Description
Book SynopsisThe United States needs someone who represents the poor and disenfranchised. Someone who has a seat at the table for any discussions of policy, funding, or priorities in the administration of justice. The United States needs a Defender General.
In these times of reckoning—at last—with America’s original sin of slavery and racist policies, with police misconduct, and with mass-incarceration, many in our country ask, “What can we do?”
In this powerful and insightful book, Andrea D. Lyon explicates what is wrong with the criminal justice system through clients’ stories and historical perspective, and makes the compelling case for the need for reform at the center of the system; not just its edges. Lyon, suggests that we should create an office of the Defender General of the United States and give it the same level of importance as the Attorney General and the Solicitor General. Such an office would not be held by someone who represents law enforcement, or corporate America, but rather by someone who represents and advocates for accused individuals, collectively before the powers that be. A Defender General would raise his or her voice against injustices like those involving the unnecessary killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, or the Texas Supreme Court’s refusal to let an innocent man, cleared by DNA, out of prison. The United States needs a Defender General.
Table of ContentsChapter 1: You Have a Right to An Attorney—Kind of
Chapter 2: The System Isn’t Broken; It Was Built This Way
Chapter 3: [Un]equal Justice: Racism’s Thumb on the Scales
Chapter 4: The Inequality Tax: The Economic Case for Criminal Justice Reform
Chapter 5: The War on Us: Laws that Caused Mass Incarceration
Chapter 6: What a Defender General’s Office Can Mean
