Summary of Alec Karakatsanis's Usual Cruelty

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In 2014, Sharnalle Mitchell was arrested and brought to court because she owed the city of Montgomery money for traffic tickets. The judge ordered her to pay or stay in jail. She decided to stay in jail to protect her children. #2 There are 2. 2 million people confined in prison and jail cells in the United States today. About 500,000 of those people are presumptively innocent people awaiting trial, and the majority of them are confined by the government solely because they cannot pay enough money to buy their release. #3 The criminal justice reform movement is superficial and deceptive. It is superficial because most proposed reforms would still leave the United States as the greatest incarcerator in the world. It is deceptive because those who want to largely preserve the current punishment bureaucracy must obfuscate the difference between changes that will transform the system and tweaks that will only curb its most egregious practices. #4 I discuss the new generation of directly impacted people, organizers, lawyers, faith leaders, and academics on the libertarian left and right who understand the punishment bureaucracy as a tool of power in service of white supremacy and profit.