The Current Book

Like Foer's book, Just Mercy is a gripping work of non-fiction based on a tremendous amount of research on a vast social and political system; and like Skloot s, it delves into the ways social inequities "live" inside the institutions of civil society and play out systemically. Also like those texts, Stevenson's book is written in the style of creative non-fiction. As such, it is highly readable and works well in the classroom. As a narrative account, the large swathe of historical and legal data contained within its pages is both more memorable and more easily understood. In yet another link to Skloot and Foer, Just Mercy is not only a well-researched study but also a deeply personal tale. The book is at once strongly research-driven and a moving story about a new lawyer trying to make a positive difference in the lives of struggling Americans while struggling himself to discern how best to negotiate the penal and prosecution systems.

Just Mercy will prompt students to puzzle through, for example, what Stevenson "really" means when he says: "My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice" (18). It will bring them into consideration also of the history behind that question, the circumstances that bring us today to the situation in which our "prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970's to 2.3 million," with a whopping (approximately) six million additional Americans under some other form of correctional control (15).

The bibliography is designed to support students, faculty and staff doing research on the book and aims also to buoy our various co-curricular projects and programs. In preparing this year's bibliography, with gratitude and kudos to librarian Wendy Chu, we looked carefully at the book and realized the array of themes addressed, as well as the ways the book can usefully enrich the classroom. Those themes include: the criminal justice system and component parts (policing, prosecution and the judiciary, the penal and prisons systems); gender concerns within that context, from Women's and Masculinity Studies perspectives; the important contexts of psychological health and public health and sustainability; matters of juvenile justice and corrections; institutional and structural racism; and the range of additional issues intersecting criminal justice the family, economic class, industry, education, and civil and voting rights, among others. We are excited about this year's book because, given the range of themes and issues addressed, it engages a genuinely wide range of disciplines. The story Stevenson tells is relevant for courses in Health, English and Journalism, History, Communications and Media, Philosophy, Law and Ethics, Political Science and Criminal Justice, as well as Business and all of the Behavioral Sciences.

Books are available, for as long as they last, in Room A-228. 

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**Note for new faculty or those unfamiliar with KCC Reads: The common reading text is available for you to adopt in any course. Books are provided by the program to your students should you decide to adopt it. (You do not need to include this book on your books order; the books are housed in A-228.) To decide, pick up your copy at A-228. Then, if you choose to adopt it, you may either have students pick up their copies individually OR we can deliver the books to your department for you to distribute. If you want students to pick it up, they may do so anytime at A-228. In addition, anyone teaching the book is encouraged to include their students in our student conferences to make presentations, hold roundtable discussions, debates or any other type of session on the book in November and May. On our website, you will find a research bibliography and teacher toolbox, designed to support you and your students. Stay abreast of events, learn more about the program and access all of our support materials at: www.kbcc.cuny.edu/kccreads