Dark Ghettos

By Tommie Shelby,

Book cover of Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform

Book description

Winner of the Spitz Prize, Conference for the Study of Political Thought
Winner of the North American Society for Social Philosophy Book Award

Why do American ghettos persist? Scholars and commentators often identify some factor-such as single motherhood, joblessness, or violent street crime-as the key to solving the problem and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Dark Ghettos as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book because it provides a broad, philosophical backdrop for questions about policing.

We often hear policy recommendations regarding how to improve the plight of the urban poor, but Shelby argues that the central problem is more about the state’s failure to adhere to basic principles of justice. Rampant criminality in impoverished communities can thus be construed as a response to systematic injustice.

This book is a fascinating study of the ways that injustice can limit the range of rational life choices.

From Luke's list on the cluster-f*ck we call policing.

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