#JusticeNerds: Reading to Make a Better World discussion

Interested in reading more about how people are reimagining public safety in their communities and creating new, innovative ways to remain safe and relying less on police.

I'll spend a good amount of the year reading about the history of police violence in schools and against urban youth. Dark stuff. But a great way to learn how to undo school to prison pipeline issues and make kids safer at schools.

So many interests! Policing/prison/prison reform for sure (along the lines of New Jim Crow, maybe). But deeper dives into race and gender (just meaning not 101 level) and US history vis-à-vis enslavement, pre/post civil war, reconstruction, early 20th c., and race-based policy and law generally. Esp. interested in native-lands movements and treatment of indigenous peoples in US and Canada. Am looking forward to learning what others are reading and finding useful.

Rethinking incarceration, becoming an abolitionist, and we lock up our own.

New ways to conceptualize and measure the impact of hate crime on communities.

Dana Michelle wrote: "Rethinking incarceration, becoming an abolitionist, and we lock up our own."


Locking Up Our Own by James Forman, Jr. is SO GOOD. Heartbreaking in many ways but so informative. Black people want to be safe but are offered VERY limited choices on how to achieve even a crumb of that.

Jon wrote: "New ways to conceptualize and measure the impact of hate crime on communities."

Have you seen any books/research that do a good job of introducing this idea? Not exactly related to your area of interest but there was an interesting study done on student achievement (test scores) and their relationship to police shootings. Terrible phenomenon but important research.