A review by dellaposta
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.

4.0

Interesting piece of political and social history. Forman is at his best drawing from newspapers and other historical materials to paint a picture of the political discourses around tough-on-crime policies among an earlier generation of black political leaders (using DC as a case study). I wasn’t as into the personal anecdotes from Forman’s time as a public defender - they feel too earnest and Boy Scout-ish. I also could have used some more data and focus on establishing causal linkages. But Forman is a law professor, not a social scientist, and he produces a narrative that is rhetorically powerful even if it leaves a lot of terrain unexplored. The result still feels like an important contribution to the literature on mass incarceration.