Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice

by Adam Benforado

"A law professor sounds an explosive alarm on the hidden unfairness of our legal system." —Kirkus Reviews, starred
 
A child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer. The evidence is all around Our system of justice is fundamentally broken.
 
But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us.
 
This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning.
 
Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. 
 
Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Nonfiction, Law, Psychology, Politics, Crime, Science, Sociology

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 16, 2015

About the author

Adam Benforado is a professor, writer, and lawyer. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, he served as a federal appellate law clerk and an attorney at Jenner & Block, before joining Drexel University. Adam has published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, and his op-eds and essays have appeared in a variety of publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, American Scholar, and Boston Review.

His acclaimed first book, Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice, was a New York Times bestseller, a #1 Audible.com bestseller, and the recipient of a variety of awards and honors. In his forthcoming book, A Minor Revolution: How Prioritizing Kids Benefits Us All (Crown, February 2023), Benforado offers a revelatory investigation into how America is failing its children, and an urgent manifesto on why helping them is the best way to improve all of our lives.

He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and their two children.

Reviews

[Darcia Helle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can sum up my thoughts in three easy words: Read this book. No, don't even hesitate long enough to read this review. Just buy the book.

For those of you still with me, I'll do my best to offer some specifics. While the author gives us lots of facts to ponder, the content never feels dry or overly academic. Benforado writes in a conversational style, engaging his readers as if he's sitting with friends.

I read a lot on this topic, and this book is one of the best out there. We look at psychological studies and indisputable facts, proving our 'justice' system is anything but fair. We explore topics such as jury selection, which allows and even encourages lawyers to seek jurors with the most prejudicial tendencies in their favor. The side with the most money to spend on consultants for jury selection has an enormous head start in the trial.

Some of the most startling information, for me, came in the section on plea bargaining. I was aware that this often allowed violent criminals to plea down to lesser crimes for lesser time, but I wasn't aware how often it worked in reverse, forcing people who are not necessarily guilty of anything aside from being in the wrong place at the wrong time into plea bargains. This is particularly true with our poor and uneducated class of people, who cannot afford private lawyers and whose court-appointed attorneys are too overworked and underfunded to be of any real value. These people are bullied, scared into believing they will do hard time if they opt for a jury trial. Sadly, this scare tactic works. Less than 10-percent of cases ever go to trial. Our court system has instead become a plea bargaining system.

The psychological information Benforada provides is both fascinating and upsetting. All of us, whether we realize it or not, make quick assumptions based on little fact. I was startled to learn that even something as simple as having a lot of trees in a given neighborhood leads many of us to believe the neighborhood is safer than a similar city neighborhood with few trees. Once we've made an assumption, we look for data backing us up, while ignoring conflicting information. This isn't done maliciously. We aren't even necessarily aware of doing it, which makes it all the more challenging to conquer.

Benforado closes with some intriguing ideas for fixing our broken system. Whether you agree with his ideas or not, his insight opens a dialogue we desperately need to be having nationwide.

Have I convinced you? I hope so. Buy the book. Read it. Give it to friends. Then talk about it. Maybe then we'll finally start working toward change.

*I was provided with a free copy by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforado is a law professor's look at the American justice system-a system that turns out to be, in his view, more of an injustice system. Benforado compares today's system with examples from the middle ages and other periods of the past and examines the differences as well as the similarities between the two. He asks, how far have we really come? The answer would appear to be, under huge surface differences, maybe not as far as we think.

Justice is unevenly applied, prisons are expensive and create more problems than they solve, and none of this seems to be truly connected to the prevalence of crime. Benforado looks at the many ways the justice system fails, despite the often well-meaning efforts of everyone in it. And it seems to be getting worse. The vast majority of cases are resolved by plea bargains which the accused often accept even if innocent since the alternatives are gambles with high stakes, the poor, the mentally ill, and people belonging to minority groups are way over-represented, and (as we all know) the rich often walk from even serious crimes because of unequal resources.

Benforado suggests many ways to solve specific problems but his ultimate answer is a radical one: treat criminals as human beings with problems and give help, not punishment. He looks to Europe for examples of how this can be done and how it results in far lower recidivism rates. He also looks at ways in which similar changes are being done on a small scale in the United States. One interesting idea is the use of virtual trials to increase access to the system, save money, and increase objectivity of the lawyers and judges as well as (for reasons detailed in the book) witness accuracy.

I had my own difficulties following Benforado into such alien territory, particularly when he talked about how victims can be helped to forgive the perpetrator of their pain. And I am not sure how these changes would be carried out in a system as large as our is.

On the other hand, Benforado presents a powerful indictment of our current system which seems to be an expensive failure that creates more pain and suffering than an effective response to crime.

Every American should read the analysis of our current system with its powerful examples of how the current system doesn't work, how, in fact, it fails miserably. And everyone should begin to grapple with ideas of how it can be changed, whether or not they agree with Benforado's suggestions.

I was torn between giving this book 3 or 4 stars. I would have like to give it 3.5 but in the absence of that choice and the powerful analysis of the justice system, I went with 4 stars. I read this book at one sitting, which speaks to the accessibility of the writing and the power of the presentation of an important subject.

I hope this book opens the door for more discussion of our current systems and ways in which it can be changed for the better.

In the interests of transparency, I would like to share that I won this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions presented here are my own honest reactions.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

As depressing as you would expect from the title. But this is not just another book about structural racism or corruption, much of it is dedicated to exploring how profoundly incapable we are of living up to the fantasy of our justice system. He references countless studies showing that not just jurors and eyewitnesses, but police, lawyers and judges exhibit shockingly irrational behavior. I read a fair number of topical "the world is going to hell if we don't fix X now" books, and much of this book is completely under society's radar, meaning that comprehensive reform to address these psychological faults is likely on the other side of a long battle that hasn't even started yet.

My biggest complaint about the book is the lack of endnotes. The bibliography is substantial, but Benforado will introduce the shocking results of a study with "research shows blah", with no hint to where in the 30 pages of bibliography for that chapter I should turn. He promises full endnotes on his website, but that is still not available, although a pdf for an earlier draft is available. Perhaps he saved 20 pages by not having endnotes, but it cuts his message off at the knees.

[Taryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice is an enlightening and well-structured book about the ways in which the current US criminal justice system fails us. Adam Benforado, an associate professor law and a former attorney, focuses on how our hidden biases affect the justice system. He explains the problems in each part of the legal process and offers possible solutions.

In fact, we are not such cool and deliberate detectives; rather, we are masters at jumping to conclusions based on an extremely limited amount of evidence. The automatic processes in our brain (commonly referred to as System 1) quickly take in the scene and then reach a conclusion about the victim based on what is right in front of us, without considering what we might be missing. Ambiguity and doubt are pushed to the side.

In certain circumstances, our deliberative and effortful mental processes (System 2) can override those initial impressions--and raise the specter of uncertainty--but often, they do not. The less we know, the easier it is for us to produce a coherent story, and it is the consistency of the narrative that predicts how much confidence we will have in our assessment. The unfortunate result is that we may become overconfident precisely when we have limited or weak evidence.

The book opens with an example of medieval justice. Benforado suggests that just as we laugh at the irrationality of our ancestor's legal methods, our descendants will be shocked at the naiveté behind our modern day legal processes. The author walks the reader through each part of of the legal process, explains the current problems, and suggests solutions. Some of the solutions are surprisingly simple to implement, e.g. data collection on judicial decisions to show hidden biases. The book is extremely well-organized. Here is the table of contents:

Part 1: Investigation
1. The Labels We Live By - The Victim
2. Dangerous Confessions - The Detective
3. The Criminal Mind - The Suspect

Part II: Adjudication
4. Breaking the Rules - The Lawyer
5. The Eye of the Beholder - The Jury
6. The Corruption of Memory - The Eyewitness
7. How to Tell a Lie - The Eyewitness
8. Umpires or Activists? - The Judge

Part III: Punishment
9. An Eye for an Eye - The Public
10. Throwing Away the Key - The Prisoners

Part IV: Reform
11. What We Must Overcome - The Challenge
12. What We Can Do - The Future
Bibliography. Endnotes are available at the author's website.

The cases and experiments mentioned were fascinating. Some aspects this book reminded me of Predictably Irrational and Freakonomics series, but Unfair is deeper, more focused and more academic. Some of the interesting topics discussed: how disgust makes people's moral judgments significantly more severe, how women labeled as virgins or married are viewed as more responsible for sexual assault than when labeled as a divorcée, how we are all still closet physiognomists, how the act of holding a gun biases the gun holder's assessment of threat, how camera position during arrests and interrogations can sway the verdict, the impact of race on the severity of punishment, the impact of facial features on the severity of punishment ("in cases where the victim is white, the more stereotypically black a defendant's facial features, the more likely he is to receive the death penalty"), how a terrorist attack can impact unrelated cases, how the time of day can affect punishment, how a video of brutality shown in slow-motion can alter juror perception of an event, and how judges aren't quite as objective as they would like to believe.

Research suggests that once we have summed someone up, we search for data confining that identity and disregard or minimize evidence conflicting with it. Of course, it doesn't feel that way. It feels as though we are just dispassionately sorting through the details. But really our minds are bending the facts, sawing off inconvenient corners, and tossing away contradictory information so that everything can be fit into our ready-made boxes.

Some of my key takeaways from this book:
(1) We all have hidden biases that we are not consciously aware of; police officers, judges and lawyers are not immune to these hidden biases. Most people aren't actively trying to be unfair.
(2) It is surprisingly easy to rationalize unethical behavior.
(3) We tend to see our motivations as purer than they actually are (seeking justice vs. seeking vengeance).
(4) Some aspects of punishment are counterintuitive to the results expected, e.g excessively long solitary confinements.

This is not a quick and easy read, but it is really interesting and enlightening. I would recommend this to book to everyone, especially voters in the United States and people who are interested in the intricacies of the human mind and its inherent biases. There is a bit of a liberal bent in parts of the book which might deter some from reading it, but I don't think you have to be comfortable with 100% of Benforado's proposed solutions in order to find value in this book. In addition to this book, I would also recommend Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing because of overlapping themes (blind certainty and cognitive dissonance).

Doubt isn't the enemy of blind justice--blind certainty is.

I received this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, in exchange for an honest review.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is a thought-provoking critique of the American criminal justice system based on psychological research. It is more of an overview than a deep dive: in 286 pages of text (excluding the bibliography), the author discusses everything from snap judgments in investigations, to false confessions and erroneous eyewitness identifications, to the reasons some lawyers behave unethically, to misleading expert testimony, to judicial bias, to the workability of prisons. These are all important issues and the author, a law professor, has many interesting proposals to improve on the problems. Unfortunately, he undermines his message by failing to source his facts, leaving readers with no authority for his arguments; any lawyer should know better.

There is a lot of interesting material here: the studies showing how common interrogation techniques, such as offering leniency for a confession, induce students to falsely confess to cheating; the correlation between more stereotypically African features and longer sentences; the tendency of the public to view third parties as biased against their side (Republicans and Democrats both believe the Supreme Court leans to the other side, by approximately equal margins); the way the point-of-view of a camera can affect viewers’ opinion of events (when interrogations are taped, viewers are more likely to see them as coercive when the camera is above the suspect, and as non-coercive when it’s above the officer).

The author discusses a number of psychological shortcuts that can lead to ugly results in the justice system: for instance, “narrow bracketing,” in which if your experience is that, say, two-thirds of the claims of a particular type are valid, and you just granted two, you are more inclined to deny the next one to keep the numbers balanced. And there’s a good discussion of how people identify dishonesty: you really can’t tell through body language – at best you can tell someone is nervous, but in a high-pressure situation like a courtroom, this likely has more to do with the person’s comfort in that setting and ability to project confidence than their honesty.

The book also discusses the reasons for criminal behavior, which often have less to do with deliberate moral choice than one might imagine. There’s a fascinating story of a man who suddenly becomes obsessed with sex, collecting porn, molesting a young girl, and propositioning everyone – until a tumor is discovered on his brain and removed; then he’s fine until the tumor returns, at which point he starts up all over again. Brain damage may be a less isolated cause of criminality than one might imagine; apparently, while less than 9% of the general population has suffered a traumatic brain injury, around 60% of incarcerated people have. Less dramatically, physical environment also influences one’s actions: wearing a mask makes people more aggressive, while holding a gun biases people to perceive images as more threatening.

Rather than simply detailing problems, Benforado does have plenty of suggestions for change. Some of these are relatively small and seem like excellent ideas. For instance, officers should be trained in cognitive interviewing (asking few open-ended and non-suggestive questions) of witnesses of crime to avoid tainting their memories, while witnesses about to view a lineup should be told that the suspect may or may not be included (to prevent their simply choosing the one who looks most like the perpetrator). In fact, having lineups administered by a computer may be even better, to prevent officers’ unconsciously influencing a witness’s memory through their approval or body language.

Some of the suggestions are much more global, and I give Benforado credit for thinking big and outside the box. One intriguing idea is virtual trials: record the trial in advance and give jurors just the information, presented through avatars. This would eliminate biases based on physical appearance and performance, and allow a trial to be shown to multiple juries at little additional cost.

Meanwhile, the author shows discomfort with many aspects of the adversarial system, though his alternative proposal isn’t quite clear. He correctly points out that the procedural safeguards we build into the system in an attempt to prevent error often become ends in themselves, frustrating their original purpose. Take Miranda warnings for instance: if an officer fails to give them, a perpetrator’s confession can be excluded and therefore a criminal may go free, while on the other hand, judges rarely entertain the idea that a confession might be coerced once an officer has recited those lines – even if we’re talking about a highly suggestible suspect who was questioned for many hours, falsely told that the police had evidence against him, and promised leniency in exchange for a confession. And there’s simply not time, based on the many procedural safeguards built into our system of trials, for more than a tiny percentage of cases to be fully heard; the vast majority plead guilty, in a system the author sees as highly suspect. But what could we do instead? – it’s difficult to decipher Benforado’s ideas on this point, aside from idealistic notions of truth-seeking and vague references to Germany’s having a different system.

But the book does have its drawbacks. Rather than endnotes to which one can refer for specific facts and studies, the author simply includes a bibliography for each chapter, with no indication as to which of the dozens of works cited include which information. This shows off the author’s reading while offering no help to his readers. This is particularly unfortunate on the topics for which he provides only vague information: for instance, he tells us that solitary confinement alters the brain in observable ways, but not what part of the brain is affected, what this part does, and what changes are seen once prisoners are freed. Ultimately, the book leaves readers with the choice between taking the author’s word for his claims or doing their own research, starting more or less from scratch. This is an incredibly poor decision for someone who wants to profoundly change entrenched parts of officialdom.

Less damaging but also unfortunate is the fact that, while Benforado presents information in a clear and readable style, his storytelling is less than stellar. He begins each chapter with a few pages of introductory fluff, which is a great opportunity to tell compelling human-interest stories related to the topic at hand – but more often than not he squanders it. For instance, the chapter dealing with physiognomy begins with rambling about how people are fascinated by mugshots. Okay.

Finally, while the book’s portrayal of the justice system as almost medieval – snap decisions are based incomplete information and the gut feelings of those making them, without scientific basis and generally without oversight – is fairly accurate, in some ways the book does present an overly gloomy picture. I suspect some readers might be unduly horrified, not realizing that most criminal cases aren’t based on eyewitness identification by strangers or police pushing for a confession from whatever black or Hispanic man happened to be near the crime scene. Most people plead guilty because they are, and the evidence against them is good. This in no way excuses the miscarriages of justice that go on every day, but I hope readers don’t come away with the idea that courts and police produce utterly random results.

Overall, I’m glad I read this book: much of the information it contains is fascinating, and it’s presented in a clear and concise way. These are issues people should be thinking about. However, the lack of sourcing is a serious limitation; I can only hope it will be corrected in future editions.

[Charlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is EXCELLENT! Put it on the top of your to read list if you are interested in the Justice system. This is the book I have been waiting to read. I taught criminology and criminal justice to undergrads and am now wishing Adam Benforado had written a textbook. I truly hope he turns this incredible popular science book about crime, decision-making, and justice into a textbook for the next generation of students who are interested in taking a job in some aspect of our criminal justice system. Whether students want to be lawyers, judges, police officers, or whether they will simply be jurors or vote for any judge or policy associated with crime in America, they need this information as a prerequisite. In fact every American citizen should fully understand the various aspects of the justice system, since our tax dollars fund in and we play a part in determining what ideas and societal norms become laws.

What this book is not:

This book is not solely about race and the justice system. Until I read this book, I would have said the most important book to read about our justice system was Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. I still think it is a seminal work on mass incarceration that should be on everyone's reading list. No matter if someone is tough on crime or so soft they want to help every offender instead of punish them, they should fully understand the material in Alexander's book so they become familiar with how our justice system is particularly unjust when it comes to race-- even if the individual people in the justice system have a genuine desire to be fair. I would recommend reading Alexander's book along with this. This book includes race but it is not the primary focus.

What this book is:

This book is an impressive compilation of stories related to criminal justice that presents *extremely* fascinating, but often little known, facts about how judges, prosecutors, jurors, and even criminals make the choices they do. It's about the accuracy of the human brain. Benforado provides the most important and robust science that the field of criminology has to offer. Too often I have read books which choose to sensationalize various crimes or jump to conclusions about neuroscientific evidence instead of employing a skeptical approach that results in information that is both accurate and fair. Unlike so many authors in his field who write for the lay-public, Benforado didn't use fear mongering, subpar studies with subpar methods *, or dramatic statements aimed at shocking his audience. He didn't need to. The truth is better than fiction. There is no need to embellish when you take the time to gather all the intrinsically shocking information available and present it in such an organized, exciting, relatable, and extremely logical* manner.

[*There was a very small section where he seemed to overreach when talking about the motivations of prosecutors.]

At its core, this book is a discussion about how just our justice system is, and what we can do to try to ensure optimal justice. We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world. We pride ourselves on our freedom and our ability to govern fairly, and yet, we are human. Adding to that, we are a group of humans with opposing viewpoints. How can each person, no matter their political leanings, build a system that is fair to all people? How well do we know our own brains? If we were a judge, a prosecutor, a police officer, a juror, how well would we do in dispensing fair justice? If you are like the typical, and often well meaning, judge, lawyer, juror, etc, the answer is, "Not very well."

Benforado examines the heuristically driven thinking process that governs how humans go about punishing, including who we punish, how severely we punish, and how often we punish. What are our motives for these practices? How have humans in America come to build a justice system that is so overloaded, it literally cannot handle the number of people we arrest? How have we created a system that forces a very large number of innocent people to plead guilty? How easy is it to scare another human being into signing a piece of paper, saying they committed a crime they did not commit? How often does this happen? How easy is it to convince a teenager, a suggestible person, or someone with a low IQ that they committed a crime? How often does that happen? At the end of the day, do we really want to *do* something about crime or do we want to *feel* like we are doing something about crime? Are other countries doing better or worse than the U.S.A.?

Benforado's discussion of how crime statistics are bullshit was a highlight. I think he could have and should have gone a bit deeper with this topic but was extremely happy to see it covered at all. The truth is that in the U.S., we have a perception that black people commit most of the crime. It is simply not true. A black person who engages in the *same exact* behavior as a white person is arrested, charged, found guilty, and locked in a cage significantly more often and for significantly longer periods of time than white people engaging the same behaviors. Police go into poor black neighborhoods and stop and frisk black people far more often. Since they are targeted in this way, they make it into the crime statistics as "guilt of a crime," whereas white people doing the same behaviors are let go more often. We don't have an accurate view of who commits more crime; and yet, we act as if we know. This is a huge problem and one that deserves attention.

Benforado does not discuss the drug war and mass incarceration in depth the way Michelle Alexander does. For this reason, I highly recommend reading The New Jim Crow after you are done with this book.

[Graeme · Rating 5 out of 5]

The criminal justice systems of the United States work very badly. Adam Benforado, a law professor at Drexel University, demonstrates their deficiencies under the broad headings of investigation, adjudication, punishment, and reform. He is very fair in pointing out the progress that has been made, both here and in other countries, and creative in suggesting and supporting possible solutions. This is the first book that I have ever read that looks to science, data, and intelligence, both human and machine, for better ways. It felt like stepping out of the dark ages, looking back down into a stinking cesspit of crime, punishment, corruption, deprivation, poverty, mental illness, stupidity, and race.

I have the prejudice that academics are verbose, even in writing for general audiences, and I wished that Mr. Benforado would just get on with it. The depth and fairness of his narrative kept me on board, however.

This may seem trivial, but when I read wordy books I look to chapters as milestones. This book (and a minority of others) follows the unfortunate practice of having the runners at the top of the pages show the author's name on the verso (left-hand) pages (in addition to the page number). The practice of showing the chapter titles is so much better, because we can use them to flip through and quickly find the next chapter.

[Bridgit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfair by Adam Benforado tackles a difficult subject: the ironic injustice of our criminal justice system in the United States. He argues that our legal system has a wide array of flaws with no easy solution to eradicate them; Benforado suggests that psychological biases come into play in every aspect of prosecution.

The way Benforado sets up his argument (not going to go into a lot of detail; the book is short… read it!), it reminded me a lot of the equal pay issue in America and much of the world. We can’t find one simple fix, as it is a multifaceted issue, but talking about the problem could be one step. Similarly, discussing our ever-prevalent biases would be beneficial in creating a more, well, just criminal justice process.

Benforado does a good job in delving into biases we might not even be aware of, including perception bias and the often error-saturated witness memory tests. Although I didn’t necessarily agree with all of his solutions, I was still eager to read more. He crafted the book in such a way that it was fast-paced and easy to digest, but still left you with much to think over. As I slowly prepare for the LSAT in a few months (and for law school in about a year!), Unfair has given me a lot to think about in regards to my future career.

[Ellen Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Kind of dry at times, but overall pretty interesting, sometimes even compelling.

[Book Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforado


“Unfair" is a fantastic, well-researched look at what is at the heart of our unfair criminal system. Law professor Adam Benforado has provided the public with an eye-opening gem grounded on the best current science, historical court cases and insightful research. He explores the nature of the criminal mind, eyewitness memory, jury deliberations, police procedures, and intuitions about punishment. This enlightening 402-page book includes twelve chapters broken out into the following four parts: I. Investigation, II. Adjudication, III. Punishment, and IV. Reform.


Positives:
1. A well written, well-researched book that is grounded on sound logic and good science.
2. A fascinating topic, the new science of our unfair criminal system.
3. Mastery of a complex topic and innate ability to educate and enlighten at an accessible level.
4. I love the tone and pace of this book. Benforado is very careful not to oversell the benefits of science while at the same time clearly showing what good research has uncovered and the shortcomings of our system. Kudos!
5. A clearly defined theme, “Injustice is built into our legal structures and influences outcomes every minute of every day. And its origins lie not inside the dark heart of a bigoted police officer or a scheming D.A. but within the mind of each and every one of us.” Intriguing.
6. Provides many interesting cases and immerses sound logic and science into each one. David Rosenbaum’s story illustrates an unacceptable chain of mistakes. “The physical disgust they felt may have generated an explanation for David’s condition that involved lack of discipline and poor character—drunkenness—rather than another potential cause: a stroke, seizure, diabetes, head injury, or drug interaction. And once the ETOH label was attached, David was in trouble.”
7. Confirmation bias and its impact to our criminal system. “Once David was labeled a drunk, the responders and medical professionals appeared to focus on finding evidence that supported that description.”
8. A fascinating look at false confessions and what leads to them. “False confessions and incriminating statements are the leading contributors to wrongful homicide convictions, present in over 60 percent of the known DNA murder-exoneration cases in the United States. More broadly, they appear to have been a factor in about 25 percent of all post-conviction exonerations.”
9. Great use of neuroscience. “Some scientists have claimed that roughly half of the variability in antisocial traits across the population comes down to the genes that people are born with. All things being equal, if you have a Y chromosome, you are several times more likely to engage in violent criminal behavior. And psychopaths and pedophiles are both disproportionately men. But it can be hard to separate out the impact of genes from social factors: after all, men and women are subjected to very different arrays of experiences and expectations.”
10. A look at how lawyers break the rules and what can be done about it. “We should worry, then, about the enormous control that prosecutors have over the state’s evidence and witnesses: they are the ones who decide if and when the defendant’s team will receive the ballistics report or the DNA report or a copy of the witness statement or the initial police write-up.” “Research suggests that the more prosecutors are focused on winning, rather than on achieving justice, the more likely they will be to act dishonestly.”
11. The role of juries. “Of course, the faith we have in our own perceptions and our cynical discrediting of those with whom we disagree can create trouble even when a jury does get to consider the case. As jurors, we are often oblivious to how our own preexisting commitments, beliefs, and biases shape our impressions, but we quickly and easily spot them influencing others.”
12. Surprising findings and tidbits used throughout the book. “Recent research suggests that a person’s weight can influence juror assessments, with male jurors more likely to reach a guilty verdict when the accused is an overweight woman than when she is thin.”
13. So how reliable is our memory? “There is, for instance, compelling evidence that eyewitness identifications are frequently inaccurate. When the actual perpetrator appears in a lineup along with several innocent fillers, witnesses fail to pick anyone out about a third of the time.”
14. The impact of race. “Research suggests that people are 50 percent more likely to make an error in identifying a person from another race, although individuals who have a lot of contact with the other race tend to be more accurate.”
15. Great stuff on separating truth from untruth. “Overall, it turns out that we are quite bad at ferreting out deception. In a recent analysis of more than two hundred studies, participants were able to identify lies and truths correctly just 54 percent of the time, only marginally better than chance.”
16. An excellent chapter on judging. “Although she was forced to retreat from her statements about how gender and ethnicity influence judging, Justice Sotomayor was right: identities and personal experiences do “affect the facts that judges choose to see.”
17. So what drives us to punish? “Indeed, there is a growing scientific consensus that it is a desire for retribution—not deterrence or incapacitation—that has the strongest influence on why we punish.”
18. A look at prison life. Ugly facts. “A country that abolished slavery 150 years ago now has a greater number of black men in the correctional system than there were slaves in 1850 and a greater percentage of its black population in jail than was imprisoned in apartheid South Africa. Black, male, and no high school diploma? It’s more likely than not that you will spend time in prison during your life.”
19. Compelling arguments on what we can do to improve our society. “The starting point of any reform comes in understanding and accepting this reality. We all need to look at the criminal justice system through new eyes. So, raising awareness about psychology and neuroscience research is critical.”
20. Notes and a formal bibliography included.

Negatives:
1. I have one main negative, the lack of links to notes. A real shame since I’m one of those readers who loves to dig deeper into the references. That being said, I’ve read and reviewed a number of books that makes references to such research and Benforado is on point.
2. Charts and diagrams would have complemented this excellent narrative.

In summary, I absolutely loved this book! It has two of my favorite subjects fused into one, where science meets our criminal system and all that it implies. Benforado won me over with his mastery of this fascinating topic, great pacing, and excellent insights and dare I say judicial use of the best of our current science. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book this good, kudos. I can’t recommend this book enough.

Further recommendations: “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander, “Uncertain Justice” by Laurence Tribe, “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, “The Nine” By Jeffrey Toobin, “The Roberts Court” by Marcia Coyle, “Braintrust” by Patricia Churchland, “The Blank Slate” and “Better Angels of Our Nature” by Steven Pinker, “The Believing Brain” by Michael Shermer, “Subliminal” by Leonard Mlodinow, “We Are Our Brains” by D.F. Swaab, and “Are You Sure?” by Ginger Campbell.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s not too often I use the word “brilliant” in writing a book review, but in the case of “Unfair” I have to say that it is nothing short of that description … brilliant. There are any numbers of books available on the subjects of false confessions, wrongful convictions and the flaws in both police practices and the court system. I have read several and, in my opinion, “Unfair” is the cream of the crop. If you read only one book on the subject this should be the book you choose.

In the introduction Professor Benforado takes the reader back to the year 1114 to the trial of Clement and Evrard, two peasants accused of heresy. When they got to trial their accusers failed to make an appearance so acting judge Abbot Guibert faced the dilemma that still occurs in all systems of justice – “a strong suspicion of guilt without solid evidence”. In the 12th century this was easily solved with a vat of water – the sink or swim decision-making process – “Murders, adulterers, and heretics would float; innocents would be enveloped”. Obvious to readers living in the 21st century, there is no justice in this system, but is our current system of justice any more foolproof? One of the most powerful statements Professor Benforado makes in his introduction is “… even if our system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, biased proceedings, trampled rights, and unequal treatment” . He backs this statement up with “psychology and neuroscience to expose the hidden dynamics undermining our criminal justice system”. He discusses police procedure, the flaw in administering the Miranda warning, the Reid technique of interrogation, how personal experience cannot help but prejudice judges and juries, the errors allowed in the jury selection process and even the use of “experts for hire” in the courtroom.

Yes, he also cites cases as examples, including the West Memphis Three, The Central Park Jogger, Rodney King and more recently the Trayvon Martin case, but he does not dwell on individual errors made but rather discusses the reforms that could be made to the criminal justice system to prevent errors and misjudgment in the future.

While this book is very well researched and fact filled, using his personal experiments and research as well as explaining the research of others, it is an extremely readable book. Not “text book” like in the least, with some interesting comparisons of our judicial system to that of the role of umpires and referees in professional sports. He also included an unexpected section about the unusual practice, in ages past, of putting animals on trial using it to explain how we are influenced in regard to placing blame for the commission of a crime. As humans, we have a need to punish evil deeds. As Professor Benforado points out this need is so strong that, “Occasionally we even the feel the urge to punish inanimate objects. Be honest: Have you ever wanted to get back at your computer for losing a file or freezing up at a key moment? Have you kicked the chair that stubbed your toe?”

Another segment I found eye opening was his discussion on body language. Surprisingly everything I have ever heard or learned about reading body language to determine a lie versus the truth is wrong and in the shifty eye/agitated movement department – quite the opposite holds true. And, if for some reason you need information on how to beat a lie detector test that’s in this book as well. Even with the use of real time film becoming more and more commonplace, no system of determining fact from falsehood is foolproof.

Aside from all the points I’ve mentioned above (as well as so much more included in this book) what makes this book so different from all the others out there on the same subject? Professor Benforado actually offers some concrete solutions to some of the problems afflicting our current system of justice. Some, yes, are common sense but his theory on “virtual trials” involving avatars to eliminate prejudice based on race, names and the attractiveness (or not) of both witnesses and lawyers as well as the accused is quite radical.

Professor Benforado has written an important book and I have no hesitation at all in giving it 5 stars.

*I received this ebook at no charge from Crown Publishing
via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review *

[Mara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm somewhere between 3 and 3.5 stars on this, because while I thought the content in this was excellent, I'm not sure that it was the best as a book. That said, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to get this kind of information (I think the case studies used throughout are far and away the strongest parts of the book) and would recommend to anyone who is interested in criminal justice reform or generally in topics around unconscious bias

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I was a winner of a Goodreads Giveaway for this book.*

Unfair's intro talks a big game, promising to cover a range of issues and delve into the biases and many barriers to justice in our country faced by law enforcement, victims, defendants, lawyers, judges, and jurors (and everyone in between). I was so thrilled that this book delivered on all it's potential.

Benforado is an incredibly impassioned and unflinching writer who addresses the history of our issues as well as practical approaches to remedy them. I do think perhaps this book needs a trigger warning as the author often uses specific cases (sometimes of a violent/sexual nature) as examples of instances in which certain biases came into play and justice was not served, describing the crimes in very straightforward but graphic detail. However, I think this serves to remind us of what is at stake and who suffers when justice is miscarried.

The only thing that bothered me about this book was the way that research results were explained. While the author did caveat in his intro that correlation does not equal causation, he would often present study findings in a way that could easily be misconstrued as causal and did not discuss any important potential third variables. I don't think it's enough to say "correlation isn't causation" in one paragraph and just move on; you need to reinforce this idea throughout, especially when presenting sensitive findings about different groups and characteristics contributing to criminality.

One of the biggest victories of this book is that it humanizes many of the people that society often demonizes, and who have been the most disenfranchised by a failing justice system. It reminds us of the power of the situation and the danger of snap judgements. It reminds us that to err is human, but perhaps justice shouldn't be human. I was very moved by different passages in this book and was especially grateful to have read it shortly before receiving a jury summons; I think this book should be standard reading for high school seniors on the cusp of entering society as potential jurors.

This book is important. I plan to apply and share these lessons and I hope that others who read this book are similarly motivated. Maybe then, we will have a justice system that truly provides justice for all.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a crucially important book: the author applies social theory and psychology to the justice system, evaluating the process of police interrogations, eyewitness identification, jury selection, the huge number of people incarcerated and the use of solitary confinement--essentially a review of the entire justice system, viewed through the lens of social science and history. Although I work with people who are mentally ill and frequently incarcerated, my understanding of the justice system comes largely from television shows, and this book was illuminating. It contained a tremendous amount of information. My criticisms are that at times it was slow going and not engaging, and that the ultimate solutions proposed were primarily to utilize virtual reality to remove bias. I think this book should be required reading, and as someone who is shocked when John Oliver exposes the use of bail to incarcerate poor, non-violent offenders and the fact that prisons are virtual poor houses, and who first hand experiences that prisons have become de facto mental health facilities, I just wish the book had been more engaging, because the information is so vitally important.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man I am just not made for non-fiction reads.

First off I'll say I got this book because my former law school professor wrote it. Benforado was a funny teacher and his classes enjoyable. I listened to the audiobook version of this and was disappointed he did not actually narrate the book himself (I wasn't expecting him to but it would have been nice)
I enjoyed the first part of this book, which had case studies, a lot more than I did the later parts, which offer possible solutions.

No doubt our legal system is incredibly unfair and so much needs to be changed. That being said I have to credit Benforado himself for teaching me how to disagree with some of this book.

I feel like I should get CLE (continuing legal education) credits after finishing this. Not bad overall, I would even recommend to others who already have an open mind about our criminal legal system. But personally I think some of the solutions offered at the end would not help our already brittle system.

[Rossdavidh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going in, I knew that this book was going to be one of those where I can only read one chapter per sitting, lest I become unhealthily angry and seething. But Benforado makes a wise choice, here, by making it clear early that he is not going to be writing about corrupt judges, avowedly racist cops, or other bad apples who get their hands on the levers of power. This books is about how the justice system works when basically good (although imperfect) people are police officers, judge, prosecuting attorney, and members of the jury. The answer: still not all that great.

He also begins with a very brief look at trial by ordeal and other medieval methods of determining guilt or innocence. After telling us how ridiculous it all was, he examines a more interesting aspect: why did people think this would work? Well, they had their reasons. They knew that people could and did lie, to protect themselves or to hurt their enemies. Therefore, rather than depending upon all-too-human testimony, they turned to the one source of Truth they knew they could rely on: the Divine. It all makes good sense, except for the minor detail that the Almighty, whatever you may believe about he/she/it, does not appear to intervene to prevent hot iron from scorching the hands of the innocent.

(side note: if you are a young lady destined for a career as an eminent philosopher, as Patricia Churchland was, you would test this trial by ordeal business by having a friend falsely accuse you of stealing and then put your hand on the stove to see if God prevented it from burning you. Made of stern stuff, and a fan of empirical data, Churchland is, and apparently always was. Now back to Benforado's book.)

So, Benforado, an associate professor at Drexel University, thinks we are similarly laboring under a misapprehension about how our justice system works (or fails to), and ignoring what science is telling us. His books is roughly equal parts examination of the different parts of our justice system, and examination of the discoveries of science in recent decades that illustrate our problems. A partial list:

- eyewitness testimony is worse than useless (worse because juries are resolutely unwilling to believe they cannot trust it)
- standard police procedure for interrogations are better at producing false confessions than truth, even including instructions that the officer suggest how the one being interviewed might have committed the crime
- judges routinely instruct the jury to do things like ignore what they have just seen or heard, when abundant experimental evidence shows that we are constitutionally incapable of doing that
- incentives for both prosecution and defense to help witnesses rehearse their testimony make it more, not less likely for juries to reach the wrong decision about whether or not the testimony should be believed

There are some staggering anecdotes in here. In one case, we are shown a picture of a lineup of five suspects, from which an elderly lady misidentified suspect #3 of being the man who raped her. Staggering, is the fact that DNA evidence later showed that suspect #5, who was coincidentally in the police station at the time for an unrelated offense, was THE ACTUAL PERPETRATOR OF THE CRIME, and he was not identified. Moreover, suspects 3 and 5 did not look much like each other.

Now obviously neither the police, nor the victim, had the slightest incentive to avoid picking out the actual perpetrator of the crime, and instead pick someone else (who spent 28 years in jail before DNA evidence cleared his name). Incredibly, there are at least two other cases known where the victim of the crime has not only picked the wrong person out of a police lineup, but done so when the actual perpetrator was present in the lineup.

We know some of the causes of this kind of problem. Showing a victim of a crime the pictures of possible suspects, and encouraging them to pick one of them as the one who attacked them, is a great way to implant a false sense of certainty in the victim that they remember that face at the scene of the crime. It is not an uncommon procedure, and it is not a good procedure. It is the sort of thing that can cause normally good people to make a very bad mistake, and convict someone of a crime they did not commit.

The root of the problem with our justice system appears to be threefold:

1) it is based on punishment rather than prevention
2) it is based on legal precedent and tradition, rather than empirical data concerning what works
3) it is based on blame, not only in regards to who is guilty, but in regards to why justice is miscarried (e.g. the assumption that the problem is corrupt or intentionally unjust police or attorneys, rather than a system with poor procedures)

What you will not get in this book, is a good way to get America to try seriously to improve their system of dealing with crime. It is hard to see how to get any comprehensive reform through any state's legislature in the current polarized political climate. But, perhaps somewhere out there, is a state that will give a try the ideas that Benforado and others are advocating. If and when it happens, we may look back on the justice system of the late 20th/early 21st century somewhat like we look back on trial by ordeal now. Let's hope it doesn't take centuries to get there.

[Kevin O'brien · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author does a good job discussing some interesting scientific studies about the underlying causes of criminality and the ways that human fallibilities can foster unfairness in law enforcement, but goes off the rails once he starts editorializing. For example, after an interesting discussion on how the perspective of a video camera on a cop car can influence the interpretation of the video as overly sympathetic to a police officer who made arguably an overly aggresive move to stop a car chase resulting in severe injuries to a fleeing black suspect, he begins a mind reading exercise. In that exercise, he leaps to all sorts of conclusions about what that suspect was thinking, and why that suspect was psychologically justified to flee the police because of the societal effects of racism on actions. Of course, this discussion is not based on science, and is full of assumptions colored by particular perspectives on the helplessness of African Americans in American society.

And as a practical matter, the discussion does nothing to further the book's stated goals of achieving police reform. The police officer can't read the mind of the suspect in the way the author did--and there was no indication the police officer was even aware of the race of the suspect. Even if the police officer was, should there be different arrest procedures based on the race of the victim?

The author then goes even further off the ledge by casually suggesting that it may be desirable to only allow video evidence in a case where the defendant elects it should be admitted. This would of course create an insanely one-sided rule, where video evidence could not be used to convict criminals caught red handed.

He completely lost me when he concluded that the jury in the OJ case was likely justified in finding reasonable doubt, despite the presence of the DNA evidence. He made no attempt to justify this conclusion in the face of the SCIENTIFIC evidence--completely undermining the supposed goal of the book.

In the end, this type of book is not unexpected coming from a law professor with likely no actual experience practicing criminal law. I'd love to read a book like this that includes the perspectives of both actual defense attorneys and prosecutors, in addition to someone clearly educated on the latest scientific evidence on criminality and law enforcement as the author is.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure on this review: I'm a criminal defense attorney, so I come into this book with a different perspective than most readers will.

That said, I think this is a good book for general consumption, but I wanted more. Benforado touches on a number of issues that are pressing in the justice system, but he really just touches on them. The book's broad scope and it's target audience (i.e., not me) mean that we're not going to get significant depth on any one of the many interesting subjects he addresses (implicit bias in law enforcement, eyewitness identification issues, false confessions, our inability to actually tell when someone is lying, etc.). But I think the consequences of that lack of depth are twofold: practitioners are left wanting more on subjects they're already somewhat familiar with; and non-practitioners are going to be unconvinced by the surface-level discussion that there are real issues that urgently need addressing.

It's not a very long book, with really about 250 pages actually detailing the issues (the last 30 pages are Benforado musing on possible solutions). I would have gladly read an extra 10 pages per chapter (120 pages extra) to go into more detail on the studies or to show a broader range of studies on the various topics raised. There are 304 pages of endnotes on Benforado's website, so I may be browsing through those in the hopes of getting the depth I missed in the actual book.

Don't get me wrong: I think everyone should read this book, and I hope it prompts discussion of some of the issues that we deal with on a daily basis in our criminal justice system. But because the subject matter is so interesting and so important, I just wanted more out of it.

[Andrea Rufo (Ann) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of times I'll hear interviews with authors on NPR and I'll feel compelled to read the book they're discussing. I think this is because there is something magical in the specific tenor NPR hosts use - slow, with exacting pauses, and raises in excitement of voice, and something overly smooth in general that convinces me I must trust them and read what they suggest. That I also work in criminal defense made me pick up Benforado's book, just as the interview was ending.

Read this book. If you work in the criminal justice system, if you think you might be called for jury duty, if you have opinions about crime, criminals, trials and the courts, if you watch bad court tv dramas and think you therefore understand it all, for the love of god, read this book. First of all, it's an incredibly compelling read - well written with a great combination of science and real life experiences. Essentially, Benforado ties in research and findings in neuroscience to explain/discuss situations and outcomes in the criminal courts - from when a jury is more likely to acquit, to when police are less likely to respond appropriately, or vice versa. The same kind of hidden assumptions, biases and persuasions that lead me to trust NPR show up as apparent in every individual affecting how they interact with the criminal justice system.

Though I don't quite agree with his suggested plan of actions for finding fairness, they're interesting ideas and worth exploring. I bought this book for my entire office I love it so much and felt it was so important. Surely you can manage to get one for just little ol' you.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, because I agree with many of the main points about the fallibility of the legal system, but this book is rife with modern psychology results that I find incredibly dubious presented as fact. Radically overhauling our justice system based on the results of these tenuous psychological experiments would be a terrible idea, and really gives you an understanding of precisely why things like the justice system should be conservative by nature.

I also was not in the least swayed by his arguments that just because someone had some head injuries or might be predisposed to commit crimes that they should be somehow less culpable. It's the flip side of the idea that criminals deserve to be punished, and I think it's uncalled for in a practical approach to criminal justice (which he generally advocates for).

The case studies were interesting enough, but I'm sure there are books out there that cover the same or similar material without trying to slather a patina of science over everything to give credence to their views.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It's time for honest reflection. Justice should not be a commodity." ~ Adam Benforado

Food for thought book! Must read for anyone who is in criminal justice, studying criminal justice, or who is seriously dedicated to reform within our current justice system.

Benforado does a superb job of breaking down the current system into different parts and players. From there he goes about analyzing what it is set up to do and it's shortcomings. But Benforado doesn't just make a laundry list of what's wrong. No, he provides real stories, research, and examples from other countries to support what he believes would be positive reform to our current system. Benforado is a law professor, so he knows his stuff. Every section of this book left me reflecting and questioning our current system. It's time for our country to come together and do something about our current system - we should not be beyond being influenced from other systems.

Read this book. You won't be disappointed.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know I am in the minority here but I did not like this book. We already know our education system is broken, our political system is broken and our justice system is in shambles. Listening to "Serial Podcasts" or watching, "Making a Murderer" gives you a more in depth vision than this book.

What bothered me most about this book was the depressing tone it took. According to Benforado, we are all innately prejudiced so there is no way to achieve fairness. His solutions were just bizarre. I think he really lost me when he suggested using avatars so we could not see or hear the actual witnesses. I have watched as the scientific and business communities tried to fix what was not broken in the education system with constant testing and analysis. I can't wait until they start analyzing judicial decisions.

I think a much better book is "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson. He created the "Equal Justice Initiative" and is actively working to get innocent people released from prison.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adam Benforado does a marvelous job of sharing recent behavioral, social, neuroscience and psychological sciences as applied to our justice system. The writing style is welcoming with stories and vignettes used to illustrate the concepts while keeping the reader engaged. Particularly nice is the 70 page bibliography organized by chapter with an online "extended notes" available too - you get the benefits of a good read with the hard science references to dive deeper.

Whether involved directly in the justice system or not, I think leaders of all stripes should invest the time to read the entire book: Attorneys General, District Attorneys, Chief Judges, and political leaders too.

Our justice system is truly unfair as I've come to realize - when not a single person has gone to jail as a consequence of the financial crisis yet we've got more people incarcerated than any other country in the world, something is clearly unfair!

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a provocative read peppered with many interesting cases to prove the author's points. I don't agree with all of his findings or recommendations, but I certainly agree with enough of them to concur that our system is flawed...and fatally for far too many. Looking forward to our book club discussion on this one.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I have read in 2017, and maybe for a few years....

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I mostly read fiction, I really do like history and books on ethics and socioeconomics. I work in criminal law and while there was not much to actually learn, the statistics alone are really mind blowing.
We live in the greatest country in the world but jail more citizens than any country in the world? I knew it was a fact but the book dissects just how UNFAIR the system is for poor people and indigenous people. Lawers are absolutely a part of this country's problem and the book explains this thoroughly. I commend Adam Benforado for compiling lots of statistics and good overall writing which really was easy to read for anyone. I skimmed this one quickly but I enjoyed it and recommend this for anyone not familiar with the criminal justice system. Always remember if a lawman wants to speak to you always ask for a lawyer, it doesn't mean your guilty, it just means your smart. Poor innocent people are in jail because they were coerced into giving confessions, this is a travesty, and the amount of mentally ill people who are thrown in jail with no treatment is wrong. What would Jesus do? Respectfully, Thomas.

[YHC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book content:
Part 1: Investigation
1. The Labels We Live By - The Victim
2. Dangerous Confessions - The Detective
3. The Criminal Mind - The Suspect

Part II: Adjudication
4. Breaking the Rules - The Lawyer
5. The Eye of the Beholder - The Jury
6. The Corruption of Memory - The Eyewitness
7. How to Tell a Lie - The Eyewitness
8. Umpires or Activists? - The Judge

Part III: Punishment
9. An Eye for an Eye - The Public
10. Throwing Away the Key - The Prisoners

Part IV: Reform
11. What We Must Overcome - The Challenge
12. What We Can Do - The Future

From the book content, it already show how well structures this author plan to tell us where the problems of unfair system are.


1. The witness testimony could be false, human memory can not be 100% accurate.
2. In US, 60% of DNA exonerations involved false or incriminating confessions
3. Prison is not a place as corrector of prisoners back to society in the future, it actually makes evil doers become more professional (more evil)
4. Human, too human. We are after all humans, we are biased. The whole justice system is established by humans, so could it be sure to be 100% just.
5. The way police to get the accusers to confess the crimes is disputable as we all know.
6. The media sometimes tends to amplify certain cases, while actually ignore the danger of daily killers: chronic diseases such as obesity, sugar over intake, diabetes...,etc actually kill more people than crimes. (corporations are always clean)
7. How to make the court system more fair such as virtual courtrooms.

As an Asian who lives most of time in Europe, the way i see "punishment" of crime has been transformed by the Europeans. Most of Asians still think : "An eye for an eye" is the justice. They ignore the fact that the criminal could suffer from mental problems, some chemistry doesn't go well inside the brain or neglected by the family and society as a marginal person. We ignore how we should prevent this from happening over and over again. We care more about why should we keep this person alive, feed him with tax payers' money? We even have that kind of concept of 寧可錯殺一百，不可放過一人 (Rather to get 1000 killed than to get one missed.). With this kind of mindset existing as public opinion. We could only wish that we won't get unlucky to be wrongly condemned a crime that we have never done one day.



some quotes :
“Given the great human longing for power—our dry-throated thirst for control, our teeth-baring fury to protect even the feeblest charge over the most limited domain—I have always been baffled by the effort people devote to getting out of jury service. For many of those summoned to the courthouse, it is not an exaggeration to say that being impaneled is the greatest authority they will wield in their entire lives. Not only do jurors get to decide guilt or innocence, to command the resources of the state to change the direction of a person’s life, but they also enjoy the seemingly supernatural ability to determine history after it has already occurred. Serving on a jury means getting to decide what happened. Jurors are the authors of the facts."

“… even if our system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, biased proceedings, trampled rights, and unequal treatment” .

"In fact, we are not such cool and deliberate detectives; rather, we are masters at jumping to conclusions based on an extremely limited amount of evidence. The automatic processes in our brain (commonly referred to as System 1) quickly take in the scene and then reach a conclusion about the victim based on what is right in front of us, without considering what we might be missing. Ambiguity and doubt are pushed to the side.

"In certain circumstances, our deliberative and effortful mental processes (System 2) can override those initial impressions--and raise the specter of uncertainty--but often, they do not. The less we know, the easier it is for us to produce a coherent story, and it is the consistency of the narrative that predicts how much confidence we will have in our assessment. The unfortunate result is that we may become overconfident precisely when we have limited or weak evidence."

[Andy Zell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforado is a critical examination of the American criminal justice system. And it is vitally important that we look at it. Benforado details the many, many ways that the criminal justice system does not, in fact, deliver justice. The structure of the book, from investigation to adjudication to punishment, allows him to show how things can go wrong each step of the way. Along the way he points out the relevant social science research that helps to explain how these mistakes can be made. For instance, some innocent people confess to crimes that they didn’t commit in order to make a grueling interrogation stop. Or they might take a plea deal if they’re lead to believe that a trial will not show their innocence. Astoundingly, over 90 percent of those charged with a crime and offered a plea take it without a trial. During a trial, it can be hard to determine guilt or innocence when prosecutors withhold evidence or a jury inaccurately rates a witness trustworthy or not. Or take an eyewitness’s evidence: people’s memories can be notoriously unreliable when looking at a lineup or recalling the circumstances of a crime. Memories can be easily corrupted or altered or even fabricated without the eyewitness realizing he or she is doing it. And the impartial judge who oversees the proceedings of a trial may not be as objective as we would like to believe. Of course everyone has biases, but it’s amazing how something like the time of day can affect someone. In studies, judges are more lenient earlier in the day, but they are much harsher before lunch or at the end of the day. How is that fair? When it comes to punishment, Benforado puts forth the scientific evidence that “it is a desire for retribution—not deterrence or incapacitation—that has the strongest influence” (191). This type of punishment leads to mandatory minimum sentencing, three strikes laws, life without parole, and the death penalty, which don’t work to actually deter crime. Once in prison, it’s hard not to become “institutionalized” or broken as a person (whether by solitary confinement or the threat of rape and violence), so it’s not surprising that so many prisoners cannot re-integrate into society after serving time. Benforado offers a smattering of possible reforms big and small that could get us closer to true justice. One of the best suggestions, I thought, was the virtual courtroom. It would remove obvious problems like being “swayed by the attractiveness of a witness” (266) or thinking a nervous witness is lying when they are merely nervous at speaking in public (we are not good at detecting whether people are lying or not, though we think we are). My only real complaint with the book is that it sometimes reads too easily. Benforado presents historical cases or the social science research so smoothly and convincingly (similarly to Malcolm Gladwell) that I was almost entertained by the story he was telling or the research findings he was presenting, when I really should be outraged. It’s not that I wasn’t ultimately outraged, but maybe the pill should stick in the throat more rather than go down so easily. Despite that slight, and possibly idiosyncratic, complaint, I would highly recommend this book to everyone. [Disclosure: I received an uncorrected proof from the publisher via a Goodreads giveaway in the hopes that I would give an honest review of the book.]

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading Unfair, by Adam Benforado, fully expecting to dislike it. After all, part of my job is to explain our criminal justice system to students and teachers in grades K-12 and to convince them of its overall fairness (while acknowledging that the system occasionally fails because it is run by fallible human beings); surely Benforado is wrong when he states that, "[e]ven if we quashed all the familiar problems that can derail a case, even if our system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, biased proceedings, trampled rights, and unequal treatment." Contrary to my expectations, however, Unfair turned out to be a fascinating, informative, and enjoyable overview of recent psychological research into issues of perception, hidden bias, memory, and communication and what those insights might indicate when applied to our criminal justice system.

In his acknowledgments, Benforado quotes Sir Henry Maine: "Nobody cares about criminal law except theorists and habitual criminals." Taking this warning to heart, Benforado has organized his book in a way which makes sense to non-academics, with chapters devoted to each of the key players in a criminal case: victim, police, suspect, lawyer, jury, witnesses (both eye and expert), judge, prisoner, and the public. This structure at times requires that Benforado repeat some research findings which apply to multiple actors, but such repetition is more than outweighed by the cogency of his arguments. Benforado has also chosen to make his extensive footnotes available on the Internet, rather than including them in the book itself, which is an excellent idea; the notes are easily accessible to scholars and those wishing to dive deeper into the research, but the average reader is neither distracted nor overwhelmed by an abundance of tiny print at the bottom of each page. Those who purchase a print copy of Unfair will also appreciate the savings in both price and back pain; given that the bibliography alone accounts for almost a quarter of the book's 400 pages, I cringe to imagine the expensive behemoth which would have resulted had the footnotes been included in the printed text.

The most important factor in my decision to give Unfair 5 stars, though, was that Benforado not only identifies problems with our existing criminal justice system, but also offers concrete solutions, from such relatively minor changes as eliminating peremptory juror challenges or expressly telling eyewitnesses that the perpetrator may or may not be present in a photo array to a complete replacement of our current trials by virtual ones, in which demographic identifiers such as race are suppressed to avoid otherwise hidden biases. As a former trial lawyer, I'm not sure I'm ready to pick my avatar just yet, but Benforado has certainly given me a lot to think about.

I received a free copy of Unfair through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

UPDATE: Relying on some of the same scientific research discussed by Benforado, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled on June 25 that "judges must instruct jurors that eyewitnesses may have greater difficulty accurately identifying someone who is not their own race, unless both prosecution and defense agree that it’s not an issue." (Courtesy of The Boston Globe)

[Jeremy Stock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another important read in the all too-real world of wrongful conviction.

Benforado takes an approach that I haven't come across yet. He spends a lot of time bringing forward psychological studies and applies them to our criminal justice system. The science behind why our system fails us so often is very closely tied to our human tendency to believe that we are capable of setting aside our biases (including hosts of biases and false beliefs that we don't even know we have), coming to "the truth" with full conviction. ... our belief that our system can and does offer sufficient safeguards against error gives us an inflated and deceptively cool assurance that we have indeed provided "justice," when in fact our system is rife with error at practically every level of action: from the police and investigative level, to the prosecution and defense actions prior to trial, to the jury trial (if it occurs at all) and or plea bargaining/sentencing...

See the science behind why false confessions occur, better understand how and why "eye witness" testimony is often contrary and inconsistent with the real events. Learn how police interrogations and "line ups" including photo arrays can often lead to misidentifications without any mal-intent on behalf of the officers- it's part of their training.

You'll see how the problem facing our justice system is systemic and deep... and how it's not at all a matter of "a few bad apples" but that even the vast majority the "players" in our legal system on BOTH sides are so caught up behind walls of flawed thinking, biases, prejudices, and "us / them" mentalities.

These erroneous systemic modes of thought have allowed the justice system to become a big chess game: one where those with money and influence (and light skin, generally) are victorious, and those without money, those marginalized by society (and generally dark skinned) fall prey to the massive wheels of "due process."

Please read this book, dear reader.