 |
|
Title: Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse
ISBN: 0679752064
Author:
Steve Bogira
Publicate Date: 2006-02-14
Publish: 2006-02-14
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $8.91
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.12
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.85
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: Behind bars, behind the bar
Steve Bogira offers a stark look at the American legal system. By tracking cases in a single courtroom over the course of a year, the author makes it clear that the problems he uncovers are systemic and long-term, not a few exceptional cases or worst-case-scenarios.
The racism of our laws and enforcement is laid bare here, as well as the inanity of modern prohibition. The deals cut by prosecution and defense, dictated by overcrowding of jails and courtrooms, is revealed as damaging to individuals and society. Few reporters take the time to fully explore their subjects, to invest the time that this author has lent to his subject.
As an investigative reporter, I am well impressed by Bogira's work and product. We need more of his brand of reporting and we need legal reform -- for instance, an end to plea bargaining which clears dockets but does nothing for the rule of law or justice. Hopefully this book will encourage more of both.
|
2: It's a growth industry...
Bogira has his biases and they are imbedded within the narrative, sometimes to the detriment of the story. However, the stories are so compelling (at least to anyone with an interest in the subjecet matter) that the book does not really suffer. Plus, by focusing on at least a dozen different cases, the action moves too quickly to get bogged down in preaching and a fairly accurate picture of the system shines through in technicolor.
Full disclosure...I clerked at 26th and Cal in law school working on the State's Attorney side. I agree that criticism of the office is warranted (an insular culture does exist) and that personal career aspirations motivate more prosecutors to wake up every morning than a true belief that the system works.
The idea of the system as a "growth industry" hits a perfect tragicomic note. As long as drugs are illegal and ghettos exist within the city, the "demand" which creates the industry will keep many of the sons and daughters of Chicago's insular and politically adept south side gainfully employed. Meanwhile the ghetto kids of the south and west sides have a higher wall to climb. The thing about this "industry" is that the public officials who pass our laws are the masters of this "business" in ways they can't master any other market. It won't ever change until the public elects officials who campaign on the issue of rehauling the system. The book seems to suggest this but the tone is much more journalistic instead of solution-oriented.
There are tough questions to deal with here, so I'm not inclined to follow the biases of some people who have posted on this book or perhaps Bogira himself that the system can be written off as an "injustice" or that we should all just up and legalize drugs tommorow and fund a bunch of afterschool programs. This book does not leave the courthouse much, so there isn't a whole lot of reporting from the front lines of these ghettos where the violence and drug markets exist.
Further, the book tends to delight in reporting any racially-charged remarks made by the state's attorneys, the judges and the deputies. Obviously this will cause all the righteous suburbanites in California, New York, the North Shore or wherever to get all worked up about the racist system of whites oppressing blacks. Hopefully, that won't be the only thing people get out of this book. The truth is that the men and women who work there and the men and women who walk the halls as defendants or family members of the defendants are on the frontlines of the American race problem and probably have a much more comprehensive understanding of race in this country than anyone who's going to lament the injustice of all the racists and then move on to the next book their book club will read. Also, what people don't get from this book is that most of the racial joshing that goes on at 26th and Cal is done to people's faces- it's a white guy to a black guy, or a Hispanic guy to a white woman, or sometimes even a judge to a defendant- some people see this as abhorent, personally I see it as realistic and honest. This is America and the race problem is real...at least to those of us who live in a diverse community.
Anyways, I applaud and recommend the book for jumping into the criminal justice system, compiling the stories and presenting a fairly accurate portrayal of life in the system. I'm sorry if my antennae is always up when it comes to racial hypocrisy.
|
3: exciting look behind the scenes - but sadly terribly biased
It seems to be an exciting look behind the scenes of a typical big city courthouse. And it is, the reader will be given an interesting and sometimes spellbinding look into the lockups, the backrooms and chambers where justice is being sought, sometimes found, sometimes not. Having spent many years in New York City courtrooms I can agree with the descriptions in this book.
However, every page is dripping with bias. You will find every liberal prejudice that ever was invented: The deputies are pretty much heartless sadistic roboters, the prosecutors overzealous apparachicks who waste taxpayers' money -and always are white, which is pretty unbelievable-, corruption among the judges is rampant -which is even more unbelievable-, and the defendants always are poor, disadvantaged minorities, who in the author's view are only victims of society and should not be held responsible for their crimes. Luckily the author found a judge, who pretty much shares this attitude.
The author only changes his view where the defendants are white. Here the judge cannot throw the book hard enough at them.
Once the reader has been numbed enough to just ignore this mantra, the book is mildly interesting. Sadly, as in most liberal descriptions of our justice system, you read a lot about the defendants, the judges, the lawyers, but almost nothing about the victims of the defendants' crimes.
Sadly, after a few pages you have already had all the information you will get. The rest of the book will only repeat the author's ideology. That makes reading this book pretty much a waste of time.
|
4: A Fly on the Wall
Courtroom 302 was clearly written by a journalist. It reads like an in depth newspaper article--a good one. Bogira writes as a fly on the wall, following Judge Locallo around from case to case through the Chicago criminal justice system, observing the real world facts of murder, extortion, corruption, heartache, and betrayal, while also bringing in the big picture facts of a social scientist.
Myriad stories are interwoven to show the bigger story of "justice," America style. (The quotes seem may seem more appropriate after reading the book.) The in depth investigations of each story show all the relevant sides and seem to bring out the truth almost every time. Bogira gives an honest effort at a fair showing of the facts.
He also does a great job with the statistics--de-humanized and telling. The occasional chapter of big-picture facts and statistics helps to fill out the human stories and show that they are not isolated exceptions, but mundane reality. The statistics indicate that nothing is special about these tragic stories, and that is precisely the point that Bogira wants to make.
|
5: A real eye opener!
Courtroom 302 is a frank look at the shocking injustices built into the very foundation of the criminal justice system. The judge and laywers portrayed are identified as some of the best of their class, and they can still be seen turning a blind eye to injustice for the sake of expediency. A word of warning: Courtroom 302 will shake your faith in the great institution of American justice. If you want to maintain your fragile illusions, do not read this book.
|
|
|
|
|
