Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
2014
Abstract
In lieu of an abstract, here is the review's first paragraph:
They say the first step to curing addiction is admitting that you have a problem. Daniel Medwed’s terrific book, PROSECUTION COMPLEX: AMERICA’S RACE TO CONVICT AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INNOCENT, attempts to do exactly that. The thesis of the book is laid out in the first few pages: prosecutors are professionally and politically incentivized to earn the greatest number of convictions. In conjunction with vast discretion over an individual’s case and powerful psychological forces that discourage prosecutors from critically entertaining the possibility of being wrong, an estimable but ultimately unknowable number of innocent people are convicted and sentenced to prison. As a result, just as with any other addiction, prosecutors’ thirst for convictions ultimately ends up hurting the ones around them, sometimes for unconscionable lengths of time.
Publication Information
Donovan, Kathleen M. (2014). "Prosecution Complex: America's Race to Convict and Its Impact on the Innocent." Law and Politics Book Review 24.7, 287-290.
Please note that the Publication Information provides general citation information and may not be appropriate for your discipline. To receive help in creating a citation based on your discipline, please visit http://libguides.sjfc.edu/citations.
Comments
Book review published in Law and Politics Book Review and reposted with permission: http://www.lpbr.net/2014/07/prosecution-complex-americas-race-to.html