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A review by maiagaia
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
informative
slow-paced
3.0
By the title and blurb, I expected a lot more analysis of possible ways to move forward from an unjust system to something better, but instead this reads as a worse The New Jim Crow (which if you haven't read, you absolutely should.) There is overlap in quite a bit of their subject matter though they also each cover topics independently of each other.
The New Jim Crow is a better argued book with better analysis of the data presented, and I would totally be okay with this going less in depth if it focused more on the reform angle, but too often reform, abolition, etc were a short sentence tacked onto a chapter summarizing police injustices. The conclusion (final chapter) is the strongest one, in my opinion, in that it is the most focused on where to go in the future. I wish that had been the introduction and the book would have gone more in depth from there. Overall, not a bad book, and if you're just dipping your toes into justice system reform, it's an okay place to start. I would recommend reading it in conjunction with The New Jim Crow for the reasons I mentioned above.
The New Jim Crow is a better argued book with better analysis of the data presented, and I would totally be okay with this going less in depth if it focused more on the reform angle, but too often reform, abolition, etc were a short sentence tacked onto a chapter summarizing police injustices. The conclusion (final chapter) is the strongest one, in my opinion, in that it is the most focused on where to go in the future. I wish that had been the introduction and the book would have gone more in depth from there. Overall, not a bad book, and if you're just dipping your toes into justice system reform, it's an okay place to start. I would recommend reading it in conjunction with The New Jim Crow for the reasons I mentioned above.