Locking Up Our Own

Summary

An examination of why many Black officials, clergy, and community leaders backed punitive crime policies in Washington, D.C. and other cities during the 1970s and 1980s. Forman, a former public defender, draws on court records and interviews to show how rising violence, heroin, and crack pushed advocates toward the very policies that fueled mass incarceration. The book complicates simple narratives about the war on drugs by tracing its support inside Black communities themselves.