Customer Reviews

"Law Never Here": A Social History of African American Responses to Issues of Crime and Justice

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Law Never Here is an interesting book, and, as the authors say, certainly timely considering recent developments with relation to African Americans and law enforcement. However, as a historian, I was left wanting more from Bailey and Green.

The book's biggest flaw is its heavy dependence on the scholarship of other historians. It covers too broad of a time period, and as a result, Bailey and Green the criminologists are forced to rely on historians for any infomation. They quote other historians almost verbatum in early chapters. This detracts from their overall work, because they rely on other historians to deliver their own message. Anything before 1900 is exceptionally weak.

The author's arguments for twentieth century are strong, however. Here, I believe their criminology background serves them well, and gives a different perspective than one would get from a historian or sociologist, for example. The authors deserve credit for trying to fit events like Attica, Rodney King, and O.J. Simpson into a larger framework. These are events too recent for even modern historians to touch, and Bailey and Green handle them well.

I can't fully recommend this book because of the mentioned flaws, but it might be worthwhile just for the authors' analysis of recent events. I'd recommend Harvard historian Randall Kennedy's "Race, Crime, and Law" over this book.