Book & podcast collection

Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal

byAlexandra Natapoff

Alexandra Natapoff exposes America's enormous misdemeanor system, where minor charges can trigger jail, debt, lost employment, immigration consequences, and lasting criminal records. Courtroom assembly lines pressure defendants to plead guilty regardless of actual culpability, often without meaningful counsel or scrutiny. The book shows how policing and local revenue practices disproportionately burden poor people and communities of color while remaining largely invisible beside felony justice. Natapoff argues that punishment begins long before conviction and that reform requires reducing criminalization, protecting due process, collecting data, and making low-level courts accountable to the public.

Publisher

Basic Books

Publication date

2023

Format

Print edition

Pages

352

ISBN

9781541603608