Justice Abandoned: How the Supreme Court Ignored the Constitution and Enabled Mass Incarceration

Rachel Elise Barkow

Buch

Justice Abandoned

How the Supreme Court Ignored the Constitution and Enabled Mass Incarceration

Rachel Elise Barkow

Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 2025

Veröffentlicht von

Weitere Titel anzeigen von Harvard University Press

Zur Verlagsseite

Über dieses Buch

An influential legal scholar argues that the Supreme Court played a pivotal role in the rise of mass incarceration in America.

With less than 5 percent of the world’s population and almost a quarter of its prisoners, America indisputably has a mass incarceration problem. How did it happen? Tough-on-crime politics and a racially loaded drug war are obvious and important culprits, but another factor has received remarkably little attention: the Supreme Court. The Constitution contains numerous safeguards that check the state’s power to lock people away. Yet since the 1960s the Supreme Court has repeatedly disregarded these limits, bowing instead to unfounded claims that adherence to the Constitution is incompatible with public safety.

In Justice Abandoned, Rachel Barkow highlights six Supreme Court decisions that paved the way for mass incarceration. These rulings have been crucial to the meteoric rise in pretrial detention and coercive plea bargaining. They have enabled disproportionate sentencing and overcrowded prison conditions. And they have sanctioned innumerable police stops and widespread racial discrimination. If the Court were committed to protecting constitutional rights and followed its standard methods of interpretation, none of these cases would have been decided as they were, and punishment in America would look very different than it does today.

More than just an autopsy of the Supreme Court’s errors, Justice Abandoned offers a roadmap for change. Barkow shows that the originalist methodology adopted by the majority of the current Court demands overturning the unconstitutional policies underlying mass incarceration. If the justices genuinely believe in upholding the Constitution in all cases, then they have little choice but to reverse the wrongly decided precedents that have failed so many Americans.

Rezensionen

Groundbreaking, engrossing, and authoritative…[Barkow] is standing up for liberty.
-- Lincoln Caplan Harvard Magazine

Lays at the feet of the U.S. Supreme Court the explosion of incarceration that started in the 1970s and continued through the turn of the century, on to today.
-- Arthur Rizer Federalist Society

Makes a strong case that the Framers would have been dismayed by developments such as routine pretrial detention, search and seizure without probable cause, and a plea-bargaining system that has turned the promise of trial by jury into a fantasy. By explaining why these decisions should trouble originalists, Barkow makes it seem at least possible that the Supreme Court might correct some of its mistakes.
-- Jacob Sullum Reason

Extraordinary…A meticulously researched and powerfully argued account of the detrimental consequences of modern Supreme Court criminal justice opinions and—not coincidentally—how antithetical those opinions are to the original understanding of the Constitution.
-- Mike Fox Cato at Liberty

An intelligent, essential compendium that creates a 360-degree view of the United States’ crisis of mass incarceration.
-- Tina Panik Library Journal (starred review)

Excellent…There is something in this book for everybody. Well-written enough for the beginner in law, it has facts and conclusions that can teach even those who are familiar with these cases…We are in difficult times, but reading books like Barkow’s can be a tonic.
-- Chad Flanders Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

Demonstrate[s] the consistent inclination of several different groups of Justices to fail to do the job the Court is supposed to do, which is to uphold the Constitution, particularly as various sections of that document relate to mass incarceration.
-- Bill Littlefield Arts Fuse

[A] fine-grained account…by framing her arguments as genuine originalism, Barkow’s explicit and laudably practical aim is to help lawyers strategize how to win over today’s court.
-- Publishers Weekly

In Justice Abandoned, Rachel Barkow reveals how the Supreme Court—over six decisions spanning twenty-five years—slowly and methodically paved the way for mass incarceration. Her precise, powerful analysis proves that each case could, and should, have come out differently. If you want to understand how America came to be the world’s largest jailer, you simply must read this book.
-- James Forman, Jr., author of Locking Up Our Own

How does the Supreme Court bear responsibility for mass incarceration? Rachel Barkow lays out the crucial wrong turns the Court has taken. Justice Abandoned is learned and accessible—and full of ideas for how the law could and should change.
-- Emily Bazelon, author of Charged

Rachel Barkow delivers an insightful and meticulously researched retelling of six Supreme Court cases that shaped the US incarceration system as we know it today. Her work highlights a history we should all confront if we are to right the wrongs of our past and reform the status quo—which, as she demonstrates, was brought about as much by the Supreme Court as by political actors.
-- Preet Bharara, author of Doing Justice

Most people, whether concerned citizens or specialists, think that mass incarceration is the result of bad policies, overreaching police and prosecutors, and structural racism. Justice Abandoned shows that the Supreme Court is also to blame for repeatedly failing to stand up for individual liberty in the face of government claims that public safety requires suppressing rights. Writing with clarity and verve, the brilliant Rachel Barkow unpacks six dramatic moments when the Court got it wrong and enabled the imprisonment of millions of people who would not face incarceration in any other liberal democracy on earth.
-- Noah Feldman, author of Scorpions

Fachgebiete

Öffentlich zugänglich

Frontmatter
i

PDF downloaden
Öffentlich zugänglich

CONTENTS
vii

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

Introduction
1

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

1. Lowering the Bar for Pretrial Detention
12

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

2. Normalizing Coercive Plea Bargaining
47

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

3. Upholding Disproportionate Sentences
82

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

4. Tolerating Overcrowded Prisons
122

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

5. Greenlighting Stop-and-Frisk
163

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

6. Overlooking Pervasive Racial Bias
199

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

Conclusion
236

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

Notes
245

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

Acknowledgments
303

PDF downloaden
Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert

Lizenziert

Index
305

PDF downloaden

Informationen zur Veröffentlichung

Seiten und Bilder/Illustrationen im Buch

eBook veröffentlicht am:

18. Februar 2025

eBook ISBN:

9780674298927

Seiten und Bilder/Illustrationen im Buch

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674298927

eBook ISBN: 9780674298927

Schlagwörter für dieses Buch

mass incarceration; supreme court decisions; constitutional rights; criminal justice reform; plea bargaining; pretrial detention; constitutional law; racial bias disparities; disproportionate sentences; eighth amendment; overcrowded prisons; criminal justice; tough on crime policies; judicial reform; legal reform; social justice; criminal procedure; sentencing policy; prison reform; constitutional interpretation; criminal justice policy; prison policy; judicial process; legal history; court system; legal analysis; reform movement; criminal law; prison studies; bordenkircher v hayes; mccleskey v kemp; terry v ohio; harmelin v michigan; united states v salerno; naacp legal defense fund; american civil liberties union; aclu; american bar association; aba; harry blackmun; richard nixon; thurgood marshall; rehnquist; scalia; john paul stevens; cruel unusual punishment; james otis; adam cohen supreme inequality; john pfaff locked in; rachel elise barkow prisoners of politics; erwin chemerinsky presumed guilty; james forman locking up our own; elizabeth hinton from the war on poverty; brandon garrett autopsy of criminal justice; michelle alexander the new jim crow; william stuntz the collapse of american criminal justice

Justice Abandoned

Übersicht

Über dieses Buch

Rezensionen

Fachgebiete

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Lowering the Bar for Pretrial Detention

2. Normalizing Coercive Plea Bargaining

3. Upholding Disproportionate Sentences

4. Tolerating Overcrowded Prisons

5. Greenlighting Stop-and-Frisk

6. Overlooking Pervasive Racial Bias

Conclusion

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Bibliographische Daten