An original argument that the answer to mass incarceration lies
not with experts and pundits, but with ordinary people taking
extraordinary actions together—written by a leading authority on
bail reform and social movements
“To pay money bail via an organized community bail fund is not
just a form of protest, nor a simple act of charity, but rather
something more powerful: a collective assertion of power over the
decision to hold someone in a cage because of their poverty.” —from
the introduction
A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Book
From reading books on mass incarceration, one might conclude that the
way out of our overly punitive, racially disparate criminal system is
to put things in the hands of experts, technocrats able to think
their way out of the problem. But, as Jocelyn Simonson points out in
her groundbreaking new book, the problems posed by the American
carceral state are not just technical puzzles; they present profound
moral questions for our time.
Radical Acts of Justice tells the stories of ordinary people
joining together in collective acts of resistance: paying bail for a
stranger, using social media to let the public know what everyday
courtroom proceedings are like, making a video about someone’s life
for a criminal court judge, presenting a budget proposal to the city
council. When people join together to contest received ideas of
justice and safety, they challenge the ideas that prosecutions and
prisons make us safer; that public officials charged with maintaining
“law and order” are carrying out the will of the people; and that
justice requires putting people in cages. Through collective action,
these groups live out new and more radical ideas of what justice can
look like.
In a book that will be essential reading for those who believe our
current systems of policing, criminal law, and prisons are untenable,
Jocelyn Simonson shows how to shift power away from the elite actors
at the front of the courtroom and toward the swelling collective in
the back.