Guilty?: Crime, Punishment, and the Changing Face of Justice

by Teri Kanefield

"An extraordinary book . . . that could well be mind-blowing to the thoughtful young reader who is ready to move beyond the black-and-white notion that a particular act is wrong simply because it is illegal." --Richie Partington

When does strategy become cheating? Can good luck be theft? Is killing always a crime? Real-world cases show there are often no clear-cut answers in this fascinating look at the ever-evolving world of law and order, and crime and punishment. 

When some people kill, they are jailed or even executed. When others do, they are celebrated as heroes. Though this example is extreme, it’s just one of many that author and lawyer Teri Kanefield explores in depth. From an examination of what constitutes a crime, why and how we punish people who commit crimes, how the government determines these rules, to how citizens have reacted when they feel laws aren’t fair, this book will challenge young readers’ thinking about law and order, crime and punishment, while giving them specific legal cases to ponder along the way.

For ages 12 and up, this examination of the legal system will also include historical photography to help bring each legal case to life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime, Social Issues, Middle Grade, Social Justice, Legal, Justice

144 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2014

About the author

Teri writes novels, short stories, essays, stories for children, nonfiction for both children and adults, and lots of appellate briefs.

Her stories and essays have appeared in publications as diverse as Education Week, Scope Magazine, The Iowa Review, Cricket Magazine, and The American Literary Review.

Teri's books have received the following honors and distinctions:

The Girl From The Tar Paper School:
--Jane Addams Book Award
--Carter G. Woodson Middle Level Book Award, 2015
--California Reading Association Eureka Silver Honor Book Award
--Included on the 2015 list of Notable Social Studies Trade Books for young readers compiled by the National Council for Social Studies
--Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children (National Association of Teachers of English), Recommended Book
--Included in the New York Public Library's list of 100 children's books to read in 2014.
--A Junior Library Guild selection

Praise for The Girl From The Tar Paper School:
"Beautifully and clearly written." School Library Journal, starred review
"Worthy of the highest recommendation." Midwest Book Review

Rivka's Way
--Sidney Taylor Book Awards, Notable book of 2001
-- Lilith Magazine's 5th Annual Selection of Books for Young Readers
--Included in Great Books for Girls, by Kathleen Odean
--Included in Best Jewish Books for Children and Teens, by Linda R. Silver

Praise for Rivka's Way :
"A rewarding read for the romantically inclined." School Library Journal
"A simple but daring adventure." Voice of Youth Advocates

Guilty? Crime, Punishment, and the Changing Face of Justice
--Junior Library Guild selection

Teri's law practice is limited to representing indigents on appeal from adverse rulings.

She lives in California near the beach..

Reviews

[Chelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well-done look into America's justice system. This book made me question a lot about the ethics of crime and punishment, jails and death row. I really hope I can successfully get this into my teens' hands.

[Heather Rodocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary:
Guilty?, by Teri Kanefield, is a novel based on the laws and criminal justice system in America. This book is not so much of a story, as it is information about these topics and what falls under violating the law and what does not. The novel also focuses on the line in between the two, and how sometimes it is hard to find that line and one court decision could be different than another, depending on the situation of the crime. For example, if someone murders a person, then that is probably a crime that they will go to jail for, for the rest of their lives, or they will be put on death row. However, if that person kills someone out of self-defense, that would be different than just murdering someone, so the two situations could be judged differently and receive different sentences. Guilty? also uses a bunch of crimes that people have committed through the years so back up the information being presented and to use as examples to make the message more clear for the readers; you can't easily miss the messages behind this book.

My Reaction:
I loved Guilty?. I would say that I would usually rather read crime books that are more of true story or true stories, than just information about the law and how it works. This book was informative and even though I would rather read real complete accounts of cases, the book still used cases as examples and ways of helping the reader to understand laws and why they are followed the way that they are. I noticed that the author puts lots of her own thoughts into the novel, by asking questions such as if you did this crime and got this sentence, then why would another person who committed the same crime receive a different sentence? It seems unfair sometimes for different cases to be judged differently but there are just some lines in the law that cannot always be clearly drawn out. Judges and juries sometimes have to create their own decision of what an appropriate punishment would be. I also thought it was interesting to see that laws are extremely exact and seem to have lots of loopholes in them but are still applied anyways. This book helped me to understand the criminal justice system so much more and taught me even more about what is wrong with capital punishment. I also saw that many people will have different opinions than you on whether something should be punished a lot. I would completely recommend this book because it is extremely interesting.

Content Warnings:
-Very mature content and descriptions
-Crimes
-Prison
-Robberies

[Carlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5- This was a rather interesting read. It's no secret that I'm not one to really pick up nonfiction, but I stumbled across this book, and it piqued my interest. I really liked the set-up of this book, and how the author detailed different cases that were related to the idea that she wanted to address. I'd never heard of any of the cases that she studied, so this book opened my eyes to a variety of different circumstances. Overall, the organization of this novel lent itself well to the topics. The author moved through the. justice system while studying surface-level flaws in each of the levels. At the same time, the author didn't seem to be criticizing. She was simply presenting certain facts and certain contradictions that left me really thinking about what I had just read and what it meant in the context of real life. I liked how the author tied all of the ideas together and wrapped up her study. I don't remember if there was any cursing, but there was discussion of violent cases and death. I don't think that nonfiction really fits into categories, but I would say that this is a good book for teens. This book was a solid introduction to different ideas in the justice system. It opens the mind and makes the readers curious for more. I recommend this novel for those who even just have a surface-level interest in the justice system. This topic has always interested me, so I will continue researching it.

[NCHS Library]

From Follett: Grades 7-11. The awareness of injustice is often a bitter pill for young people who are just coming to grips with concepts of legality and adult consequences. Kanefield, an appellate lawyer, uses cases whose just resolutions are debatable at best—the execution of Marvin Wilson and the incarceration of Huzaifa Parhat at Guantanamo, for example—to illustrate that “just as there is no perfect person, there is no perfect system.” Crime control and deterrence are weighed against due process and the presumption of innocence to show young readers how to think critically about laws and punishments in the U.S. Changing cultural attitudes are taken into account, including the treatment of women and minorities and our increased understanding of mental illness, brain injury, and intellectual capacity. This short book is dense with examples and ideas and makes a complicated, somewhat daunting subject more accessible and interesting to a younger audience. A good companion read for novels in which a young person is facing prosecution, such as Walter Dean Myers’ Monster (1999).

[Kyler Weisgarber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take a journey on the side of justice. What is right? What is wrong? Black and white suddenly become less defined and look more and more grey as you look into certain crimes. This book gives examples of crimes that have happened in the past and explains them in a way that a young audience would be able to understand. Moral actions are no longer black and white, and this book will help to change your perspective on a few things.

Personal Reaction: Really interesting, I liked that the book could be read by anyone and understood. I've been interested in the legal system and this book helped me to see that not every situation is a clear cut as some might have us believe. It is important to realize that justice and law is sometimes hard to meet.

Content Warnings: Crime, Moral Dilemmas

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, quick read about some of the dualities of the American justice system. Why do we punish people? Is there a reason that low IQ individuals are more likely to be sentenced to jail than a smarter criminal? Is the death penalty taking justice too far? The author explores, briefly, some of the reasons that the law isn't always simple.

The book definitely aims more "young teen" than it does avid true crime reader. However, I think this is a great way to get younger audiences thinking about some of these questions. For me, however, I found some of the explanations/examples too shorty or overly summarized in a way that was frustrating. Sure, as an overview for a teen reader this may work, but teens also could handle a little deeper of an analysis in some areas.

[Brandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

For such a short book (only 111 pages), this volume provides a through and thought-provoking look at our criminal justice system using real-life cases. I will be recommending this title to our sociology teacher this year as the content is easily digestible and lends itself well to class discussion/debates. Obviously, with such a short book this is not the most in-depth title on the subject of crime and punishment, but it serves its purpose as an entry point to the criminal justice system. Suitable for middle and high school students.

[Ambrose Malles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more then I thought I would, it was a good overview of the criminal justice system for someone who didn’t really know a lot about it. I liked the way it made points by using real cases that happened in the United States. Kanefield asked some very critical questions that changed the way I thought about some of the ways our criminal justice system works. My only gripe is that this book is slightly dated at this point being written in 2014. It would have been nice to have even more recent issues brought to light, but you can’t have everything.

[Richie Partington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richie's Picks: GUILTY? CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND THE CHANGING FACE OF JUSTICE by Teri Kanefield, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2014, 144p., ISBN: 978-0-544-14596-1

"And I was shocked to see
the mistakes of each generation
will just fade like a radio station
if you drive out of range”
-- Ani DiFranco

"...it isn't always easy to decide which behavior should be criminalized. Moreover, the line between what to criminalize and what not to criminalize might not always be drawn in the right place."

GUILTY? CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND THE CHANGING FACE OF JUSTICE is an extraordinary book for ages ten and up about the evolution of what is considered right and wrong, both on an individual and societal level. It is also about punishment and about the tension between the need for due process and the desire for an efficiently functioning criminal justice system.

The author begins her story by laying out several historical situations in which one person took advantage of another, and then shows how in some cases--such as a customer taking advantage of a bank teller's error--there have long been laws that make such opportunistic behavior illegal. In other cases of opportunistic behavior, some of which are logically comparable to the bank teller situation, there are no laws to protect a victim. Therefore, this behavior becomes a civil matter and is perceived as an individual issue, rather than a criminal matter in which The People have an interest.

The author moves on to some of the most unwise laws that have ever been enacted in our country. One, is Louisiana's Separate Car Act, under which Homer Plessy was prosecuted in 1892 for sitting in a Whites Only railroad car, leading to what is arguably the stupidest Supreme Court decision in American history. Another is Public Law 503, under which thousands of Americans of Japanese descent on the West Coast were forced out of their homes and into internment camps during World War II. The author notes that in our looking back "it's easy to see the error. It's harder, though, for people to see their own mistakes." She details a more-recent example: Muslims who were unjustly imprisoned by the U.S. in recent years at Guantanamo Bay.

Here's another sterling example provided by the author of how things change over time:

"In 1868 in Wilkes County, North Carolina, Elizabeth Rhodes accused her husband of beating her. She brought charges against him for assault and battery.
"Elizabeth's husband, A. B. Rhodes, freely admitted to beating his wife, but defended himself by explaining that she had said something to him that he hadn't liked. The problem was, he couldn't remember exactly what she had said.
"The evidence presented at his trial showed that he struck her three times with a switch about the size of one of his fingers but not as large as his thumb. The size of the switch was important because under common law as understood by this particular court, a man could legally beat his wife if the switch he used was no bigger than his thumb -- the so-called rule of thumb."

Yup. He was found not guilty of assault and battery because the switch he beat her with was smaller in diameter than his thumb. On appeal, the state's Supreme Court opined, in part: "'...The question is therefore plainly presented, whether the court will allow conviction of the husband for moderate correction of the wife without provocation.'" These not-so-enlightened men concluded that this was a matter better left to the household "government" and that the court shouldn't meddle in family affairs.

Such examples of how things change over time are essential for enlightening young people, who are in the process of developing morally. It will cause them to recognize that criminal statutes are often the result of a political process and underlying cultural attitudes that are not always grounded in what we would consider to be moral. It certainly makes one recognize why there are important historical examples of citizens protesting and consciously disobeying laws that they do not believe to be moral.

“What is morally wrong or dangerous is not always criminalized, and what is criminalized is not always dangerous or morally wrong. Retribution assumes that people get the punishment they deserve when they break a law, but if crimes are culturally determined, punishment does not necessarily fall on people who are bad.”

GUILTY? which packs so many ideas into a hundred-plus pages, is a book that could well be mind-blowing to the thoughtful young reader who is ready to move beyond the black-and-white notion that a particular act is wrong simply because it is illegal. And, conversely, it might well raise questions about what should be illegal that isn’t, such as children dying in war zones and being dismissed as “collateral damage” or dying in poverty because of an underlying cultural attitude that it’s not society’s problem to care for the most vulnerable among us.

The recent horrific news about a “botched” execution, is one more reason why this is a perfect time for discovering and sharing this book.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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[Robert Hultman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great dig into law and order. Readable for middle school age and up, but not dumbed down or anything. Great case studies and examples with real questions about crime and punishment and the rule pf law in America.

[Youma Garvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is boring if your not into vrime and punishment. It talks about special "crimes" and how the law is written word by word.

[Faizan Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book! Perfect start for anyone looking to go into law or police. Or for anyone to read

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written for middle school students - every US citizen should read this

[Zhuo Zhang · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book to introduce law and whole system with some typical cases. It is an easy but interesting read.

[Ella L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Guilty?: Crime, Punishment, and the Changing Face of Justice" is a unvarnished, non-lopsided, and rather pleasuring, social justice book.
Initially I had to read this because of a research paper on social justice, so I thought this would be a good pick (it was). And I originally thought I would ultimately detest this book, because I have never have been one for Non-Fiction books. But this book really can change your perspective. It gives good facts and many valid points on either side of an argument. If you need a book on laws, punishments, etc., then this is probably your pick.

[Sherri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book meets the author’s goal of being a good starting point for researching the U.S. criminal justice system, especially for middle grade readers. The concepts of crime and punishment are presented in an interesting, informative way and with plenty of real examples to illustrate how complex these issues are. The author does not shy away from controversies as the book discusses the murder of Osama Bin Laden and the detaining of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Information is presented in three parts: (1) what determines if an act is a crime or not, (2) what are the different views of punishment, and (3) how did some of the key ideas associated with our justice system originate, such as due process and freedom from unreasonable searches.

Woven throughout the chapters are thought-provoking questions that will cause the readers to synthesis the information presented and come up with their own answers, although the author appears dissatisfied with how things are today in the U.S.’s criminal justice system.

The book also includes useful sidebars of information and statistics (such as the U.S.’s prison population rates) as well as photos of people mentioned. The book ends with a helpful glossary of legal terms, websites for further reading, research notes, and an extensive bibliography and index.

for grades 6 and up

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores the problems with the type of justice system currently in use in the United States. Who should determine if something is a crime? What is an appropriate punishment? Is it fair to apply the rules to everyone, and what happens when we don’t? With real life scenarios about people whose situations question the validity of our criminal justice system, this leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Is it cheating if you figure out how to beat a slot machine? Is it bank robbery if the teller makes the mistake and gives you back too much money? Should the current morals of society determine what is criminal behavior?

This was a fascinating read. Not full of legalese, there is a glossary of legal terms, a recommendations for further reading, notes and an index. This is a great addition to your government section, and for any student studying the constitution.

Cross Posted to http://kissthebook.blogspot.com CHECK IT OUT!

[Ashlyn Ahrendsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very a very informative approach to the justice system. It breaks everything down very nicely, so a young adult reader can understand. This book also gets you thinking, and making your own judgments as to what is right and wrong. Teri Kanerfield gives a lot of real life scenarios that have happened in the justice system and lets the reader decide whether they believe it was a good or bad decision. I like the fact that it is so informative in a way that anyone can understand.

I would definitely use this in my classroom for a fun read. I wouldn't ever assign this out to my whole classroom, but give kids an option to read this. This is totally something I would have loved to read as a Young Adult because this stuff intrigues me so much. I am hoping to get a wide range of books to cover many students interests.

[Kemora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would rate this book five stars because i'm actually intrigued by it. It talks about the changes in the justice system and I find it very informative.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

If there ever was any question about "grey area" in matters concerning crime and punishment, the author does a fantastic job of challenging that view with a number of real-life scenarios. This is definitely a book to be used in a classroom setting to get students debating, talking and sharing. Not to mention, it's an interesting but realistic look at our legal system. There is a table of contents, index and a list of books for further reading. I highly recommend for purchase in school and public libraries.

[Whisper Poet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent look at our criminal justice system. Its biggest strength is that it does not try to offer answers, rather ask questions and provide examples that will get the reader thinking critically about all sides of this issue - which in my opinion is exactly what a book should do! The book is engaging, with interesting case studies, tempered with theory and discussion about the Constitution.

Additional materials are extensive, including a glossary of the legal terminology used in the book, a list of suggestions for further reading, photo credits, notes, bibliography and index.

[Ms W · Rating 2 out of 5]

MsW: Really digestible explanation and food for thought regarding our criminal justice system and laws. A lot of really intriguing, contemporary examples are given to compel the reader to consider questions like: What is the purpose of punishment? Can rehabilitation take place among the sort of personalities found in prisons? How do we determine what punishment fits a certain crime? I found myself truly playing out the arguments surrounding all these questions not only while reading, but after also.

[Sandy]

Kanefield educates young readers about the law, and some of the grey areas of the law, with real world examples of crimes that were committed and the consequences. Includes crimes of opportunity, bank robbery, cheating, race, killing, and more. Interesting read, very accessible and with relatable real world examples.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must be in a good mood, because I absolutely loved this book--from the very first page. Small, concise and to-the-point. 5+

I also love the cover: the title transcends the author's name, in a BIG way. Personal peeve: when the author's name is huge and one can't even find the title on the cover page.

[goodbyewaffles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great introduction for kids who are just starting to think about issues of crime and justice. It asks more questions than it answers, and though it has an obvious bias, its bias goes against what most of my students' inclinations are, so I'm cool with it. It's good for them to figure that kind of stuff out, anyway.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid introduction to the criminal system.

It raises questions about the justice system. It points out flaws in the system we have and the limitation of the system we have. It points out that cultural and societal expectations can lead to bad laws.

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would be so fun to use in an English classroom. There are different sides to different criminal laws and the author does a good job getting the reader to see both sides. Fun fast and short read.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really interesting read that I could not put down. I recommend it to anyone interested in the justice system.

[Oscar Aguirre · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is cool and full of curiosity