishes conduct that never should have been a crime. As a
result, vast numbers of Americans-most of them poor and
disproportionately people of color-are stigmatized as criminals,
impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of driver's
licenses, jobs, and housing. And as the nation learned from the
police killings of Eric Garner, George Floyd, and too many others,
misdemeanor enforcement can be lethal. Now updated with a new
afterword, Punishment Without Crime shows how America's sprawling
misdemeanor system makes our entire country less safe, less fair,
and less equal.
2010 Honorable Mention, Silver Gavel Award, American Bar
Association Uncovers the powerful and problematic practice of
snitching to reveal disturbing truths about how American justice
works Albert Burrell spent thirteen years on death row for a murder
he did not commit. Atlanta police killed 92-year-old Kathryn
Johnston during a misguided raid on her home. After being released
by Chicago prosecutors, Darryl Moore-drug dealer, hit man, and
rapist-returned home to rape an eleven-year-old girl. Such
tragedies are consequences of snitching-police and prosecutors
offering deals to criminal offenders in exchange for information.
Although it is nearly invisible to the public, criminal snitching
has invaded the American legal system in risky and sometimes
shocking ways. Snitching is the first comprehensive analysis of
this powerful and problematic practice, in which informant deals
generate unreliable evidence, allow criminals to escape punishment,
endanger the innocent, compromise the integrity of police work, and
exacerbate tension between police and poor urban residents. Driven
by dozens of real-life stories and debacles, the book exposes the
social destruction that snitching can cause in high-crime African
American neighborhoods, and how using criminal informants renders
our entire penal process more secretive and less fair. Natapoff
also uncovers the far-reaching legal, political, and cultural
significance of snitching: from the war on drugs to hip hop music,
from the FBI's mishandling of its murderous mafia informants to the
new surge in white collar and terrorism informing. She explains how
existing law functions and proposes new reforms. By delving into
the secretive world of criminal informants, Snitching reveals deep
and often disturbing truths about the way American justice really
works.
A vital collection for reforming criminal justice After five
decades of punitive expansion, the entire U.S. criminal justice
system- mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, police practices, the
treatment of juveniles and the mentally ill, glaring racial
disparity, the death penalty and more - faces challenging
questions. What exactly is criminal justice? How much of it is a
system of law and how much is a collection of situational social
practices? What roles do the Constitution and the Supreme Court
play? How do race and gender shape outcomes? How does change
happen, and what changes or adaptations should be pursued? The New
Criminal Justice Thinking addresses the challenges of this historic
moment by asking essential theoretical and practical questions
about how the criminal system operates. In this thorough and
thoughtful volume, scholars from across the disciplines of legal
theory, sociology, criminology, Critical Race Theory, and
organizational theory offer crucial insights into how the criminal
system works in both theory and practice. By engaging both classic
issues and new understandings, this volume offers a comprehensive
framework for thinking about the modern justice system. For those
interested in criminal law and justice, The New Criminal Justice
Thinking offers a profound discussion of the complexities of our
deeply flawed criminal justice system, complexities that neither
legal theory nor social science can answer alone.
Reveals the secretive, inaccurate, and often violent ways that the
American criminal system really works Curtis Flowers spent
twenty-three years on death row for a murder he did not commit.
Atlanta police killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a
misguided raid on her home. Rachel Hoffman was murdered at age
twenty-three while working for Florida police. Such tragedies are
consequences of snitching. Although it is nearly invisible to the
public, the massive informant market shapes the American legal
system in risky and sometimes shocking ways. Police rely on
criminal suspects to obtain warrants, to perform surveillance, and
to justify arrests. Prosecutors negotiate with defendants for
information and cooperation, offering to drop charges or lighten
sentences in exchange. In this book, Alexandra Natapoff provides a
comprehensive analysis of this powerful and problematic practice.
She shows how informant deals generate unreliable evidence, allow
serious criminals to escape punishment, endanger the innocent, and
exacerbate distrust between police and poor communities of color.
First published over ten years ago, Snitching has become known as
the "informant bible," a leading text for advocates, attorneys,
journalists, and scholars. This influential book has helped free
the innocent, it has fueled reform at the state and federal level,
and it is frequently featured in high-profile media coverage of
snitching debacles. This updated edition contains a decade worth of
new stories, new data, new legislation and legal developments, much
of it generated by the book itself and by Natapoff's own work. In
clear, accessible language, the book exposes the social destruction
that snitching can cause in heavily-policed Black neighborhoods,
and how using criminal informants renders our entire penal process
more secretive and less fair. By delving into the secretive world
of criminal informants, Snitching reveals deep and often disturbing
truths about the way American justice really works.
A vital collection for reforming criminal justice After five
decades of punitive expansion, the entire U.S. criminal justice
system- mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, police practices, the
treatment of juveniles and the mentally ill, glaring racial
disparity, the death penalty and more - faces challenging
questions. What exactly is criminal justice? How much of it is a
system of law and how much is a collection of situational social
practices? What roles do the Constitution and the Supreme Court
play? How do race and gender shape outcomes? How does change
happen, and what changes or adaptations should be pursued? The New
Criminal Justice Thinking addresses the challenges of this historic
moment by asking essential theoretical and practical questions
about how the criminal system operates. In this thorough and
thoughtful volume, scholars from across the disciplines of legal
theory, sociology, criminology, Critical Race Theory, and
organizational theory offer crucial insights into how the criminal
system works in both theory and practice. By engaging both classic
issues and new understandings, this volume offers a comprehensive
framework for thinking about the modern justice system. For those
interested in criminal law and justice, The New Criminal Justice
Thinking offers a profound discussion of the complexities of our
deeply flawed criminal justice system, complexities that neither
legal theory nor social science can answer alone.
Punishment Without Crime provides a sweeping and revelatory new
account of America's broken criminal justice system from the
perspective of the paradigmatic American crime-the lowly
misdemeanor. While felony trials grab headlines, the petty offense
system is far more representative of criminal justice as most
Americans actually encounter it. Petty offenses make up 80 percent
of state and local criminal dockets; over 13 million misdemeanor
cases are filed every year, four times the number of felony cases.
Misdemeanors are one of the largest and most unappreciated causes
of our criminal system's size and its harshness-and a crucial
source of American inequality. Misdemeanor cases are by definition
"minor," but their impact is not. Each year, the petty offense
process sweeps millions of people from arrest to a guilty plea or
conviction. In effect, police get to decide who will be convicted
of minor crimes, simply by arresting them for offenses like driving
on a suspended licenses, marijuana possession, disorderly conduct,
and loitering. In thousands of low-level courts around the country,
prosecutors do little vetting, most defendants lack lawyers, legal
rules and evidence are often ignored, and judges process cases in
minutes or even seconds. The consequences are serious and lasting:
stigmatizing criminal records, burdensome fines, jail for those who
can't afford to pay bail or fees, and collateral effects including
loss of jobs, housing, and benefits. Punishment Without Crime
offers an urgent new explanation for America's racial and economic
inequalities, showing starkly how misdemeanor arrests and
prosecutions brand vast numbers of disadvantaged Americans as
criminals and punish them accordingly. For the first time,
prize-winning legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff illuminates the full
scale, scope, and workings of the misdemeanor process, drawing on
never-before-compiled data as well as revealing narrative examples.
The misdemeanor system, she reveals, targets and stigmatizes racial
minorities as "criminals," exacerbates economic inequality by
funding its own operation through fines and fees, and produces
wrongful convictions on a massive scale. For too long, misdemeanors
have been ignored as petty. Reckoning with the misdemeanor machine
is crucial to understanding America's punitive and unfair criminal
justice system and our widening economic and racial divides.
2010 Honorable Mention, Silver Gavel Award, American Bar
Association Uncovers the powerful and problematic practice of
snitching to reveal disturbing truths about how American justice
works Albert Burrell spent thirteen years on death row for a murder
he did not commit. Atlanta police killed 92-year-old Kathryn
Johnston during a misguided raid on her home. After being released
by Chicago prosecutors, Darryl Moore-drug dealer, hit man, and
rapist-returned home to rape an eleven-year-old girl. Such
tragedies are consequences of snitching-police and prosecutors
offering deals to criminal offenders in exchange for information.
Although it is nearly invisible to the public, criminal snitching
has invaded the American legal system in risky and sometimes
shocking ways. Snitching is the first comprehensive analysis of
this powerful and problematic practice, in which informant deals
generate unreliable evidence, allow criminals to escape punishment,
endanger the innocent, compromise the integrity of police work, and
exacerbate tension between police and poor urban residents. Driven
by dozens of real-life stories and debacles, the book exposes the
social destruction that snitching can cause in high-crime African
American neighborhoods, and how using criminal informants renders
our entire penal process more secretive and less fair. Natapoff
also uncovers the far-reaching legal, political, and cultural
significance of snitching: from the war on drugs to hip hop music,
from the FBI's mishandling of its murderous mafia informants to the
new surge in white collar and terrorism informing. She explains how
existing law functions and proposes new reforms. By delving into
the secretive world of criminal informants, Snitching reveals deep
and often disturbing truths about the way American justice really
works.
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