Just Mercy Book Summary - Just Mercy Book explained in key points

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Just Mercy summary

Name: Just Mercy
Rating: 4.1 (37 reviews)
Author: Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson

A Story of Justice and Redemption

4.1 (37 ratings)

16 mins

Topics

Manipulation Mental Health Black Lives Matter Black History

Table of Contents

Just Mercy
Summary of 7 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Learn about the history and development of the American criminal justice system.

What do you know about the American criminal justice system? Have you ever visited one of its prisons? How about some hands-on experience and knowledge from a lawyer who has worked inside the American prison-industrial complex and played his part in the scenes unfurling in many of the country’s courtrooms?

In Just Mercy, the author explains how the system worked back in the 1980s, how it has developed up until today, and especially how different societal groups, including women, children and mentally disabled people, have been subject to an unpleasant type of “special treatment.”

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how high the prison population has soared since the 1980s;
how the system’s treatment of mentally disabled criminals has developed over the years; and
why being an underage criminal in 1980s Alabama was a pretty grim combination.

Since the 1980s, America’s criminal justice system has been marked by excessive punishment and mass incarceration.

Criminal justice in America has long been a subject of public interest, prompting countless movies and TV series that detail the lives as well as work of lawyers, judges and even prisoners. But when you peel back the glossy Hollywood facade there’s a stark reality with nothing entertaining about it.

Why’s that?

Well, since the 1980s, the American criminal justice system has been one of excessive punishment. That’s because in the 1980s the country’s courts started doling out extreme sentences for even the most minor offenses. This was especially true if the person on trial had any kind of criminal record. The result was that even committing a petty crime could land you in jail for life.

So, while in the early years of the decade, 41,000 people in America were incarcerated at a given time for drug-related offenses, today that number stands at 500,000. This fact is especially shocking since drugs use exploded in the 1980s. It’s clear that a fundamental change took place in both the sentences which were doled out and public opinion about what constituted fair punishment.

For instance, in the 1980s the author met a woman serving a long prison sentence. Her crime?

Writing five bad checks, each for less than $150, to buy Christmas presents for her kids.

But extreme punishments bred another extreme: mass incarceration. It’s pretty simple: the more people you jail for small crimes, the more crowded prisons become. And this is why America is now facing a nationwide crisis of mass incarceration.

For example, America’s prison population has risen from 300,000 in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today. That’s not even counting the additional six million who are currently on probation or parole. Statistically speaking, that means that one out of every 15 people born in 2001 will be in prison sometime during his life.

So where did all of these new criminals come from?

African-Americans have been disproportionately mistreated by the country’s criminal justice system.

Mass incarceration and excessive punishment already constitute a frightening reality, but it gets worse when you look at who’s being targeted. That’s because African-Americans in particular have fallen victim to the flawed criminal justice system.

How?

America’s broken criminal justice system has had serious repercussions for children.

If what you’ve learned so far isn’t bad enough, you’ve yet to hear one of the most deplorable facts about America’s prison-industrial complex: it has swept up children as young as 13 years old. Although children rarely comprehend the nature and consequences of the crimes they commit, during the 1980s they were often tried as adults.

In the 1980s, Alabama had the highest instance globally of minors sentenced to death. And even today, prosecutors in Florida are personally responsible for deciding whether a child should be tried in adult court or not, with no minimum age requirement whatsoever.

Women were another major casualty of the unfair criminal justice system.

It’s clear by now that the American criminal justice system, based on mass incarceration and unfair sentencing, preys on the most weak and helpless members of society. But African-Americans and children aren’t the only ones being mistreated. In fact, the incarceration of women has also been rapidly escalating.

Between 1980 and 2010 the rate of incarceration for women in America increased by a whopping 646 percent. That’s one and a half times higher than the rate for men.

America’s mentally ill got caught in the catch-all net of mass incarceration.

Another group unjustly trapped by America’s criminal justice system is the mentally ill, and a major reason for their mass imprisonment was the recent closure of many mental health facilities. That’s because people with mental illnesses have always been institutionalized in America, whether in hospitals or prisons.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the mentally ill were largely incarcerated after committing crimes while sick, but the harsh conditions they faced resulted in many of them being relocated to mental health facilities.

The consequences of mass incarceration go beyond the individual prisoner and often affect their entire community.

Given the state of mass incarceration in America, you might casually refer to a defendant who was only sentenced to 15 years. But before you do so you should consider the effects that prison time can have on inmates.

That’s because simply being in prison can be a traumatic experience that changes a person for life. So, while ten years behind bars might sound reasonable for some crimes, the experience will likely be deeply damaging for the person convicted.

The early 2000s have witnessed reforms in the American criminal justice system.

It may seem like there’s no hope for America and its failed criminal justice system, but in truth, some meaningful changes have been made. In fact, during the early 2000s, the instances of severe punishments like the death penalty and life sentences began to decline.

From 1999 through to 2010, the number of executions carried out annually decreased by nearly 50 percent. What’s more, states like New York and Maryland did away with the death penalty entirely.

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What is Just Mercy about?

Just Mercy (2014) is a walk through the American criminal justice system of the 1980s. These blinks explain how a system that is supposed to safeguard the rights of the nation’s citizens became an unjust tool to mistreat and abuse the most vulnerable members of society through mass incarceration and excessive sentencing.

Best quote from Just Mercy

Each of us is more than the worst thing weve ever done.

—Bryan Stevenson

Who should read Just Mercy?

Lawyers, judges and legal scholars
Anybody interested in the legal history of America
People wanting to understand the unjust nature of America’s criminal justice system

About the Author

Bryan Stevenson is a death row attorney who founded and serves as executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based nonprofit organization that represents and advocates for subjugated people. In addition to his work at EJI, Stevenson is a professor of law at the New York University Law School.

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