
Charged
The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration
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Narrated by:
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Cassandra Campbell
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By:
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Emily Bazelon
About this listen
New York Times Best Seller
A renowned journalist and legal commentator exposes the unchecked power of the prosecutor as a driving force in America’s mass incarceration crisis - and charts a way out.
“An important, thoughtful, and thorough examination of criminal justice in America that speaks directly to how we reduce mass incarceration.” (Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy)
“This harrowing, often enraging book is a hopeful one, as well, profiling innovative new approaches and the frontline advocates who champion them.” (Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted)
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize • Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR • The New York Public Library • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews
The American criminal justice system is supposed to be a contest between two equal adversaries, the prosecution and the defense, with judges ensuring a fair fight. That image of the law does not match the reality in the courtroom, however. Much of the time, it is prosecutors more than judges who control the outcome of a case, from choosing the charge to setting bail to determining the plea bargain. They often decide who goes free and who goes to prison, even who lives and who dies. In Charged, Emily Bazelon reveals how this kind of unchecked power is the underreported cause of enormous injustice - and the missing piece in the mass-incarceration puzzle.
Charged follows the story of two young people caught up in the criminal justice system: Kevin, a 20-year-old in Brooklyn who picked up his friend’s gun as the cops burst in and was charged with a serious violent felony, and Noura, a teenage girl in Memphis indicted for the murder of her mother. Bazelon tracks both cases - from arrest and charging to trial and sentencing - and with her trademark blend of deeply reported narrative, legal analysis, and investigative journalism illustrates just how criminal prosecutions can go wrong and, more important, why they don’t have to.
Bazelon also details the second chances they prosecutors can extend, if they choose, to Kevin and Noura and so many others. She follows a wave of reform-minded DAs who have been elected in some of our biggest cities, as well as in rural areas in every region of the country, put in office to do nothing less than reinvent how their job is done. If they succeed, they can point the country toward a different and profoundly better future.
©2019 Emily Bazelon (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Emily Bazelon’s new book about the American judicial system reads like two books. Both are crucial to understanding the wretchedness of the American criminal legal process, and both offer something missing from most other books about mass incarceration: hope. The first book in Charged grabs for the heart: It is a riveting page-turner about two criminal defendants and their prosecutors. The second one goes for the reader’s mind: It’s a lucid synthesis of the most important research on mass incarceration and an insightful analysis of the politics of law and order in the era of President Trump and Black Lives Matter." (The Washington Post)
"[Charged] achieves what in-depth first-person reporting should: it humanizes the statistics, makes us aware that every courtroom involves the bureaucratic regimentation of an individual’s life." (The New Yorker)
"Bazelon tells the tales of Noura and Kevin in rich, novelistic prose, which at its best puts one in mind of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s book Random Family.... This combination of powerful reporting with painstaking research yields a comprehensive examination of the modern American criminal justice system that appeals to both the head and the heart." (The New York Times Book Review)
For any fan of wrongful conviction podcasts
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I was less thrilled with the reading, but got used to it as it went on.
MUST read for social justice
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Must Read
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Should be read by Adult, Young Adult, & Teens!
This book should be taught in colleges, universities, high schools, & middle schools.
“Charged provides an insightful overview of the American criminal justice system from a legal perspective that points to the true power source and how that power can be abused & manipulated at the cost of a US citizens freedom!
A Real Read
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So Incredibly Important!!!
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Eyes Wide Opened
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A must read for everyone!
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Good information
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Insightful and compelling
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Lucid, informative, tragic, hopeful, page-turner
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