Jeremy Travis

i'd say this book is absolutely essential for anyone interested in the justice system and creating a better world going forward. i've read a few radical justice + abolition books/essays and one of the most frequent critiques i see is that there is a lack of concrete ideas for how to change things. that critique is understandable but i also believe that change needs to be collaborative and one must not hold all the answers to have their view taken seriously. that being said, i love that this book does hold concrete ideas and means of change that we can implement in different sectors of the justice system, activist spaces, etc! the language and information presented is super accessible and i found myself questioning things i had never thought of before- one of the most prominent passages being about how we must not paint others as the villains in our story to seek change ("Children not criminals"). really challenging ideas that more people should reckon with as we move forward in our current reform/defund/abolish climate… (meer)

Parsimony and Other Radical Ideas About Justice, edited by Jeremy Travis and Bruce Western, is a collection of essays that work toward figuring out what a truly just system would look like and be based on.

For this type of review, I'm not going to try to distill many of the points presented. Partly because each essay is, while related to the others, a self-contained argument, so each deserves separate consideration as well as consideration as part of the larger argument. I will say that the key is to treat every citizen as a human being, whether the one who made a mistake or one who was harmed by another's mistake. The one thing that must be done before our criminal legal (not justice since there is no justice in our system) system can even begin to be trusted is to acknowledge the complete and utter failure it has been to this point to actually serve ALL citizens. Otherwise, it will remain untrusted and an arm of a white supremacist "government."

There is both abstract ideas as well as concrete first steps here, but there is also an understanding that this is a project that will require a lot of work and every step will need to be considered, reconsidered, and then monitored once adopted. So this is not some pie in the sky, plug and play solution, this is an attempt to begin to build a just society.

Most readers will question some elements, though I think the writers all do a good job of answering most of the questions that might make someone uneasy about the ideas. Even coming away from this book with a couple things you're not sure you can get behind (yet) will still have opened the dialogue for you to think about how the ends can be accomplished while respecting the humanity of everyone.

We don't, as a society, have to insist on the maximum pain and suffering while withholding opportunities for someone to successfully rejoin society. Especially when our laws and our enforcement of those laws are not simply uneven but downright unjust and targeting those already held back by other institutional obstacles, not to mention some rather evil people with an unwarranted sense of entitlement and superiority.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in changing our system to one that is both just and equitable, whether you're a scholar, part of the legal system, or an activist. Debate is good and this book offers plenty to consider and discuss.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)