Confronting underground justice : reinventing plea bargaining for effective criminal justice reform /

The US criminal justice system has spent decades attempting to reduce crime with a philosophy rooted largely in punishment. In Confronting Underground Justice, Kelly (sociology, Univ. of Texas, Austin) and Pitman (US district judge for the Western District of Texas) analyze how plea bargaining, prosecution, public defense for indigent offenders, and pretrial procedures and policies have contributed to mass incarceration, and how these tactics could be reformed to reduce incarcerated populations and thus budgets devoted to incarceration. The authors highlight problems with the criminal justice system and potential solutions, not only by citing statistics but also by interviewing lawyers and judges. The authors seek to redefine the roles of the individual actors in the justice system. In addition they clearly outline the challenges to implementing criminal justice reform and suggest incentives to inspire attitudinal change toward reform in lawmakers and the general public. Because it describes the problems in the US criminal justice system without using complex statistics or jargon, this book will be invaluable for criminal justice practitioners and the general public as well as for students and scholars of psychology, sociology, criminology, criminal justice, law enforcement, and social work. The book concludes with a full bibliography, detailed notes, and an exhaustive index. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Daniel Ryan Kavish, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Kelly, director of the Center for Criminology and Criminal Justice Research at the University of Texas at Austin, and federal judge Pitman (From Retribution to Public Safety: Disruptive Innovation of American Criminal Justice Policy) cogently analyze a common facet of the American criminal justice system: plea negotiations, which yield more than 95% of all criminal convictions. The prevalence of plea deals developed as a consequence of the massive uptick in arrests in the late 20th century, which made plea bargains essential to keep dockets from backing up with defendants demanding trials. As a result, some defendants pleaded guilty despite their innocence, and some did so in advance of pretrial hearings that would have determined the constitutionality of their arrest and the evidence sought to be used against them. The authors propose a number of reforms meant to address the perceived injustices of the current process, including creating a neutral plea mediator who would "serve the dual purpose of ensuring that each side had an adequate opportunity to consider the consequences of a plea as well as possible alternate outcomes." But as thoughtful as their suggestions are, as they note at the end, the absence of "political will to make meaningful comprehensive reform a priority" makes this of more intellectual than practical utility. Still, this sobering study deserves a wide readership. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.