---
product_id: 62622678
title: "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America"
price: "163.49 DT"
currency: TND
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.tn/products/62622678-locking-up-our-own-crime-and-punishment-in-black-america
store_origin: TN
region: Tunisia
---

# Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

**Price:** 163.49 DT
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
- **How much does it cost?** 163.49 DT with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.tn](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/62622678-locking-up-our-own-crime-and-punishment-in-black-america)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America [Forman Jr., James] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

Review: Important, interesting....and a good read, too. - This is the best book about how we have came to have so many young black men in jail and prison. The statistics are familiar but shocking - to take one as an example, roughly 30% of young black men that are high school dropouts are *currently* in jail or prison. That's a stunning failure for those men, of course, but it's a failure for the rest of our society as well. Many analysts point to white racism or the war on drugs as the causes of that incarceration, and they're of course not totally wrong. But Forman's contribution is to point out incompleteness of that narrative, as the incarceration boom had complicated origins. There are two of those additional factors that Forman analyzes with unique skill and detail. The first is the get-tough-on-crime stance taken by many black politicians and civic leaders in the 1980s and 1990s, These were times when the crack epidemic wrought particular havoc in the black community in Washington, DC - on which Forman focuses - and which created a demand for get-tough policies by the black middle class that was disproportionately the victim of crack-fueled crime. The second is the trend towards pretextual searches of cars in Washington - Eric Holder's version of Rudy Giuliani's stop-and-frisk - which was designed to reduce gun possession in DC. Those searches were deliberately executed with greater vigor in poor, black neighborhoods, and the result was that many poor blacks were arrested for minor drug offenses when officers found marijuana in their cars while looking for guns. It's a Greek tragedy, and it reminded me favorably of Randy Shilts' brilliant treatment of the AIDS epidemic in And The Band Played On. Forman's background as a former public defender in DC is a great strength of the book, but it also makes the narrative somewhat DC-centric. Incarceration increased throughout the country - were the political and justice dynamics the same in Mississippi and Ohio, to take two examples, as they were in DC. That remains an open question. The book is frustrating, too, in that Forman offers no easy cure for the problems. More drug treatment programs, more constructive diversion programs for youthful offenders, more nuanced reading of arrest records by current and prospective employers? Those would all be good, to be sure, but I left this book feeling that it would take these things, and at least a handful of similarly benign trends, before we will really get a handle on these problems. But it is to Forman's credit that he offers no silver bullet for the problems. Life is sadly frustrating at times.
Review: I now understand why blacks supported the War On Drugs. - Locking Up Our Own tells the story of the implementation of the War On Drugs focusing on Washington D.C., a majority black city with blacks dominating both politics and the criminal justice system. Forman, now a Law Professor at Yale University, incorporates experiences gained during seven years as Public Defender during the 1990s into his writing. A key point I didn’t understand before reading the book was the intensity of black support for anti-crime and anti-drug policies that selectively targeted their own communities. The heroine epidemic of the 1960s and the crack epidemic of the 1980s both caused many deaths and major social upset in the black community. Guns played a major role in many robberies and murders committed to support a drug habit. During January of 1988, for instance, 37 people were murdered in Washington D.C., mostly using guns and for reasons related to drug use. The twin ideas of putting away drug offenders and getting guns off the street, ideas strongly supported by black citizens of Washington D.C. and other cities, played a significant role in the creation of what has come to be known as mass incarnation. Here is how it worked. In 1994, Eric Holder, then serving as the United States District Attorney for the District of Columbia, initiated “Operation Ceasefire.” The goal was to “stop cars, search cars, seize guns.” The program was very popular and did result in the confiscation of many guns. When a car was being searched, however, other crimes were also noted and charged such as possession of any cocaine or marijuana that might be found in the glove compartment or under the seat. “Pretext stops” became common. That meant stopping drivers for any infraction including such things as possibly having the car windows tinted too much. In 1996 pretext stops including searches of the entire car were allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court as long as there was any legal reason for the stop. The general consensus was that with all the traffic laws out there, everyone violated at least one of them every time they drove anywhere. This allowed for nearly anyone to be stopped on a legal pretext. But there were exceptions. In Washington D.C. and other cities, black neighborhoods had disproportionately high rates of murder using guns. That statistic was used to justify conducting pretext stops to seize guns only in black neighborhoods. While many illegal guns were found, far more people were charged with drug crimes as a result of the searches. Nonetheless, black support was strong because of the fear of violence that continued to take place in the community. Not until much later was it recognized how much violence mass incarceration itself visited upon the community. Many of the politicians who advocated for strict enforcement and harsh penalties for both guns and drugs also advocated for programs to rehabilitate offenders. Some called for a new Marshall Plan to rebuild crumbling neighborhoods. Unfortunately, only the punitive measures were significantly funded. Locking Up Our Own won a Pulitzer Prize in the category of General Non-Fiction. It is a very readable book – well written with good stories. I highly recommend it to anyone who cares about the directions our criminal justice systems have taken us.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #75,547 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #205 in Criminology (Books) #236 in African American Demographic Studies (Books) #240 in Discrimination & Racism |
| Customer Reviews | 4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (821) |
| Dimensions  | 5.65 x 0.76 x 8.27 inches |
| Edition  | Reprint |
| ISBN-10  | 0374537445 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0374537449 |
| Item Weight  | 2.31 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 320 pages |
| Publication date  | February 6, 2018 |
| Publisher  | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |

## Images

![Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91yy5skY52L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Important, interesting....and a good read, too.
*by W***N on July 12, 2017*

This is the best book about how we have came to have so many young black men in jail and prison. The statistics are familiar but shocking - to take one as an example, roughly 30% of young black men that are high school dropouts are *currently* in jail or prison. That's a stunning failure for those men, of course, but it's a failure for the rest of our society as well. Many analysts point to white racism or the war on drugs as the causes of that incarceration, and they're of course not totally wrong. But Forman's contribution is to point out incompleteness of that narrative, as the incarceration boom had complicated origins. There are two of those additional factors that Forman analyzes with unique skill and detail. The first is the get-tough-on-crime stance taken by many black politicians and civic leaders in the 1980s and 1990s, These were times when the crack epidemic wrought particular havoc in the black community in Washington, DC - on which Forman focuses - and which created a demand for get-tough policies by the black middle class that was disproportionately the victim of crack-fueled crime. The second is the trend towards pretextual searches of cars in Washington - Eric Holder's version of Rudy Giuliani's stop-and-frisk - which was designed to reduce gun possession in DC. Those searches were deliberately executed with greater vigor in poor, black neighborhoods, and the result was that many poor blacks were arrested for minor drug offenses when officers found marijuana in their cars while looking for guns. It's a Greek tragedy, and it reminded me favorably of Randy Shilts' brilliant treatment of the AIDS epidemic in And The Band Played On. Forman's background as a former public defender in DC is a great strength of the book, but it also makes the narrative somewhat DC-centric. Incarceration increased throughout the country - were the political and justice dynamics the same in Mississippi and Ohio, to take two examples, as they were in DC. That remains an open question. The book is frustrating, too, in that Forman offers no easy cure for the problems. More drug treatment programs, more constructive diversion programs for youthful offenders, more nuanced reading of arrest records by current and prospective employers? Those would all be good, to be sure, but I left this book feeling that it would take these things, and at least a handful of similarly benign trends, before we will really get a handle on these problems. But it is to Forman's credit that he offers no silver bullet for the problems. Life is sadly frustrating at times.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I now understand why blacks supported the War On Drugs.
*by K***N on July 11, 2022*

Locking Up Our Own tells the story of the implementation of the War On Drugs focusing on Washington D.C., a majority black city with blacks dominating both politics and the criminal justice system. Forman, now a Law Professor at Yale University, incorporates experiences gained during seven years as Public Defender during the 1990s into his writing. A key point I didn’t understand before reading the book was the intensity of black support for anti-crime and anti-drug policies that selectively targeted their own communities. The heroine epidemic of the 1960s and the crack epidemic of the 1980s both caused many deaths and major social upset in the black community. Guns played a major role in many robberies and murders committed to support a drug habit. During January of 1988, for instance, 37 people were murdered in Washington D.C., mostly using guns and for reasons related to drug use. The twin ideas of putting away drug offenders and getting guns off the street, ideas strongly supported by black citizens of Washington D.C. and other cities, played a significant role in the creation of what has come to be known as mass incarnation. Here is how it worked. In 1994, Eric Holder, then serving as the United States District Attorney for the District of Columbia, initiated “Operation Ceasefire.” The goal was to “stop cars, search cars, seize guns.” The program was very popular and did result in the confiscation of many guns. When a car was being searched, however, other crimes were also noted and charged such as possession of any cocaine or marijuana that might be found in the glove compartment or under the seat. “Pretext stops” became common. That meant stopping drivers for any infraction including such things as possibly having the car windows tinted too much. In 1996 pretext stops including searches of the entire car were allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court as long as there was any legal reason for the stop. The general consensus was that with all the traffic laws out there, everyone violated at least one of them every time they drove anywhere. This allowed for nearly anyone to be stopped on a legal pretext. But there were exceptions. In Washington D.C. and other cities, black neighborhoods had disproportionately high rates of murder using guns. That statistic was used to justify conducting pretext stops to seize guns only in black neighborhoods. While many illegal guns were found, far more people were charged with drug crimes as a result of the searches. Nonetheless, black support was strong because of the fear of violence that continued to take place in the community. Not until much later was it recognized how much violence mass incarceration itself visited upon the community. Many of the politicians who advocated for strict enforcement and harsh penalties for both guns and drugs also advocated for programs to rehabilitate offenders. Some called for a new Marshall Plan to rebuild crumbling neighborhoods. Unfortunately, only the punitive measures were significantly funded. Locking Up Our Own won a Pulitzer Prize in the category of General Non-Fiction. It is a very readable book – well written with good stories. I highly recommend it to anyone who cares about the directions our criminal justice systems have taken us.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Thoughtful analysis of a big national challenge
*by R***L on August 16, 2018*

Does a nice job of describing the impact of mass incarceration on black men, but also makes clear that it was a sincere desire to reduce crime and get guns, drugs and criminals off the streets that led to the current situation, even in cities with black mayors, city councils, police chiefs, prosecutors, judges and majority black police departments. Eric Holder explained to Washington DC residents that aggressive policing and pretextual stops in high crime neighborhoods would have a disproportionate impact on young black men. The city went ahead anyway because crime was so bad. Author also makes the point that early release of non-violent drug offenders from prison will hardly dent prison populations. There aren't that many of them. Instead, we need to be open to the early release of young men convicted of illegal possession of firearms, even when those guns were a factor in the commission of another crime.

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.tn/products/62622678-locking-up-our-own-crime-and-punishment-in-black-america](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/62622678-locking-up-our-own-crime-and-punishment-in-black-america)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Tunisia*
*Store origin: TN*
*Last updated: 2026-02-05*