In Their Names: The Untold Story of Victims’ Rights, Mass Incarceration, and the Future of Public Safety
Lenore Anderson
The New Press (November 2022)

Why we must really SEE all victims and build a safer society in their names

If read with the patience and attention this brilliant book deserves, it will be (for most people) one of the most unpleasant experiences they will ever have. Why? It focuses on problems that have been discussed but unsolved for decades: victims’ rights, mass incarceration, and public safety.

What does Lenore Anderson think? On victims’ rights, see pages 6-7, 29-47, 74-76, and 273-274; on mass incarceration,  see pages 13-16, 46-47, 117-118, and 128-131; and on public safety, see pages 187-191, 195-213, 231-241, 251-266, and 271-273.

These are among the other passages that also caught my eye, listed to suggest the scope of Anderson’s extensive coverage:

o Cycle of trauma (Pages 3-4, 16-17, and 151-173)
o Victims’ assistance and compensation programs (8-9, 76-80, 91-99, 212-23, and 255-257)
o Trauma of the criminal justice system (16-17, 51-54, 84-85, 1@0-1@1, 174-191, 248-250, and 257-261)
o Youth prisons (16-17, 120-121, 174-176, and 187-188)
o Criminal justice (17-20,187-191, 231-236, 239-241, 2623-264, and 272-273)

o Tough-on-crime movement and policies: California (25-29, 33-42, 45-46, 137-141, and 231-232)
o Sentencing (34-35, 39-40, 43-45, 74-77, 135-141, and 141-144)
o Black American experiences (57-62, 65-68, 69-73, and 123-125)
o Innocence: false dichotomies and hierarchies (99-103 and 160-164)
o Mass surveillance and law-and-order policing (100-113) 113-116, and 119-122)

o Cleveland, Ohio (107-113 and 123-125)
o Adverse childhood experiences (154-157 and 169-170)
o Community-based public safety  (167-169, 200-2003, 206-213, 236-238, and 241-245)
o Pubic Safety: Future of a new safety movement (187-191, 195-213, 231-230, and 271-273)
o Trauma recovery for all (195-213)

Anderson explains WHAT must be done. Once people read this book and understand that, Ihope they will be receptive to knowing the HOW and be driven by the WHY.

I urge those who read this brilliant book to highlight key passages and keep a lined notebook near at hand in order to record their comments, questions, page references, etc. These two simple tactics can facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key material later.

These are among Lenore Anderson’s concluding thoughts: “The main barrier to investing in these solutions at the scale needed is fundamentally a political barrier. As crime rates shift, politicians too often look for simple headliner-driving solutions. Those usually revolve around increased investments into the same criminal justice bureaucracies that grew exponentially over the last forty years. But those kinds of solutions will bring forth the same dynamics we have already seen.”

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing again and again, the same way, and then expecting different results. That said, never underestimate the power of those who are sane but unprincipled…driven only by greed and ambition. When asked to support solutions to the problems related to victims’ rights, mass incarceration, and public safety, they have only one question in mind: “What’s in it for me?”