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The War on Neighborhoods: Policing, Prison, and Punishment in a Divided City
A narrative-driven exploration of policing and the punishment of disadvantage in Chicago, and a new vision for repairing urban neighborhoods
For people of color who live in segregated urban neighborhoods, surviving crime and violence is a generational reality. As violence in cities like New York and Los Angeles has fallen in recent years, in many Chicago communities, it has continued at alarming rates. Meanwhile, residents of these same communities have endured decades of some of the highest rates of arrest, incarceration, and police abuse in the nation.
The War on Neighborhoods argues that these trends are connected. Crime in Chicago, as in many other US cities, has been fueled by a broken approach to public safety in disadvantaged neighborhoods. For nearly forty years, public leaders have attempted to create peace through punishment, misinvesting billions of dollars toward the suppression of crime, largely into a small subset of neighborhoods on the city's West and South Sides. Meanwhile, these neighborhoods have struggled to sustain investments into basic needs such as jobs, housing, education, and mental healthcare.
When the main investment in a community is policing and incarceration, rather than human and community development, that amounts to a "war on neighborhoods," which ultimately furthers poverty and disadvantage. Longtime Chicago scholars Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper tell the story of one of those communities, a neighborhood on Chicago's West Side that is emblematic of many majority-black neighborhoods in US cities. Sharing both rigorous data and powerful stories, the authors explain why punishment will never create peace and why we must rethink the ways that public dollars are invested into making places safe.
The War on Neighborhoods makes the case for a revolutionary reformation of our public-safety model that focuses on shoring up neighborhood institutions and addressing the effects of trauma and poverty. The authors call for a profound transformation in how we think about investing in urban communities--away from the perverse misinvestment of policing and incarceration and toward a model that invests in human and community development.
For people of color who live in segregated urban neighborhoods, surviving crime and violence is a generational reality. As violence in cities like New York and Los Angeles has fallen in recent years, in many Chicago communities, it has continued at alarming rates. Meanwhile, residents of these same communities have endured decades of some of the highest rates of arrest, incarceration, and police abuse in the nation.
The War on Neighborhoods argues that these trends are connected. Crime in Chicago, as in many other US cities, has been fueled by a broken approach to public safety in disadvantaged neighborhoods. For nearly forty years, public leaders have attempted to create peace through punishment, misinvesting billions of dollars toward the suppression of crime, largely into a small subset of neighborhoods on the city's West and South Sides. Meanwhile, these neighborhoods have struggled to sustain investments into basic needs such as jobs, housing, education, and mental healthcare.
When the main investment in a community is policing and incarceration, rather than human and community development, that amounts to a "war on neighborhoods," which ultimately furthers poverty and disadvantage. Longtime Chicago scholars Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper tell the story of one of those communities, a neighborhood on Chicago's West Side that is emblematic of many majority-black neighborhoods in US cities. Sharing both rigorous data and powerful stories, the authors explain why punishment will never create peace and why we must rethink the ways that public dollars are invested into making places safe.
The War on Neighborhoods makes the case for a revolutionary reformation of our public-safety model that focuses on shoring up neighborhood institutions and addressing the effects of trauma and poverty. The authors call for a profound transformation in how we think about investing in urban communities--away from the perverse misinvestment of policing and incarceration and toward a model that invests in human and community development.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2018
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March 20, 2018
Using the westernmost area in Chicago known as Austin, this book uses statistics and examples to research why an entire population is rendered vulnerable. Following WWII, many businesses that employed residents were shuttered, resulting in either improbable commutes that failed to generate working wages. Leaving the inhabitants no choice but to participate in what became to be known as "street economy," or drug trafficking. An important, sad book.
June 21, 2018
Disclaimer: Won on Librarything
One of the common fallacies you see when the topic of police shootings of unarmed African-Americans is someone saying, “well, no one ever talks about black on black shootings”. There are more than a few things wrong with such a statement. Let’s mention two. The first is that no one talks about white on white crime or, to be more exact, as many critics have pointed out, no one talks about crime rates among whites that way. The second is that such a statement doesn’t really negate the question of institutionalism racism.
I have read this book after reading Stamped from the Beginning and the Color of Law, two books that deal with racism and how laws were used to legally allow for racism. Lugalia-Hollon and Cooper look at the current effects of such policies. In other words, they tie everything together – the racism of the justice system, the effect of racist housing policies, the rise of the suburbs, and the defunding of the schools as well as community safe havens.
War on Neighborhood focuses on one city, Chicago, and one section of that city, Austin; yet the authors do not hesitate to make larger connections to governmental policies as well as to mention how other cities in the US face similar problems.
The thesis of the book is that the problems that certain areas have (i.e. the inner city, poorer areas) are a result of policies designed to stop crime as well as politicians who not so much don’t care but don’t try anything new. It isn’t simply ending a drug epidemic, it is ending a cycle that is built on racism and classism. It is about empowering communities as opposed to governments.
The book is divided into chapters, many of which take an aspect of the problem and dissect it. I saw most because there is a conclusion and an introduction. Of particular interest is how inner-city areas, like Austin in Chicago, can be a source of revenue for outlaying towns by “providing” inmates for the prisons in those towns. One must wonder if racism in pre-dominantly white town a product of the prison is also. The authors show us that what effects one small area can have a huge ripple effect.
If you are interested in the saving of cities, in the war on drugs, and violence in neighborhoods, then you need to read this book before we have a conversation. It should be required reading for anyone getting involved in community outreach or politics.
One of the common fallacies you see when the topic of police shootings of unarmed African-Americans is someone saying, “well, no one ever talks about black on black shootings”. There are more than a few things wrong with such a statement. Let’s mention two. The first is that no one talks about white on white crime or, to be more exact, as many critics have pointed out, no one talks about crime rates among whites that way. The second is that such a statement doesn’t really negate the question of institutionalism racism.
I have read this book after reading Stamped from the Beginning and the Color of Law, two books that deal with racism and how laws were used to legally allow for racism. Lugalia-Hollon and Cooper look at the current effects of such policies. In other words, they tie everything together – the racism of the justice system, the effect of racist housing policies, the rise of the suburbs, and the defunding of the schools as well as community safe havens.
War on Neighborhood focuses on one city, Chicago, and one section of that city, Austin; yet the authors do not hesitate to make larger connections to governmental policies as well as to mention how other cities in the US face similar problems.
The thesis of the book is that the problems that certain areas have (i.e. the inner city, poorer areas) are a result of policies designed to stop crime as well as politicians who not so much don’t care but don’t try anything new. It isn’t simply ending a drug epidemic, it is ending a cycle that is built on racism and classism. It is about empowering communities as opposed to governments.
The book is divided into chapters, many of which take an aspect of the problem and dissect it. I saw most because there is a conclusion and an introduction. Of particular interest is how inner-city areas, like Austin in Chicago, can be a source of revenue for outlaying towns by “providing” inmates for the prisons in those towns. One must wonder if racism in pre-dominantly white town a product of the prison is also. The authors show us that what effects one small area can have a huge ripple effect.
If you are interested in the saving of cities, in the war on drugs, and violence in neighborhoods, then you need to read this book before we have a conversation. It should be required reading for anyone getting involved in community outreach or politics.
Read
June 4, 2018My interview with Ryan Lugalia-Hollon:
THE UNITED STATES HAS the highest incarceration rate in the world, but imprisonment isn't distributed evenly around the country or even within regions.
Instead, it is concentrated in neighborhoods like Austin, on the West Side of Chicago, where the population is almost entirely black and entrenched in poverty after decades of white flight, deindustrialization, redlining and the absence of government or private investment. Most of the adult men in Austin have felony convictions and nearly all have spent time behind bars.
In "The War on Neighborhoods: Policing, Prison, and Punishment in a Divided City," Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper outline the factors that keep millions of people of color in an endless cycle of poverty, trauma and incarceration. Lugalia-Hollon, who holds PhD and masters degrees in urban planning and has spent two decades working in youth development, recently spoke with U.S. News about how that vicious cycle could be broken. Excerpts:
When people talk about the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on crime – they're talking about scourges we hope to get rid of. Neighborhoods don't fit into that category. Why did you decide to frame the issue that way?
When we look deeply at what happened as a result of the war on drugs, we see the weakening of community and the misinvestment of public dollars into strategies that don't actually make places stronger. Because of that, we think it's important to reframe what happened during the so-called war on drugs. We believe it's more apt to call it a "war on neighborhoods," because places were deeply and negatively affected, and all the while, addiction persists, drug sales persist, and drug prices have actually dropped, so drugs have been easier to get. We didn't effectively stop the use or sale of drugs, but we did weaken neighborhoods in ways that have really sad and powerful consequences.
How has it gotten this bad?
What we have is a really persistent neglect in Chicago. Chicago is a city that has put all its money and its biggest bets into building an amazing downtown, so if you just know Chicago as a tourist, you know downtown and it's incredible. It's world class. Downtown has become what planners and investors wanted it to become, but that's happened at the expense of neighborhoods. So in neighborhoods you've seen mental health clinics close, you've seen 50 schools closed, all these key resources for community life have either shut down or struggled to keep the lights on, even as we're building up downtown, and meanwhile the money that has gone into neighborhoods has been almost strictly tied to punishment. Policy makers are responsible for that, I think voters are responsible for that. We're not pointing blame at any one person or any one party, we think basically everyone in society is responsible for that, but policy makers are the ones who are going to have to help us lead our way out. As voters and citizens, we're going to have to become more enlightened and clear on what we want and what it is that's actually going to make us feel safe.
When you look at how many people have been called criminals on Chicago's West Side, or in zip codes in Milwaukee, Atlanta, New York – all across the country – that is a way of avoiding the deeper work that we have to do in neighborhoods across the country. So by labeling thousands of residents in a neighborhood "criminals," we no longer have to be concerned about the lack of living wage jobs in their community, we can close their schools and their mental health clinics and not give it a second thought. Just throwing everybody into the category of "criminal" allows us to ignore all that other work in human development and infrastructure that we need to be building.
Read the rest of the interview here.
THE UNITED STATES HAS the highest incarceration rate in the world, but imprisonment isn't distributed evenly around the country or even within regions.
Instead, it is concentrated in neighborhoods like Austin, on the West Side of Chicago, where the population is almost entirely black and entrenched in poverty after decades of white flight, deindustrialization, redlining and the absence of government or private investment. Most of the adult men in Austin have felony convictions and nearly all have spent time behind bars.
In "The War on Neighborhoods: Policing, Prison, and Punishment in a Divided City," Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper outline the factors that keep millions of people of color in an endless cycle of poverty, trauma and incarceration. Lugalia-Hollon, who holds PhD and masters degrees in urban planning and has spent two decades working in youth development, recently spoke with U.S. News about how that vicious cycle could be broken. Excerpts:
When people talk about the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on crime – they're talking about scourges we hope to get rid of. Neighborhoods don't fit into that category. Why did you decide to frame the issue that way?
When we look deeply at what happened as a result of the war on drugs, we see the weakening of community and the misinvestment of public dollars into strategies that don't actually make places stronger. Because of that, we think it's important to reframe what happened during the so-called war on drugs. We believe it's more apt to call it a "war on neighborhoods," because places were deeply and negatively affected, and all the while, addiction persists, drug sales persist, and drug prices have actually dropped, so drugs have been easier to get. We didn't effectively stop the use or sale of drugs, but we did weaken neighborhoods in ways that have really sad and powerful consequences.
How has it gotten this bad?
What we have is a really persistent neglect in Chicago. Chicago is a city that has put all its money and its biggest bets into building an amazing downtown, so if you just know Chicago as a tourist, you know downtown and it's incredible. It's world class. Downtown has become what planners and investors wanted it to become, but that's happened at the expense of neighborhoods. So in neighborhoods you've seen mental health clinics close, you've seen 50 schools closed, all these key resources for community life have either shut down or struggled to keep the lights on, even as we're building up downtown, and meanwhile the money that has gone into neighborhoods has been almost strictly tied to punishment. Policy makers are responsible for that, I think voters are responsible for that. We're not pointing blame at any one person or any one party, we think basically everyone in society is responsible for that, but policy makers are the ones who are going to have to help us lead our way out. As voters and citizens, we're going to have to become more enlightened and clear on what we want and what it is that's actually going to make us feel safe.
When you look at how many people have been called criminals on Chicago's West Side, or in zip codes in Milwaukee, Atlanta, New York – all across the country – that is a way of avoiding the deeper work that we have to do in neighborhoods across the country. So by labeling thousands of residents in a neighborhood "criminals," we no longer have to be concerned about the lack of living wage jobs in their community, we can close their schools and their mental health clinics and not give it a second thought. Just throwing everybody into the category of "criminal" allows us to ignore all that other work in human development and infrastructure that we need to be building.
Read the rest of the interview here.
July 10, 2018
The War on Neighborhoods: Policing, Prison, and Punishment in a Divided City by Ryan Lugalia-Hollon is a powerful, challenging, and often painful book. [I won it on LibraryThing] The authors take the point of view (and back it up with a great deal of research as evidenced in the many endnotes) that poor neighborhoods, filled primarily with people of color, are the target of “concentrated punishment” and that the strong law and order policies of the last 30 or 40 years have destroyed not only these neighborhoods but many of the families living within them.
The authors present their case by looking at one neighborhood in Chicago that they believe exemplifies many of these problems. They use both individual case studies and a broader lens that examines trends, causes, results, and alternative approaches.
Mass incarceration is a problem that is much talked about today. The authors examine how this came to be and how it can be changed.
I copied so many sentences from the last chapter, I can’t possibly use them all! Here is one that could serve also as an opening to the book: “The first key to participating in this work is to check the assumptions you bring to the table.”
The authors speak movingly of the need to put in programs to prevent violence rather than merely police it. An investment in mental health programs, schools (many of the schools in these neighborhoods are underfunded or have been outright closed leaving children without schools or schools too far away for them to reach), after school programs, access to adequate housing and work that pays enough for people to live on. There need to be more treatment centers for those suffering from addiction. And for those who already have been incarcerated, there needs to be ways for them to maintain family and other social ties as well as work and housing as well as “healing circles” to help them recover from the traumas that often led to addiction and crime in the first place.
The U.S. spends billions of dollars on prisons that have not solved the problem of crime. Jail time has not lessened offenses, in fact it may have actually increased it by dehumanizing people and further cutting off their ability to work and invest in families and other social relationships. It leaves people with even less opportunities to create meaningful lives than they had before and fewer choices outside of criminal activities.
The authors present a case for how crime is punished differently for white people than African Americans. White Americans use marijuana at the same or even higher rates than people of color but are not arrested at the same rates or, when arrested, serve as much (sometimes any) times. Additionally, addiction is not successfully treated by jail.
“If we know that a train is about to crash for the fourth time in as many days, then we should be able to stop it. But each new decade of urban policies is another wreck-bound train.” The system is broken and all the participants in it (including police, judges, and lawyers for both sides) know it. But, the authors write, “trauma-informed approaches to your development have shown promise in reducing re-offense rates and instilling positive social and emotional skills in participants.”
However, funding for prevention and treatment programs has not expanded to meet the growing need for such programs; in fact, many have been de- or underfunded and are overwhelmed by the needs of the community. The policies of austerity governments and the growing trend to privatize government services have resulted in “the most disadvantaged neighborhoods [being] stripped of both financial and social assets by market and political forces”
Additionally, there needs to be a stronger investment in these neighborhoods. Services alone won’t help if people can’t find work. Employers need to come together to create a strong job market. One of the problems that destroyed a once-healthy neighborhood was deindustrialization. Once there were many jobs available; the neighborhood flourished. As the jobs disappeared, increased criminal activities, addiction, and despair took their place. In order to reverse the situation, many different services need to come together. It is a complex problem for which there is no single, simple solution.
The idea that I found most challenging was that even violent criminals should not be handled with lengthy prison time. The authors present a convincing case for the idea that there are better ways to rehabilitate even these offenders. They also offer the argument that violence is something people “age out” of. I found this idea to be counter-intuitive and against the idea of prison as the only response to this kind of activity. I’ll have to think more about it and perhaps read more as well.
What is most painful about this book is that it offers solutions that seem to be within reach at the same time as they seem impossible in the current political climate. As government is being dismantled, as problems are being increasingly individualized (and not seen the result of preventable problems caused by current policies), as businesses are less interested in partnering with communities, it would seem we lack the “political will” to turn neighborhoods like Austin (the community examined in this book) around. Lives are lost, families are shattered and many children repeat the patterns they have grown up with.
This can change, if we want it to.
As long as this review is, it only scratches the surface of the book’s material. Though it is less than 200 pages long, it is filled with information and ideas for change. Even if you disagree with the major concepts underlying the work (that racism and incarceration have created many of the problems we trying to solve, unsuccessfully, with prison), this is a book that will make you think more deeply about the world, your personal ideas and preconceptions, and the possibilities for positive change that exist.
The authors present their case by looking at one neighborhood in Chicago that they believe exemplifies many of these problems. They use both individual case studies and a broader lens that examines trends, causes, results, and alternative approaches.
Mass incarceration is a problem that is much talked about today. The authors examine how this came to be and how it can be changed.
I copied so many sentences from the last chapter, I can’t possibly use them all! Here is one that could serve also as an opening to the book: “The first key to participating in this work is to check the assumptions you bring to the table.”
The authors speak movingly of the need to put in programs to prevent violence rather than merely police it. An investment in mental health programs, schools (many of the schools in these neighborhoods are underfunded or have been outright closed leaving children without schools or schools too far away for them to reach), after school programs, access to adequate housing and work that pays enough for people to live on. There need to be more treatment centers for those suffering from addiction. And for those who already have been incarcerated, there needs to be ways for them to maintain family and other social ties as well as work and housing as well as “healing circles” to help them recover from the traumas that often led to addiction and crime in the first place.
The U.S. spends billions of dollars on prisons that have not solved the problem of crime. Jail time has not lessened offenses, in fact it may have actually increased it by dehumanizing people and further cutting off their ability to work and invest in families and other social relationships. It leaves people with even less opportunities to create meaningful lives than they had before and fewer choices outside of criminal activities.
The authors present a case for how crime is punished differently for white people than African Americans. White Americans use marijuana at the same or even higher rates than people of color but are not arrested at the same rates or, when arrested, serve as much (sometimes any) times. Additionally, addiction is not successfully treated by jail.
“If we know that a train is about to crash for the fourth time in as many days, then we should be able to stop it. But each new decade of urban policies is another wreck-bound train.” The system is broken and all the participants in it (including police, judges, and lawyers for both sides) know it. But, the authors write, “trauma-informed approaches to your development have shown promise in reducing re-offense rates and instilling positive social and emotional skills in participants.”
However, funding for prevention and treatment programs has not expanded to meet the growing need for such programs; in fact, many have been de- or underfunded and are overwhelmed by the needs of the community. The policies of austerity governments and the growing trend to privatize government services have resulted in “the most disadvantaged neighborhoods [being] stripped of both financial and social assets by market and political forces”
Additionally, there needs to be a stronger investment in these neighborhoods. Services alone won’t help if people can’t find work. Employers need to come together to create a strong job market. One of the problems that destroyed a once-healthy neighborhood was deindustrialization. Once there were many jobs available; the neighborhood flourished. As the jobs disappeared, increased criminal activities, addiction, and despair took their place. In order to reverse the situation, many different services need to come together. It is a complex problem for which there is no single, simple solution.
The idea that I found most challenging was that even violent criminals should not be handled with lengthy prison time. The authors present a convincing case for the idea that there are better ways to rehabilitate even these offenders. They also offer the argument that violence is something people “age out” of. I found this idea to be counter-intuitive and against the idea of prison as the only response to this kind of activity. I’ll have to think more about it and perhaps read more as well.
What is most painful about this book is that it offers solutions that seem to be within reach at the same time as they seem impossible in the current political climate. As government is being dismantled, as problems are being increasingly individualized (and not seen the result of preventable problems caused by current policies), as businesses are less interested in partnering with communities, it would seem we lack the “political will” to turn neighborhoods like Austin (the community examined in this book) around. Lives are lost, families are shattered and many children repeat the patterns they have grown up with.
This can change, if we want it to.
As long as this review is, it only scratches the surface of the book’s material. Though it is less than 200 pages long, it is filled with information and ideas for change. Even if you disagree with the major concepts underlying the work (that racism and incarceration have created many of the problems we trying to solve, unsuccessfully, with prison), this is a book that will make you think more deeply about the world, your personal ideas and preconceptions, and the possibilities for positive change that exist.
August 21, 2024
This book analyzes policy shortcomings and misguided social consciousness about a problem very close to home. Very relevant considering recent mayoral debates. Can’t recommend enough.
May 2, 2018
This was an interesting, thoughtful read. The authors draw upon their own work, as well as research, to examine a neighborhood in Chicago that experiences high rates of incarceration and violence, and analyzes how one impacts the other and how the cycle can be changed.
January 15, 2021
This is a superbly researched book that lays out the foundation of the traps (intentional or not) set by policymakers to keep black neighbourhoods in a loop of trauma and poverty. The authors create clear narratives of how the history of policy continue to do disservices to these communities while also lifting the voices of people in the community (including judges and police officers). I liked the holistic approach in interviews as well as the delivery of the policy trajectory.
My only criticism is that I was disappointed that they didn't set forth an argument for prison abolition, but rather focused primarily on prison reform. Which based off of their analysis seemed counter-intuitive and honestly a cop out. But definitely a good book to read to prepare yourself with an armoury of facts to destroy any person who really doesn't understand the correlation between the prison industrial complex, racist policies and crime rates in predominantly black neighbourhoods.
My only criticism is that I was disappointed that they didn't set forth an argument for prison abolition, but rather focused primarily on prison reform. Which based off of their analysis seemed counter-intuitive and honestly a cop out. But definitely a good book to read to prepare yourself with an armoury of facts to destroy any person who really doesn't understand the correlation between the prison industrial complex, racist policies and crime rates in predominantly black neighbourhoods.
Read
January 21, 2021From Follett: A narrative-driven exploration of policing and the punishment of disadvantage in Chicago, and a new vision for repairing urban neighborhoods
For people of color who live in segregated urban neighborhoods, surviving crime and violence is a generational reality. As violence in cities like New York and Los Angeles has fallen in recent years, in many Chicago communities, it has continued at alarming rates. Meanwhile, residents of these same communities have endured decades of some of the highest rates of arrest, incarceration, and police abuse in the nation.
The War on Neighborhoods argues that these trends are connected. Crime in Chicago, as in many other US cities, has been fueled by a broken approach to public safety in disadvantaged neighborhoods. For nearly forty years, public leaders have attempted to create peace through punishment, misinvesting billions of dollars toward the suppression of crime, largely into a small subset of neighborhoods on the city's West and South Sides. Meanwhile, these neighborhoods have struggled to sustain investments into basic needs such as jobs, housing, education, and mental healthcare.
When the main investment in a community is policing and incarceration, rather than human and community development, that amounts to a "war on neighborhoods," which ultimately furthers poverty and disadvantage. Longtime Chicago scholars Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper tell the story of one of those communities, a neighborhood on Chicago's West Side that is emblematic of many majority-black neighborhoods in US cities. Sharing both rigorous data and powerful stories, the authors explain why punishment will never create peace and why we must rethink the ways that public dollars are invested into making places safe.
The War on Neighborhoods makes the case for a revolutionary reformation of our public-safety model that focuses on shoring up neighborhood institutions and addressing the effects of trauma and poverty. The authors call for a profound transformation in how we think about investing in urban communities--away from the perverse misinvestment of policing and incarceration and toward a model that invests in human and community development
For people of color who live in segregated urban neighborhoods, surviving crime and violence is a generational reality. As violence in cities like New York and Los Angeles has fallen in recent years, in many Chicago communities, it has continued at alarming rates. Meanwhile, residents of these same communities have endured decades of some of the highest rates of arrest, incarceration, and police abuse in the nation.
The War on Neighborhoods argues that these trends are connected. Crime in Chicago, as in many other US cities, has been fueled by a broken approach to public safety in disadvantaged neighborhoods. For nearly forty years, public leaders have attempted to create peace through punishment, misinvesting billions of dollars toward the suppression of crime, largely into a small subset of neighborhoods on the city's West and South Sides. Meanwhile, these neighborhoods have struggled to sustain investments into basic needs such as jobs, housing, education, and mental healthcare.
When the main investment in a community is policing and incarceration, rather than human and community development, that amounts to a "war on neighborhoods," which ultimately furthers poverty and disadvantage. Longtime Chicago scholars Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper tell the story of one of those communities, a neighborhood on Chicago's West Side that is emblematic of many majority-black neighborhoods in US cities. Sharing both rigorous data and powerful stories, the authors explain why punishment will never create peace and why we must rethink the ways that public dollars are invested into making places safe.
The War on Neighborhoods makes the case for a revolutionary reformation of our public-safety model that focuses on shoring up neighborhood institutions and addressing the effects of trauma and poverty. The authors call for a profound transformation in how we think about investing in urban communities--away from the perverse misinvestment of policing and incarceration and toward a model that invests in human and community development
December 30, 2018
A well-researched and community-centered analysis of how our society’s punitive philosophy and austerity politics have perpetuated cycles of neighborhood-level violence, poverty, and disadvantage - devastating generation after generation of residents in these neighborhoods. The authors trace the policies and paradigms that designed racial segregation, inequality, and concentrated incarceration and offer rich examples of the impact of these policies in west-side Chicagoans’ everyday lives. I appreciated their application of an invest/divest framework, through which they argue that our public safety crisis is the result of massive government misinvestments into policing, prison, and other punitive justice system infrastructure rather than into economic and human development, violence prevention, and other opportunities that promote societal health and well-being in the community areas most desperate for it. Essentially they argue that if “thick” public safety is our goal, as opposed to order maintenance and social control, public resources simply must be invested differently. I also appreciated the chapter “Limits to Reform,” which cautions readers to be wary of the compromises made in the name of mainstream reform efforts, such as making moral distinctions between violent and nonviolent offenses, the problematic use of risk assessments, and otherwise settling for the low-hanging fruit of justice reform. This is a particularly timely analysis given the widespread popularity of *modest* criminal justice reforms - such as the First Step Act and efforts to replace detention with electronic monitoring - which deserve deeper analysis and critical recognition of the ways that problematic and punitive narratives with real policy implications get perpetuated by these efforts. This is an insightful read for all, but especially interesting for those with a stake in the city of Chicago, as the authors highlight the work of many local residents, organizations, and programs committed to community and human development in the name of public safety. As a bonus, this book will point you to several other awesome sources!
November 4, 2018
It took me a serious amount of time to get through this book. It is, necessarily, a complex text, but what cost the most time was needing to pull away from the emotional reactions I had.
Thanks to the work of some amazing individuals, I've already been exposed to the facts proving mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex are harmful to our society, and the true need for prison abolition and restorative justice. But as a suburban white kid growing up in the whitest state in the US, I had little to any concrete understanding of how the criminal justice system works on a micro and macro level to deny any opportunities to impoverished and minority citizens living in over-policed areas.
This text walks through the entire cycle behind the over-policing of impoverished minority neighborhoods, explaining clearly and efficiently why rates of drug arrests and violent crime are so high, largely due to the effects of over-policing in these specific communities.
It is eye-opening, and heart-wrenching, for a reader like me, who has never experienced a sociopolitical culture that automatically sets one up to fail largely because of your skin color and postal code. I feel like reading this finally gave me enough literacy in the subject to understand, and more importantly to communicate to others, WHY we will never be able to solve social ills like interpersonal violence, drug abuse, poverty, etc by criminal legislation against individual behaviors. I feel like I can finally explain how and why urban neighborhoods of color have such high crime and violence rates to my fellow white people who point to such statistics to explain their racism. I highly recommend this book to ANYONE seeking answers behind why certain areas of the country have such high rates of crime and what reforms are needed to end the cycle.
Thanks to the work of some amazing individuals, I've already been exposed to the facts proving mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex are harmful to our society, and the true need for prison abolition and restorative justice. But as a suburban white kid growing up in the whitest state in the US, I had little to any concrete understanding of how the criminal justice system works on a micro and macro level to deny any opportunities to impoverished and minority citizens living in over-policed areas.
This text walks through the entire cycle behind the over-policing of impoverished minority neighborhoods, explaining clearly and efficiently why rates of drug arrests and violent crime are so high, largely due to the effects of over-policing in these specific communities.
It is eye-opening, and heart-wrenching, for a reader like me, who has never experienced a sociopolitical culture that automatically sets one up to fail largely because of your skin color and postal code. I feel like reading this finally gave me enough literacy in the subject to understand, and more importantly to communicate to others, WHY we will never be able to solve social ills like interpersonal violence, drug abuse, poverty, etc by criminal legislation against individual behaviors. I feel like I can finally explain how and why urban neighborhoods of color have such high crime and violence rates to my fellow white people who point to such statistics to explain their racism. I highly recommend this book to ANYONE seeking answers behind why certain areas of the country have such high rates of crime and what reforms are needed to end the cycle.
October 10, 2022
I finished my friend, Ryan's book as I landed in Chicago to run the marathon. My weekend experience in the Windy City could not have been more different than the story Ryan tells. I learned a ton from this book about what Ryan and his co-author call, "concentrated punishment" - "how the effects of mass incarceration are experienced in place like Austin (a Chicago neighborhood), where prison sentences are felt by the person behind bars but also by the neighbors, loved ones, and communities at large."
A few especially salient points from the book:
- "African Americans became the foil for many white immigrants in their efforts to assimilate." (p. 27)
- How white t-shirts worn by drug dealers pushed to open-air selling in response to law enforcement strategies were an adaptation to share risk (p. 50)
- "The rise of the high-incarceration neighborhood coincident with a shift in urban policy away from fighting poverty and instead toward punishing disadvantage associated with segregation and the loss of industrial jobs." (p. 136)
- "If black wealth continues to grow at the same rate as it did during the previous three decades, it would take 228 years to accumulate as much as white families have today." (p. 149 from http://www.ips-dc.org/wp-content/uplo...)
- "The work begins with recognizing your limits, even as you push society to change its own." (p. 169)
- "Our hearts have not evolved with our science... still we unfairly ask men and women in blue uniforms to go out every day and sweep away those who might otherwise benefit from these scientific breakthroughs." (p. 184)
A few especially salient points from the book:
- "African Americans became the foil for many white immigrants in their efforts to assimilate." (p. 27)
- How white t-shirts worn by drug dealers pushed to open-air selling in response to law enforcement strategies were an adaptation to share risk (p. 50)
- "The rise of the high-incarceration neighborhood coincident with a shift in urban policy away from fighting poverty and instead toward punishing disadvantage associated with segregation and the loss of industrial jobs." (p. 136)
- "If black wealth continues to grow at the same rate as it did during the previous three decades, it would take 228 years to accumulate as much as white families have today." (p. 149 from http://www.ips-dc.org/wp-content/uplo...)
- "The work begins with recognizing your limits, even as you push society to change its own." (p. 169)
- "Our hearts have not evolved with our science... still we unfairly ask men and women in blue uniforms to go out every day and sweep away those who might otherwise benefit from these scientific breakthroughs." (p. 184)
May 30, 2019
The book opens up by telling the story of two addicts - one black, poor, from Chicago's West Side; the other white, middle class, from the western suburbs - and posits that the very disparate life outcomes of these two men (the one whose involvement with the carceral system has left family ties and employments prospects in tatters; the other transformed into productive member of society after several failed stints in rehab) encapsulate the problems with America's racialized, two-tier justice system -- one severe, unforgiving and suffocating for the poor; the other temperate, forgiving and redemptive for the largely white muddle and upper classes. The book largely succeeds in making this point by intelligently surveying recent sociological studies on concentrated urban poverty and the epidemiology of violence. Plus, in critiquing some common idées reçues of criminal justice reformers (e.g. the emphasis placed on "non-violent drug offenders"), Lugalia-Hollon illustrates how painfully narrow our current criminal justice reform debate is, and how limited the impact of its most popular propositions would be. The author wisely comes back to his opening anecdote several times throughout the book, as well as to other interviewees, humanizing the crushing statistics breezily alluded to in summary and bleak depictions of desperately divested urban areas.
May 13, 2025
This was an incredibly approachable and interesting book about arguably the most under-resourced and disinvested communities in Chicago - Austin. It goes deep into how city, county, and state policies have worked to keep this neighborhood underinvested for decades, and how much money does flow into this neighborhood, in the form of policing and incarceration expenditure. It shows how this is representative of broader trends across the country in Black neighborhoods and how the circular logic of "crime means we need to spend money on police instead of care creates more crime which means we need to spend more more on police and less on care" just destroys neighborhoods.
It's been 7 years since this book was written, and while some progress has been made, its precious little in the face of the structural issues discussed here. Still, a valuable book to read about how neighborhoods become so disenfranchised.
It's been 7 years since this book was written, and while some progress has been made, its precious little in the face of the structural issues discussed here. Still, a valuable book to read about how neighborhoods become so disenfranchised.
July 9, 2023
This is a Chicago based book, so I am a little biased in that the streets and neighborhoods the authors cover are familiar streets. Chicago is one of the nation’s most segregated cities, and some of the neighborhoods, like Lawndale featured here, have vast disparities in all sorts of resident outcomes compared to other neighborhoods. If you look at a map showing cancer rates or a map showing shootings, you’ll see the same things. There are bad outcomes in the south and west sides and comparably better outcomes in the north and a lot of the southwest sides. This is largely racially coded as the only public investment that goes into the neighborhoods are in policing and incarceration. It’s a problem that has all sorts of policy decisions at its root and has continued through to today.
July 16, 2020
Really interesting and thought-provoking in terms of analyzing crime and punishment in the United States through the lens of "concentrated punishment". I'd never seen an analysis of the carceral state so focused on the importance of geography before. For being a relatively slim book (less than 200 pages) it really opened my eyes to things I had never considered before, like the role that rural voters based in counties where prisons are the only big employer play in maintaining the criminal justice system.
November 6, 2018
It’s good to find a book about a hot topic like mass incarceration that focuses on one main area of the country so it can really get in depth. I live in Chicago, so reading about it hit close to home for me and I learned a lot about the neighborhood of Austin and policies I had previously never been aware of. The book reads like a story and is personable while also being able to state factual information and statistics.
January 15, 2022
really liked how the authors linked the issue of mass incarceration to the broader economic structure and systemic racism, with the emphasis that individual-based ideologies do not address/solve the root of the problem. it almost felt anti-capitalistic in its approach, but fell short of that vision, which is why I went down a star. a very solid read overall!
December 3, 2025
A nice, quick read about how people in the West side of Chicago are affected by policy and racism. Shoutout to Pilsen Community Books, where I bought the book. As someone who has lived in the suburbs of Chicago, this book provides a nice way to read into the lives of those who were disenfranchised when others are not.
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about Chicago and policy, and hopefully it provides a better way to think about what Chicago currently spends in police and incarceration.
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about Chicago and policy, and hopefully it provides a better way to think about what Chicago currently spends in police and incarceration.
May 28, 2019
Mandatory read for politicians
Gives great detail into the how and why of the circular firing squad that is our low-income high crime areas. Gives solutions too but needs more detail on those.
Gives great detail into the how and why of the circular firing squad that is our low-income high crime areas. Gives solutions too but needs more detail on those.
April 29, 2020
An important book, but it took me a very long time to finish. It's not a page-turner like The New Jim Crow or Evicted (more case studies or personal stories would have helped). American systems of crime and punishment are ruining much of America.
September 7, 2023
Fascinating look into what underfunding communities and over funding police departments does to communities. The vast majority of this book is focused on the Austin area of Chicago but the lessons seem applicable for many cities.
May 31, 2020
An excellent account of how systemic racism is encoded in public policy and disproportionately affects lower-income and non-white communities by way of a case study of Chicago's west side.
May 20, 2021
This book was good and interesting...
October 30, 2018
Loved this book. I spend a lot of time each week in neighboring Garfield Park, and loved learning about the same systemic problems that affect Austin. Particularly shocking is the level of investment in these neighborhoods , if you consider law enforcement and detention. If we redirect some of that to building up the neighborhoods then it would be a great return.
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