WOW!!! Paul Butler took me on an intellectual ride that I never saw coming. There is not one group of people, gender, race or creed who should not read this book! Chokehold: Policing Black Men: A Renegade Prosecutor's Radical Thoughts on How to Disrupt the System is far from the "typical" po ...more

The problem is the criminal process itself. Cops routinely hurt and humiliate black people because that is what they are paid to do. Virtually every objective investigation of a U.S. law enforcement agency finds that the police, as policy, treat African Americans with contempt…. The police kill, ...more

"The police kill, wound, pepper spray, beat up, frisk, handcuff, and use dogs against blacks in circumstances in which they do not do the same to white people. It is the moral responsibility of every American, when armed agents of the state are harming people in our names, to ask why."

This is in the ...more

After watching a great Politics & Prose discussion with Mr. Butler, I had to reserve a copy of this book from my local library. This book, along with "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America" by James Forman, Jr. are required reading for everyone. ...more

“A chokehold is a process of coercing submission that is self-reinforcing. A chokehold justifies additional pressure on the body because the body does not come into compliance, but the body cannot come into compliance because of the vise-grip that is on it. This is the black experience in America. T

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I didn’t think that I would be saying this again so soon, but after having read “Just Mercy” a few months ago, I have to say again…this might be one of the most important book that I’ve read in years. To me, it completes a quartet of music read texts on policing and mass incarceration that include t ...more

Chokehold was pitched this year as a book exposing police violence and targeting of black men in the same way that The New Jim Crow exposed prison violence and targeting of black men in America.

“A chokehold is a process of coercing submission that is self reinforcing… The Chokehold is a way of under ...more

Another excellent contribution to the growing canon of books that ask the tough questions and as is the case with this one, propose some answers. A formidable salvo to add to that canon of books that stress Black Lives Matter and discusses ways that those lives are interrupted. In Chokehold, former ...more

The history of abuse of power and how it has affected us as a people was thought provoking and made me wonder how we have come so far as a people. It's in our DNA as a people to want to be free. The author connects the dots of cause and effect well. You won't be the same after you read it... ...more

This book was a ride. In content, it is equal parts pragmatic and analytic: full of statistics and case notes and real-world advice, all of which are objectively horrifying and some of which defy belief. These are all offered to shore up his characterization of the criminal justice system as “not br ...more

I got this book because I heard there were some prisons banning prisoners from reading it. There must be some forbidden fruit in it, and there is. Butler, a black former district attorney, uses “chokehold” as a metaphor for all the problems with the U.S. criminal justice system. He reveals all the h ...more

This book was very educational and thought provoking. It gives so much insight about how our nation got to where we are with racial injustice and white supremacy. It takes you from slavery, convict leasing, to the segragation and mass incarceration that exists for African Americans today. It explain ...more

With candor, intellect, and wit, Professor Butler puts in very readable and personal language the lived experiences of African American men in America. His book is also extremely tragic and eye-opening and an indictment of our country's so-called justice system. Reading his book should be part of ou ...more

Chapter 7, which is a essentially a guide for African American men who get stopped by the police on how to behave in order to avoid arrest, prison time, etc, just broke my heart. We have two parallel justice systems in this country: one is the one white people are held to and which most white people ...more

This book really opened my eyes to the probability that men of color can and are being “policed” by law enforcement and court officials. The author demonstrates from the voice of an expert prosecuting attorneys how critical crime and punishment is for our brothers, and in many incidents a casein tod ...more

Paul Butler gave people an extraordinary gift in the writing of this book.
At every turn this former federal prosecutor hands us information about
causes and effects that we overlook as the majority in the US.

Even as a person who sees racism apologists at every turn there were several
issues that I ...more

4.5!

Incredibly eye-opening and thorough. Butler said it best himself: “History will be your judge, as it has been of the freedom fighters before you.” ...more

Well-researched and eye-opening. ...more

This was a book review I wrote for Howard's Human and Civil Rights Law Review:

Book Review: Chokehold by Paul Butler
Reviewed by Justin Hansford

When Mike Brown was killed on August 9th, 2014, few of the people who took to the streets in protest could explain in-depth the structural details of the syst ...more

Butler is well-researched and has thought through this book well. He shares much history and practice that is not well known to most of the general public. However, he is often redundant in some areas. It saddens me that the conversation in Chapter 8 even has to happen while the conversation itself ...more