Praise for Radical Acts of Justice:
A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Book
"By highlighting grassroots collective actions, [Radical Acts of Justice] presents a new perspective on what justice can look like and how ordinary people can reshape our criminal justice system."
—Brooklyn Eagle
"Drawing on case studies and firsthand experience, Simonson persuasively shows how engaging in ‘collective work’ enables communities to challenge a seemingly implacable system. This is a must-read for justice system reform advocates."
—Publishers Weekly
"Simonson gives an overview of the guiding purpose, methods, and outcomes of grassroots movements challenging the criminal justice status quo."
—Booklist
“[An] impassioned account of grassroots responses to mass incarceration.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"A well-written survey of groups pushing for change in the criminal justice system. . . . Criminal-reform advocates will enjoy this primer."
—Library Journal
"This sophisticated work of nonfiction presents an argument that the American carceral system can be resisted and broken down by regular folks, rather than experts and elites."
—Autostraddle
“Jocelyn Simonson is one of the great up-and-coming legal intellectuals. But this book is much more than something very smart and well-written. It is an exploration of an essential new shift in forms of participatory democracy, and everyone should read it and then get involved in their local community with these new forms of community empowerment—the significance of which she so expertly explains to a wider audience.”
—Alec Karakatsanis, founder and executive director of Civil Rights Corps and author of Usual Cruelty
“An important, sophisticated, and often inspiring book about how the human beings most affected by our criminal system are challenging and changing it from within. With scholarly rigor, passion, and deep on-the-ground expertise, Simonson reveals a vibrant world of ongoing collective action and offers a rich new understanding of public safety.”
—Alexandra Natapoff, professor of law, Harvard Law School, and author of Punishment Without Crime
“A deeply inspiring account of communities coming together to reclaim and reshape fundamental definitions of safety, justice, and the law itself. A lesson and a road map for organizers everywhere.”
—Baz Dreisinger, professor of English, John Jay College, founder of Prison-to-College Pipeline, and author of Incarceration Nations
“Jocelyn Simonson provides a lucid bird’s-eye view of the essential sites of organizing and collective work against the carceral state—bail funds, participatory defense hubs, people’s budgets and more—that have proliferated in the last decade. This book is indispensable for anyone trying to understand racial justice politics and criminal law reform today.”
—Amna Akbar, professor of law, Ohio State University
“Radical Acts of Justice exposes grave injustices in the U.S. criminal legal system. Simonson uses compelling examples to challenge assumptions about what happens in court during a criminal proceeding. The common notion that, in the U.S., all accused are innocent until proven guilty is a radical departure from the truth. Contrary to the scripts of court TV dramas, in real life the accused are often protected only by community-based interventions. As readers follow Simonson through the courts, they will witness discrimination on public display. Some will concede that the system is beyond repair. A courageous and pragmatic reclamation of community power, Simonson speaks to an unjust system on behalf of we the people.”
—Vivian Nixon, writer in residence, Square One, Columbia University
“Simonson provides a much-needed description and analysis of the national movement to redefine safety and justice through grassroots collective action—showing us that even in a time of ‘law and order’ backlash, communities are winning concrete victories in dialing back the system of mass criminalization.”
—Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing
07/01/2023
Simonson (Brooklyn Law Sch.) offers a well-written survey of groups pushing for change in the criminal justice system. Drawing on five years as a public defender in the Bronx and from extensive interviews, Simonson decries mass incarceration of people of color as a means of control. The book presents several ways in which social action groups have worked to reform the system. For example, the Community Bail Fund posts bail for strangers accused of a crime to blunt the effects of pretrial incarceration and helps restore their lives. The groups involved in participatory defense present a defendant's full story to the court and public. To break the prison pipeline, the People's Budget redirects funds from the criminal justice system to neglected neighborhoods. Courtroom watching is another way for the public to understand, document, and disassemble harmful court practices. The author argues that prosecutors shouldn't be able to call themselves "the People"; the real People are the communities harmed by mass incarceration. Simonson proposes a replacement for incarceration: provide housing, health care, and other support to people of color and poor people. VERDICT Criminal-reform advocates will enjoy this primer.—Harry Charles
2023-05-13
Impassioned account of grassroots responses to mass incarceration.
In her debut book, Brooklyn Law School professor Simonson builds on her study of community bail fund networks, one facet of the evolving response to selectively punitive law enforcement in marginalized communities. “As a public defender in the Bronx,” she writes, “I fought for five years against a system that I believed was profoundly immoral.” The author tracks several responses to the segregationist excesses of policing and incarceration in multiple locales. She focuses on intervention strategies of bail funds, court-watching, participatory defense, and alternative budgeting (often simplified as “Defunding the police”), all set against a larger interrogation of what really constitutes community “safety” and whether the state speaks for “the people.” Throughout the text, Simonson provides valuable historical context. “For hundreds of years,” she writes, “people have gathered together to free people from the violence of the state,” but the movement “has grown exponentially since 2014, both in geographical reach and in public engagement.” She narrates how entities like the Philadelphia Bail Fund coalesced out of necessity to counter “the intractable hold of the criminal court system on their neighbors and communities” and tracks how they have grown into “permanent, sustainable organizations.” By 2018, the author notes, the umbrella National Bail Fund Network encompassed 33. The court-watching movement has also become increasingly visible, represented by outreach organizations from Baton Rouge to New York City. Both religious and secular activists view courtroom procedure as often plagued by racist policies, and state economies are “seemingly dependent on the carceral state.” Similar autonomy is promoted by “Participatory Defense,” a looser approach to community-based investigation in which “people are regaining control over their own narratives in court.” Simonson is attuned to the challenges faced by marginalized communities, and her writing is deft and well informed. The discussion elides some complexities related to victims’ rights and the realities of street violence, which may lead to conservative-leaning readers remaining unconvinced.
A notable contribution to debates about policing and prosecution bias.