Locking Up Our Own

America's criminal justice system has become the subject of a volatile debate. Critics have argued that mass incarceration disproportionately impacts people of color. Author James Forman, Jr. argues in Locking Up Our Own that many prominent black leaders, including Washington, D. C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, supported these policies during a historically violent time in the nation's cities; they feared that civil rights gains would be undermined by lawlessness, and saw greater use of police officers and more substantial sentences as an effective deterrent.