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Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice
Top of the pile
88
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
80/100Critics
96/100Scholars
Author:
Tony Messenger
Publisher:
St. Martin's Press
Date:
December 7, 2021
A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explores the way county and municipal courthouses trap some Americans into cycles of poverty and incarceration, as those who are convicted of minor crimes are saddled with exorbitant fines and feesâwhich can lead to prison and mounting debt for those who are unable to pay.
What The Reviewers Say
Rather than providing support to the poor, U.S. social policies appear designed to punish and stigmatize them. Nowhere is this more clear than in Tony Messenger’s book.
... a timely and important revelation of 'a national crisis'.
Messenger persuasively, passionately exposes these injustices and their devastating consequences, points to recent bipartisan reform efforts, and calls for nationwide dismantling of this system of profit over justice. His book merits a wide readership among policymakers, legal practitioners, students, and general audiences..
Profit and Punishment is persuasive and enraging, a book that will stir readers from both sides of the aisle to support reform..
