James Forman Jr.'s Critical Reads

James Forman Jr. discusses Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, Mon. 5/1 6pm at 57th Street Books. RSVP and details here.

My critical reads are grouped in two categories. The first are near-instant classics; many people have heard of, and read, these best-sellers. Sometimes books get undeserved acclaim. Not so with these 3. They are each brilliant, informed, and highly readable. To understand race, crime, police, and prisons, start here.

My second group are also essential reads, but are not as widely known as the first 3. This list is drawn heavily from my syllabus for Race, Class, and Punishment, a course I have taught at Yale and Stanford law schools. In my course, I skip the 3 classics, because most students have already read them, and get right into this second group.

The Classics

The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson

The Essentials

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, Khalil Muhammad

Race, Crime and the Law, by Randall Kennedy

Thinking About Crime, by James Q. Wilson

Ghettoside: A True Story Story of Murder in America, by Jill Leovy

Don’t Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America, by David Kennedy

Locked in: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration—and How to Achieve Real Reform, John Pfaff,

Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, by Victor Rios

Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of Crime Control, Amy Lerman and Vesla Weaver

A Question of Freedom, Reginald Dwayne Betts