Chokehold: Policing Black Men

by Paul Butler

Overview

Finalist for the 2018 National Council on Crime & Delinquency’s Media for a Just Society Awards

Nominated for the 49th NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction)

A 2017 Washington Post Notable Book

A Kirkus Best Book of 2017

“Butler has hit his stride. This is a meditation, a sonnet, a legal brief, a poetry slam and a dissertation that represents the full bloom of his early thesis: The justice system does not work for blacks, particularly black men.”
—The Washington Post

“The most readable and provocative account of the consequences of the war on drugs since Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow . . . .”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Powerful . . . deeply informed from a legal standpoint and yet in some ways still highly personal”
—The Times Literary Supplement (London)

With the eloquence of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the persuasive research of Michelle Alexander, a former federal prosecutor explains how the system really works, and how to disrupt it

Cops, politicians, and ordinary people are afraid of black men. The result is the Chokehold: laws and practices that treat every African American man like a thug. In this explosive new book, an African American former federal prosecutor shows that the system is working exactly the way it's supposed to. Black men are always under watch, and police violence is widespread—all with the support of judges and politicians.

In his no-holds-barred style, Butler, whose scholarship has been featured on 60 Minutes, uses new data to demonstrate that white men commit the majority of violent crime in the United States. For example, a white woman is ten times more likely to be raped by a white male acquaintance than be the victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a black man. Butler also frankly discusses the problem of black on black violence and how to keep communities safer—without relying as much on police.

Chokehold powerfully demonstrates why current efforts to reform law enforcement will not create lasting change. Butler's controversial recommendations about how to crash the system, and when it's better for a black man to plead guilty—even if he's innocent—are sure to be game-changers in the national debate about policing, criminal justice, and race relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620974834
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	09/18/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	416,005
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

A former federal prosecutor, Paul Butler provides legal commentary for MSNBC and NPR and has been featured on 60 Minutes and profiled in the Washington Post. A law professor at Georgetown University, he is the author of Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice, winner of the Harry Chapin Media Award, and Chokehold: Policing Black Men (both from The New Press). He has published numerous op-eds and book reviews, including in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Broke on Purpose 1

1 Constructing the Thug 17

2 Controlling the Thug 47

3 Sex and Torture: The Police and Black Male Bodies 81

4 Black Male Violence: The Chokehold Within 117

5 Do the Brothers Need Keepers? How Some Black Male Programs Perpetrate the Chokehold 149

6 Nothing Works: Why the Chokehold Can't Be "Reformed" 171

7 If You Catch a Case: Act Like You Know 201

8 Woke: Unlocking the Chokehold 227

Acknowledgments 251

Notes 255

Index 289

Editorial Reviews

…the most readable and provocative account of the consequences of the war on drugs since Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow…Butler urges us to rethink the purpose and function of policing entirely…

The New York Times Book Review - Elizabeth Hinton

Praise for Chokehold:
Finalist for the 2018 National Council on Crime & Delinquency's Media for a Just Society Awards

Nominated for the 49th NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction)

A 2017 Washington Post Notable Book

A Kirkus Best Book of 2017

New York Times Book Review "11 New Books We Recommend This Week"

"Butler has hit his stride. This is a meditation, a sonnet, a legal brief, a poetry slam and a dissertation that represents the full bloom of his early thesis: The justice system does not work for blacks, particularly black men."
—The Washington Post

"The most readable and provocative account of the consequences of the war on drugs since Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow . . ."
—The New York Times Book Review

"Powerful . . . deeply informed from a legal standpoint and yet in some ways still highly personal"
—The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"Butler doesn't flinch from facts that many reformers prefer to avoid."
—Bookforum

"A searing look at the interactions of law enforcement and black men by a former prosecutor . . . . Smart, filled rightfully with righteous indignation, and demanding broad discussion and the widest audience."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"Paul Butler's book equips supporters of Black Lives Matter with one more important resource to curb racism in law enforcement."
—Study Breaks

"Paul Butler illuminates the complexities that shape racial injustice in America with a sharp, critical, intersectional analysis that is honest and sobering. Chokehold deconstructs all of the forces that have created despair and violence in the criminal justice system but courageously posits solutions as well. An important read for anyone searching for a more just system."
—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

"Insightful reading for all genders and generations. By engaging in courageous dialogue, Paul Butler illustrates how the system is broken on purpose, and why those who believe in justice can't settle for shortsighted reform. With its well-researched, poignant answers to the most complicated questions of our day, Chokehold is a crucial read for those who want to stay woke and win."
—Opal Tometi, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter and executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration

"A wonderfully disturbing book that will upset everything you think you know about race and criminal justice in America—colorful and vibrant social theory rooted in revolutionary pragmatism."
—Michael Eric Dyson, author of Tears We Cannot Stop

"Paul Butler tells the unvarnished truth about the criminal justice system. Butler confronts just about everyone—police, prosecutors, judges, black elites, liberals, and radicals. A must-read for those with a serious interest in criminal justice."
—Judge Shira Scheindlin (ret.), presiding judge in Floyd v. City of New York challenging the city's stop-and-frisk program

"Chokehold speaks to the lived experiences of black men across the country who are targeted by a 'justice' system that is designed to punish them—and is far from 'just' in doing so."
—Michael Render (aka Killer Mike of Run the Jewels), Grammy award–winning rapper and activist

From the Publisher

★ 2017-07-19
"If this chapter reads like a nightmare, it is because that's exactly what the criminal system is for an African American man"—a searing look at the interactions of law enforcement and black men by a former prosecutor.When it comes to the law, it seems, black men inhabit a different country than white men. Granted, as Butler (Law/Georgetown Univ.; Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice, 2009) writes, acknowledging "ugly facts," black men commit disproportionately more violent crimes, especially homicide, than Latino or white men, but they are also disproportionately likely to be victims of just those crimes. In any event, whites are far likelier to be victimized by other whites than by anyone else, even as black men, and especially young ones, are subject to what Butler calls the Chokehold: an entire system of justice that presumes their guilt and that is entirely geared to the suppression of an entire category of citizens. This system often works insidiously. As Butler writes, for instance, the Supreme Court has ruled that people with intellectual disabilities are not subject to the death penalty, because they may not be aware that they are committing crimes. However, prosecutors circumvent this by adding points to the IQ scores of minority criminals, playing on the nostrum that IQ measures traditionally discriminate against minority members and thereby raising the score of black men "enough for them to be executed." The author writes from experience, having been charged with a crime that he did not commit and that he was able to refute only by knowledge of the system. In a depressing inventory, he offers pointers for reducing black men's chances of being caught up in it, ranging from not wearing a hoodie ("when I put on a hoodie everybody turns into a neighborhood watch person") to avoiding red flags: "three or more black men in a car at any time," "black men raising their voices," and the like. Smart, filled rightfully with righteous indignation, and demanding broad discussion and the widest audience.

Kirkus Reviews