Over the past fifty years, American criminal justice policy has had a nearly singular focus - the relentless pursuit of punishment. Punishment is intuitive, proactive, logical, and simple. But the problem is that despite all of the appeal, logic, and common sense, punishment doesn't work. The majority of crimes committed in the United States are by people who have been through the criminal justice system before, many on multiple occasions. There are two issues that are the primary focus of this book. The first is developing a better approach than simple punishment to actually address...

Confronting Underground Justice identifies major problems with plea negotiation and the pretrial system and provides transformative recommendations to reduce crime and recidivism.