Praise for Not a Crime to Be Poor:
Awarded “Special Recognition” by the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards
Finalist for the American Bar Association’s 2018 Silver Gavel Book Award
Named one of the “10 books to read after you've read Evicted” by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Named one of the “Top 50 hardcover nonfiction titles for 2017” by the Boswell and Books
“[Not a Crime to Be Poor is] a powerful investigation into the ways the United States has addressed poverty. . . . Lucid and troubling.”
—Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted, in The Chronicle of Higher Education
"A hard-hitting argument for reform. . . . An impassioned call for an ‘overarching movement’ for justice."
—Kirkus Reviews
“This compelling, insightful examination of how we demonize the poor and sustain poverty through our misguided policies is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the demands of social justice in America. Sharp, critical analysis of an issue too frequently ignored.”
—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy
“An extraordinary exposé of the criminalization of poverty, a vivid explanation of its many guises, and an inspiring call and guide to reform. Over the past half century no one has been more committed to struggles against impoverishment and its cruel consequences than Peter Edelman. Not a Crime to Be Poor is another chapter in his admirable career.”
—Randall Kennedy, professor, Harvard Law School
“A comprehensive, readable, and shocking examination of the criminalization of poverty, and punishments that consist of fines and fees the poor cannot afford and conditions they cannot meet.”
—Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights
“A chilling exposé of how America's courts, once bastions of justice, now routinely degrade themselves, and the nation, by ruthlessly extracting resources from our nation's most vulnerable citizens, rendering it a crime to be too poor to pay. It also names names—both the names of the villains who chose to exploit the poor and the heroes who fight back. Please read this book.”
—Kathryn Edin, co-author of $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America
“The intersection of race, poverty and the criminal justice system is compellingly examined in Peter Edelman's new book, Not a Crime to Be Poor. It should be required reading for all those who seek equal justice in our nation.”
—Judge Jonathan Lippman, former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals
Praise for Peter Edelman’s So Rich, So Poor:
"Peter Edelman brings blinding lucidity to a subject usually mired in prejudice and false preconceptions."
—Barbara Ehrenreich
"If there is one essential book on the great tragedy of poverty and inequality in America, this is it. Peter Edelman is masterful on the issue. With a real-world grasp of politics and the economy, Edelman makes a brilliantly compelling case for what can and must be done."
—Bob Herbert
"A competent, thorough assessment from a veteran expert in the field."
—Kirkus Reviews
Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America
Narrated by Eric G. Dove
Peter EdelmanUnabridged — 7 hours, 31 minutes
Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America
Narrated by Eric G. Dove
Peter EdelmanUnabridged — 7 hours, 31 minutes
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Overview
In addition to exposing racially biased policing, the Justice Department's Ferguson Report exposed to the world a system of fines and fees levied for minor crimes in Ferguson, Missouri, that, when they proved too expensive for Ferguson's largely poor, African American population, resulted in jail sentences for thousands of people.
As former staffer to Robert F. Kennedy and current Georgetown law professor Peter Edelman explains in Not a Crime to Be Poor, Ferguson is everywhere in America today. Through money bail systems, fees and fines, strictly enforced laws and regulations against behavior including trespassing and public urination that largely affect the homeless, and the substitution of prisons and jails for the mental hospitals that have traditionally served the impoverished, in one of the richest countries on Earth we have effectively made it a crime to be poor.
Edelman, who famously resigned from the administration of Bill Clinton over welfare "reform," connects the dots between these policies and others including school discipline in poor communities, child support policies affecting the poor, public housing ordinances, addiction treatment, and the specter of public benefits fraud to paint a picture of a mean-spirited, retributive system that seals whole communities into inescapable cycles of poverty.
Editorial Reviews
This audiobook tackles the uncomfortable notion that our criminal justice system treats the poor terribly, if not criminally. Through fines, an unjust bail system, and a jail system that sometimes substitutes for a mental health facility, the author argues, being poor is now akin to being a lawbreaker. Narrator Eric G. Dove has a deep, authoritative voice, and he succeeds in establishing the serious and informational tone this book deserves. He approaches the work with an unadorned style, but he doesn’t vary his performance enough to move beyond the text, and at times he doesn’t pause enough to let us contemplate the author’s words. Dove does a serviceable job with an audiobook that should be widely read and discussed. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2017-08-06
How poor people are being punished for their poverty.Supported by compelling evidence of endemic injustice, Edelman (Law and Public Policy/Georgetown Univ. Law Center; So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America, 2012, etc.), faculty director of Georgetown's Center on Poverty and Inequality, presents a hard-hitting argument for reform. Joining critiques offered by writers such as Chris Hayes (A Colony in a Nation), Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow), and Matthew Desmond (Evicted), Edelman underscores the ways in which impoverished individuals are victimized by the criminal justice system. "Low income people are arrested for minor violations that are only annoyances for people with means," he writes, and they face penalties they cannot afford to pay. Failure to pay results in additional fines, repeated driver's license suspensions, and incarceration. Shockingly, 43 states charge for having a public defender. In addition, to accrue revenue, states have increased fines for minor infractions. Fines for speeding tickets have soared to $300 or more. Students who commit low-level offenses often are sent into the criminal system rather than to the principal's office. To monitor probation, 13 states employ for-profit companies that impose high fees, and 44 states charge offenders for the costs of their own probation or parole, which include fees for electronic bracelets, drug testing, alcohol monitoring, driving classes, and home supervision. Mentally ill inmates receive no treatment or at best minimal attention; Edelman cites Corizon, "the largest for-profit mental health provider in the country for prisons, jails and detention centers," as particularly egregious. After documenting case after shocking case in the first part of the book, Edelman proposes that the real solution to injustice lies in ending poverty: "prenatal care for all, child development for all children, first-class education for all, decent jobs and effective work supports, affordable housing, health and mental health, lawyers as needed, safe neighborhoods," healthy communities, and "social, racial and gender justice." He presents case histories of achievements in several communities, fueling his optimism. An impassioned call for an "overarching movement" for justice.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169940442 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 10/31/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Sales rank: | 515,810 |
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