PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of Books...the book demands much more than tinkering at the edges with the current model of incarceration. It advocates for a cultural shift among prosecutors and the public, to view prisoners not only as criminals, but also as people who have impulsively and regrettably committed crimes. As people who should be helped rather than merely warehoused and incapacitated. It reads more as a clarion call toward what might one day be than a set of policy formulations that could be easily enacted ... Pfaff admits that he is doubtful leaders will embrace the argument in the short run. It is less politically risky for people to be kept in prison for too long than released too early — or not sent to prison in the first place. But whether the zeitgeist on this issue shifts or not, to those asking why the United States imprisons so many of its people, the answers and hints of possible reform are here.
