Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair

The award-winning “radically original” (The Atlantic) restorative justice leader, whose work the Washington Post has called “totally sensible and totally revolutionary,” grapples with the problem of violent crime in the movement for prison abolitionA National Book Foundation Literature for Justice honoreeA Kirkus “Best Book of 2019 to Fight Racism and Xenophobia”Winner of the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice Journalism AwardFinalist for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social JusticeIn a book Democracy Now! calls a “complete overhaul of the way we’ve been taught to think about crime, punishment, and justice,” Danielle Sered, the executive director of Common Justice and renowned expert on violence, offers pragmatic solutions that take the place of prison, meeting the needs of survivors and creating pathways for people who have committed violence to repair harm.

Critically, Sered argues that reckoning is owed not only on the part of individuals who have caused violence, but also by our nation for its overreliance on incarceration to produce safety—at a great cost to communities, survivors, racial equity, and the very fabric of our democracy.