I’m the author of two published novels and dozens of short stories, essays, and memoirs. I write about education, crime, and public safety, and I work to improve educational and career opportunities for young people in New York and other cities.
I wrote...
Juror Number 2: The Story of a Murder, the Agony of a Neighborhood
By
Efrem Sigel
What is my book about?
I set out to tell what it’s like to be a juror in a murder trial. Instead, I wound up after the trial spending a year visiting schools, police precincts, housing projects, and community agencies in East Harlem to try to understand the crime that was the subject of the trial.
In the words of the review in Publishers Weekly, “Novelist Sigel (The Kermanshah Transfer) turns his sharp eye for detail to a beautifully written hybrid of true crime and memoir. After serving as a juror on a 2017 Manhattan murder trial, Sigel was moved to examine the societal ills that cause underprivileged youth in New York City to turn to selling drugs and joining gangs. True crime buffs and fans of memoirs will be enthralled by Sigel’s irresistible mix of clear reporting, empathy, and thoughtful examination of the link between poverty and violence.”
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The Books I Picked & Why
How the Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice
By
Robert Pondiscio
Why this book?
Pondiscio spent an entire school year embedded in Success Academy Bronx 1, an elementary charter school in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Success Academy, a leading charter network, is often criticized for its obsessive focus on structure, discipline, and test prep but in this book, Pondiscio brings to life the incredible dedication and humanity of its teachers and principals as they struggle day by day to change the course of young lives.
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How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
By
Paul Tough
Why this book?
In this book, one of half a dozen he has written about education, Tough delves widely into the research of economists, pediatricians, psychologists, and neuroscientists to focus on often overlooked issues that affect success in education and life: the mother-child relationship; the level of trauma experienced by children in poor, sometimes chaotic homes; and character traits like conscientiousness, grit and the willingness to try and fail.
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Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
By
Matthew Desmond
Why this book?
Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at Princeton, spent 14 months living in a trailer park and then a rooming house in Milwaukee’s inner city to portray, in unforgettable detail, the struggles of eight families to make their monthly rent, and the searing tragedy of eviction if they could not. Poverty, broken families, disability, addiction, crime, and the relentless march of the court-directed eviction process form the backdrop for these wrenching human stories.
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The Profession: A Memoir of Community, Race, and the Arc of Policing in America
By
Bill Bratton,
Peter Knobler
Why this book?
Bratton became New York City police commissioner in the early 1990s when there were more than 2,000 homicides a year. His reforms, including the widely copied CompStat program for pinpointing where crimes were occurring, and then concentrating policing to prevent those crimes, helped bring about a huge decline in crime. This often self-congratulatory memoir is nevertheless full of insights into how to improve policing and make cities safer and more livable.
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The Myth of Overpunishment: A Defense of the American Justice System and a Proposal to Reduce Incarceration While Protecting the Public
By
Barry Latzer
Why this book?
Is our criminal justice system too harsh or too lenient on crime? To answer this question, Barry Latzer, retired professor at John Jay, offers both facts and historical perspective in his history of punishment since colonial days. Latzer does not gloss over the historic racism and cruelty of policing in the U.S. but shows that today most people in prison are actually there for committing violent crimes, and that the new technology of “e-carceration” can further reduce prison populations while improving public safety.
