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We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities
A groundbreaking new vision for public safety that overturns more than 200 years of fear-based discrimination, othering, and punishment
As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety? In a time when the most powerful institutions in the United States are embracing the repressive and racist systems that keep many communities struggling and in fear, we need to reimagine what safety means.
Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris lays out a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment and toward growth and support systems for our families and communities. In order to truly be safe, we are going to have to dismantle our mentality of Us vs. Them. By bridging the divides and building relationships with one another, we can dedicate ourselves to strategic, smart investments--meaning resources directed toward our stability and well-being, like healthcare and housing, education and living-wage jobs. This is where real safety begins.
We Keep Us Safe is a blueprint of how to hold people accountable while still holding them in community. The result reinstates full humanity and agency for everyone who has been dehumanized and traumatized, so they can participate fully in life, in society, and in the fabric of our democracy.
As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety? In a time when the most powerful institutions in the United States are embracing the repressive and racist systems that keep many communities struggling and in fear, we need to reimagine what safety means.
Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris lays out a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment and toward growth and support systems for our families and communities. In order to truly be safe, we are going to have to dismantle our mentality of Us vs. Them. By bridging the divides and building relationships with one another, we can dedicate ourselves to strategic, smart investments--meaning resources directed toward our stability and well-being, like healthcare and housing, education and living-wage jobs. This is where real safety begins.
We Keep Us Safe is a blueprint of how to hold people accountable while still holding them in community. The result reinstates full humanity and agency for everyone who has been dehumanized and traumatized, so they can participate fully in life, in society, and in the fabric of our democracy.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published February 4, 2020
89 people are currently reading
2100 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
July 4, 2020
Really appreciated Norris weaving stories in with historical context as well as facts and figures. I also appreciated how he expanded beyond violence and crime to include other types of safety, such as stable housing as safety, and ways that the state sabotages DIY efforts of those most affected (such as Oakland’s sabotage of Dignity and Housing Village).
Norris is not an abolitionist, a viewpoint he makes crystal clear at the start of his book (and periodically throughout). But many of the solutions and strategies he espouses would be considered (as the amazing Ruth Wilson Gilmore puts it) “non-reformist reforms” that get us closer, as a society, to a world without prisons.
If you want to read more about abolition-in-practice, I really learned a lot from these books:
The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse
Feminist Accountability: Disrupting Violence and Transforming Power
and Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair.
I learned so much from my research and reporting for my newest book Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms and hope that my co-author and I have successfully conveyed all that we learned.
Finally, this website also has useful stories and tools: https://www.creative-interventions.org/
Norris is not an abolitionist, a viewpoint he makes crystal clear at the start of his book (and periodically throughout). But many of the solutions and strategies he espouses would be considered (as the amazing Ruth Wilson Gilmore puts it) “non-reformist reforms” that get us closer, as a society, to a world without prisons.
If you want to read more about abolition-in-practice, I really learned a lot from these books:
The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse
Feminist Accountability: Disrupting Violence and Transforming Power
and Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair.
I learned so much from my research and reporting for my newest book Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms and hope that my co-author and I have successfully conveyed all that we learned.
Finally, this website also has useful stories and tools: https://www.creative-interventions.org/
January 30, 2023
[3 stars] An overview of the harm and violence of policing, prisons, and the criminal legal system that proposes how funding, energy, and emotion could be shifted toward restorative justice and community solutions. I picked up this book as part my Unitarian Universalist congregation's participation in the UUA's annual Common Read, and while my reading group has had some thought provoking discussions around fear and experiences of violence more broadly, I'm so disappointed in the quality of the actual book.
The information that Norris presents is well-researched and shares concepts from transformative justice and abolitionist organizing, but the more glaring problem is that he neither names what he's writing about as transformative justice and abolition nor credits the writers, thinkers, and practitioners in those movements with the terms and framing he passes off as his own. For me, this is especially an issue because it's presented as "groundbreaking" and is also likely an introduction to many of these concepts for many in Beacon Press' (the UUA's publishing arm) primary demographic. It's also a red flag for me that the original title, We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities, was changed for re-publication in 2021, to Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons, and Punishment yet still includes programs like NAMI's CIT training, which moves more funding to policing via mental health response training programs instead of separating mental health crisis intervention from policing altogether. I wish he had written more about the shift in Richmond, CA from funding policing to funding community support infrastructure, and I'm curious to know if Richmond residents did and still do experience the shift in the same way he wrote about it.
Not recommended because of this book's inability to give credit to the pool of mostly Black feminist writers from which it takes its ideas and for blurring the lines between restorative and transformative justice practices and approaches; as an overview / introductory book, I feel like these are irresponsible choices from both a writing and an editing standpoint. For those looking for recent books on the same or similar topics that are suitable for group discussion across a wide spectrum of knowledge and experience, I would instead suggest writing by Critical Resistance, Mariame Kaba, Andrea Ritchie, and Derecka Purnell.
Goodreads Challenge 2023: 5/52
Dates Read: 1/2/23-1/24/23
The information that Norris presents is well-researched and shares concepts from transformative justice and abolitionist organizing, but the more glaring problem is that he neither names what he's writing about as transformative justice and abolition nor credits the writers, thinkers, and practitioners in those movements with the terms and framing he passes off as his own. For me, this is especially an issue because it's presented as "groundbreaking" and is also likely an introduction to many of these concepts for many in Beacon Press' (the UUA's publishing arm) primary demographic. It's also a red flag for me that the original title, We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities, was changed for re-publication in 2021, to Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons, and Punishment yet still includes programs like NAMI's CIT training, which moves more funding to policing via mental health response training programs instead of separating mental health crisis intervention from policing altogether. I wish he had written more about the shift in Richmond, CA from funding policing to funding community support infrastructure, and I'm curious to know if Richmond residents did and still do experience the shift in the same way he wrote about it.
Not recommended because of this book's inability to give credit to the pool of mostly Black feminist writers from which it takes its ideas and for blurring the lines between restorative and transformative justice practices and approaches; as an overview / introductory book, I feel like these are irresponsible choices from both a writing and an editing standpoint. For those looking for recent books on the same or similar topics that are suitable for group discussion across a wide spectrum of knowledge and experience, I would instead suggest writing by Critical Resistance, Mariame Kaba, Andrea Ritchie, and Derecka Purnell.
Goodreads Challenge 2023: 5/52
Dates Read: 1/2/23-1/24/23
April 27, 2022
"Defund the Police" has quickly become a polarizing phrase that can mean different things to different people, even people ostensibly on the same side of the issue. I find Zach Norris' vision of community networks and social programs that decrease the need for such a large prison industrial complex pretty easy to get behind.
At the same time, as far as books go, I found it slow going, and it was hard to build up enthusiasm to pick it up again after each time I slipped in a book mark and closed the cover. It took me almost a month to get through 163 pages. Worth the effort though.
At the same time, as far as books go, I found it slow going, and it was hard to build up enthusiasm to pick it up again after each time I slipped in a book mark and closed the cover. It took me almost a month to get through 163 pages. Worth the effort though.
April 18, 2021
This book is a MUST READ for everyone!
Through his framework of fear, Norris demonstrates how we have been conditioned by what he refers to as the "Architects of Anxiety," "the fear mongers and the fear-profiters, people who manipulate our anxieties so that we buy what they want us to buy and vote the way that they want us to vote."
Norris goes on to show us how we can fight this framework, by shifting the focus from crimes to harms and by expanding the concept of "we" in lieu of "us vs. them."
Through his framework of fear, Norris demonstrates how we have been conditioned by what he refers to as the "Architects of Anxiety," "the fear mongers and the fear-profiters, people who manipulate our anxieties so that we buy what they want us to buy and vote the way that they want us to vote."
Norris goes on to show us how we can fight this framework, by shifting the focus from crimes to harms and by expanding the concept of "we" in lieu of "us vs. them."
December 26, 2021
A lot of abolitionist and antiracist literature leaves me with the question "but what can we DO?". Through a series of vignettes this book answers exactly that question.
October 29, 2020
Another book that tries to help us understand how excessively expensive our failed systems are. Mr. Norris offers feasible suggestions and concrete solutions. I think this is a must read no matter where you are on the political spectrum. I listened to the e-book, which was narrated so well that I feel I gained more than I would have if I had been racing through the book on my own.
May 7, 2021
A plainspoken, personal and thorough account of how society has shaped the contours of safety and violence throughout American history and a practical and moral case for what we can do about it now. This book has the potential to get people talking, thinking and acting with profound impact.
“Hurt people hurt people. But - equally true - healed people heal people.”
“Most violence is not just a matter of individual pathology—it is created. Poverty drives violence. Inequity drives violence. Lack of opportunity drives violence. Shame and isolation drive violence. And . . . violence drives violence.”
“The framework of fear has led to the traumatization of not just the individuals who have been targeted, dehumanized, and criminalized, but the traumatization of entire communities, unfathomable devastation that will be decades in the reckoning. Because trauma is as much a chief cause of violence as the result of violence, our current fear-based system paradoxically generates more harm than it prevents in never-ending cycles of trauma.”
“People attribute exaggerated influence to enemies to compensate for the feeling that the threats to their well-being are less specific and out of their control... This is especially true for those who have less control control over their circumstances, and to be poor in America is to have less control over your circumstances... The less agency you are able to exercise in your life, because of complex, intractable systems, the more likely you are to embrace the idea of an enemy you can blame.” ~p. 48
“There are rarely hard and fast lines between the roles of perpetrator and victim. Nearly everyone who commits violence has survived it and few have gotten support to heal. Although people’s history of victimization never excuses the harm they cause, it does implicate our society for not having addressed their pain earlier... just as it would be wrong to excuse people’s actions simply because they were previously victimized, it is also wrong to ignore someone’s victimization because they previously broke a law or caused harm.”
“Hurt people hurt people. But - equally true - healed people heal people.”
“Most violence is not just a matter of individual pathology—it is created. Poverty drives violence. Inequity drives violence. Lack of opportunity drives violence. Shame and isolation drive violence. And . . . violence drives violence.”
“The framework of fear has led to the traumatization of not just the individuals who have been targeted, dehumanized, and criminalized, but the traumatization of entire communities, unfathomable devastation that will be decades in the reckoning. Because trauma is as much a chief cause of violence as the result of violence, our current fear-based system paradoxically generates more harm than it prevents in never-ending cycles of trauma.”
“People attribute exaggerated influence to enemies to compensate for the feeling that the threats to their well-being are less specific and out of their control... This is especially true for those who have less control control over their circumstances, and to be poor in America is to have less control over your circumstances... The less agency you are able to exercise in your life, because of complex, intractable systems, the more likely you are to embrace the idea of an enemy you can blame.” ~p. 48
“There are rarely hard and fast lines between the roles of perpetrator and victim. Nearly everyone who commits violence has survived it and few have gotten support to heal. Although people’s history of victimization never excuses the harm they cause, it does implicate our society for not having addressed their pain earlier... just as it would be wrong to excuse people’s actions simply because they were previously victimized, it is also wrong to ignore someone’s victimization because they previously broke a law or caused harm.”
May 18, 2020
This is a thoughtful book that takes a look at different tried and successful approaches to how we can keep all members of communities safe. Zach Norris outlines the difficulties and problems that have thwarted our safety in various avenues of daily life, justice, mental health, prison systems, rehabilitation, housing scarcity and educational divides. He acknowledges the need for justice but asks the question how? Is this restorative? Is it Us vs. them or a community of people acknowledging that we make us better when we hold everyone in conversation and consideration. Definitely a must read for the times we are in.
April 30, 2021
Norris outlines strategies that seek to establish his vision of what safety is meant to look like and takes a deep look into the many -isms of American life and how they actively make us unsafe. I believe that Norris achieved an amazing feat by outlining several different cases in one work. However, I think the anecdotal approach that Norris took felt as though he was dipping in and out of different considerations when Norris could have focused a lot of effort on only a select few case studies.
Norris' plea is similar to a lot of what social justice warriors want and strive for. Do I believe that these solutions that he presents are possible? Potentially. Do I sympathize with all of the instances of injustice presented? Yes. However, I feel a criticism of this is that this feels like yet another work that tells us a lot of what we already know. In the small cases in which I am not aware of the idea presented or an anecdote that grasped my attention, I recognized the value of this work. I definitely think that this is a jumping off point for further reading as well.
Norris' plea is similar to a lot of what social justice warriors want and strive for. Do I believe that these solutions that he presents are possible? Potentially. Do I sympathize with all of the instances of injustice presented? Yes. However, I feel a criticism of this is that this feels like yet another work that tells us a lot of what we already know. In the small cases in which I am not aware of the idea presented or an anecdote that grasped my attention, I recognized the value of this work. I definitely think that this is a jumping off point for further reading as well.
June 2, 2020
This is the next book you should read.
November 12, 2020
We Keep Us Safe lives up to the promise of providing a blueprint for holding people accountable while still holding them in community.
First off, I really liked the design of this book. I appreciated the way Zach Norris used time-vignettes and narratives when beginning his chapters. That emphasized the humanity-of-it-all before getting into the more analytical pieces of a chapter’s argument. The ideas offered are complex but he wrote them in an accessible and attention-keeping way. The content touches on a wide range of topics that together form a comprehensive map for the path forward.
Some reviewers have mentioned that they think some of the ideas for change offered in this book aren’t obtainable enough. However, nearly every one of these ideas has been tested either in some part of the U.S. or in other nations that are similarly economically situated. Every major improvement in this nation was at first considered outlandish. The best piece of advice on activism I ever received (from an accomplished activist elder) was that when you write your list of demands you absolutely MUST include demands that will likely be considered “too much.” Not only does this make the other demands look more “reasonable” (and thus more likely to be fulfilled) it also sets a long-term vision. If we don’t set the bar high, we never even make it up the first few rungs.
I recommend this book to anyone who knows something isn’t right with our nation’s approach to harm, who wishes for a vision for the future, and who wants real solutions for getting there.
Below is a succinct summary of what you’ll find if you read this book. If for some reason you don’t want spoilers for this work of nonfiction, this is your spoilers warning.
.
.
.
In the Introduction Zach Norris defines and details the ideas of safety & security, accountability, and what he means by a Culture of Care.
The first section, The Unsafe World, outlines the state of things as they are now and makes a strong argument for why we need change. Chapter One outlines what harm is and why Zach focuses on harm, not “crime”. It also calls on readers to recognize the Architects of Anxiety that keep our current fear-based model of safety churning. Chapter Two describes The Framework of Fear and it’s four key elements.
The second section, A Vision of Safety, builds the foundation for the creation of a real safety, and sets the stage for the additional detailed solutions that come later in the book. In Chapter Three Zach contrasts punishment and accountability and then takes a deep dive into the method of Restorative Justice. In Chapter Four he shares with readers a real life example of criminal-legal change, the Richmond Model, and describes other ways we can move from the Framework of Fear to a Culture of Care.
As others have mentioned, the third section, Reimagined Realities, is arguably the most emotionally difficult part of the book. In each chapter (5-7), Zach shares the personal story of those mentioned in the title and then (as the section title suggests) reimagines how their path could have been different were we living in a culture of care. He doesn’t just point out what went wrong and how it went wrong, he weaves in concrete solutions that would make change (succinctly summarized as recommendations at the end of each of this section’s chapters). I’m not going to dissect these chapters because I think part of their power lies in the reader processing their content for themselves.
If you’re looking for real ideas for real change, you won’t be disappointed.
First off, I really liked the design of this book. I appreciated the way Zach Norris used time-vignettes and narratives when beginning his chapters. That emphasized the humanity-of-it-all before getting into the more analytical pieces of a chapter’s argument. The ideas offered are complex but he wrote them in an accessible and attention-keeping way. The content touches on a wide range of topics that together form a comprehensive map for the path forward.
Some reviewers have mentioned that they think some of the ideas for change offered in this book aren’t obtainable enough. However, nearly every one of these ideas has been tested either in some part of the U.S. or in other nations that are similarly economically situated. Every major improvement in this nation was at first considered outlandish. The best piece of advice on activism I ever received (from an accomplished activist elder) was that when you write your list of demands you absolutely MUST include demands that will likely be considered “too much.” Not only does this make the other demands look more “reasonable” (and thus more likely to be fulfilled) it also sets a long-term vision. If we don’t set the bar high, we never even make it up the first few rungs.
I recommend this book to anyone who knows something isn’t right with our nation’s approach to harm, who wishes for a vision for the future, and who wants real solutions for getting there.
Below is a succinct summary of what you’ll find if you read this book. If for some reason you don’t want spoilers for this work of nonfiction, this is your spoilers warning.
.
.
.
In the Introduction Zach Norris defines and details the ideas of safety & security, accountability, and what he means by a Culture of Care.
The first section, The Unsafe World, outlines the state of things as they are now and makes a strong argument for why we need change. Chapter One outlines what harm is and why Zach focuses on harm, not “crime”. It also calls on readers to recognize the Architects of Anxiety that keep our current fear-based model of safety churning. Chapter Two describes The Framework of Fear and it’s four key elements.
The second section, A Vision of Safety, builds the foundation for the creation of a real safety, and sets the stage for the additional detailed solutions that come later in the book. In Chapter Three Zach contrasts punishment and accountability and then takes a deep dive into the method of Restorative Justice. In Chapter Four he shares with readers a real life example of criminal-legal change, the Richmond Model, and describes other ways we can move from the Framework of Fear to a Culture of Care.
As others have mentioned, the third section, Reimagined Realities, is arguably the most emotionally difficult part of the book. In each chapter (5-7), Zach shares the personal story of those mentioned in the title and then (as the section title suggests) reimagines how their path could have been different were we living in a culture of care. He doesn’t just point out what went wrong and how it went wrong, he weaves in concrete solutions that would make change (succinctly summarized as recommendations at the end of each of this section’s chapters). I’m not going to dissect these chapters because I think part of their power lies in the reader processing their content for themselves.
If you’re looking for real ideas for real change, you won’t be disappointed.
June 19, 2020
4.5 stars.
Zach Norris is smart, kind, strategic and fierce -- and he writes well. This book is a contribution to the intellectual work, similar to Angela Davis and Michelle Alexander and Ruth Gilmore among others, that seeded re-newed ideas of abolition that were available for the movement to grab onto such that abolishing and defunding the police is actually part of a conversation broadly in the US today. We owe them all a huge debt.
The writing is grounded in strategic thinking about the way forward as well as relationship with people affected by what is going wrong (and right) in the US today. That the stories of some of those people, analysis of current reality, and policy recommendations can all be addressed in a book of less than 200 pages...
Norris goes back and forth between stories grounded deeply in the everyday experience and common sense of regular people on the one hand and using the language of the far left on the other (white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, etc.). He skillfully lays out rationales for and experience of alliances with right wing forces (and Democratic Party politicians) without ever withholding clarity about where he disagrees with the parts of their thinking/proposals he disagrees with. This seems key in allowing the reader to hold on to the vision of a humane future without being lulled to believe that temporary allies have a sufficient vision to meet the needs we've identified.
One small quibble, near the end Norris uses the word fascism in a sloppy way to signify bad, undemocratic and authoritarian. I don't think that actually helps us think strategically. The things and periods of history Norris points to are or were indeed bad, anti-democratic and authoritarian but not all such things are fascism just like not all ice cream flavors that suck are rum raisin. Many comrades he recognizes in the acknowledgement section are sloppy in the same way having been influenced by or part of various trends in neo-Maoist or neo-Stalinist theories or organizations or been mentored by the people who were.
Zach Norris is smart, kind, strategic and fierce -- and he writes well. This book is a contribution to the intellectual work, similar to Angela Davis and Michelle Alexander and Ruth Gilmore among others, that seeded re-newed ideas of abolition that were available for the movement to grab onto such that abolishing and defunding the police is actually part of a conversation broadly in the US today. We owe them all a huge debt.
The writing is grounded in strategic thinking about the way forward as well as relationship with people affected by what is going wrong (and right) in the US today. That the stories of some of those people, analysis of current reality, and policy recommendations can all be addressed in a book of less than 200 pages...
Norris goes back and forth between stories grounded deeply in the everyday experience and common sense of regular people on the one hand and using the language of the far left on the other (white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, etc.). He skillfully lays out rationales for and experience of alliances with right wing forces (and Democratic Party politicians) without ever withholding clarity about where he disagrees with the parts of their thinking/proposals he disagrees with. This seems key in allowing the reader to hold on to the vision of a humane future without being lulled to believe that temporary allies have a sufficient vision to meet the needs we've identified.
One small quibble, near the end Norris uses the word fascism in a sloppy way to signify bad, undemocratic and authoritarian. I don't think that actually helps us think strategically. The things and periods of history Norris points to are or were indeed bad, anti-democratic and authoritarian but not all such things are fascism just like not all ice cream flavors that suck are rum raisin. Many comrades he recognizes in the acknowledgement section are sloppy in the same way having been influenced by or part of various trends in neo-Maoist or neo-Stalinist theories or organizations or been mentored by the people who were.
October 2, 2020
Zac Norris is the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, CA which works with neighborhoods to create safety and security without heavy police oversight. Through this book, Norris contends that the lack of safety is due to institutions, like police, media, social service programs and the criminal justice system that seek to punish and exclude people rather than heal and empower. So after addressing the sources of harm as he sees it, he offers his alternative approaches which involve restorative justice practices, trauma-informed practices, c=empowerment a community building. The book was published in Feb 2020 and can serve an excellent resource for those seeking to defund the police and redistribute those funds to provide support services for the mentally ill, the housing insecure, substance abused, and other social-related problems.
For me, the most insightful part of the book was Chapter 5 where he tells the story of Richmond, CA which was wracked by gun violence and created the Office of Neighborhood Safety which sought to build relationships through 'change agents" who connected, befriended, and guided young folks prone to violence into more fulfilling and community affirming roles. That chapter in my view was worth the whole book!
For me, the most insightful part of the book was Chapter 5 where he tells the story of Richmond, CA which was wracked by gun violence and created the Office of Neighborhood Safety which sought to build relationships through 'change agents" who connected, befriended, and guided young folks prone to violence into more fulfilling and community affirming roles. That chapter in my view was worth the whole book!
February 14, 2021
This book offers a robust working definition of safety - one that moves us away from a framework of fear and towards a culture of care. As calls to defund the police are still being made, this book offers tested alternatives for building a world where (among many other things) harm is healed rather than punished.
November 29, 2024
A positive and caring transformation of safety and crime, focusing on minimizing harms (from capitalism, patriarchy, trauma too) over sensationalizing crime and "bad guys", moving to care from fear, and restorative justice' shift from punishment to accountability, all illustrated with personal and complicating stories.
August 12, 2025
A must read. So many people often ask, “Well if you don’t want police and prisons then how should we do things?” Read this book and you’ll understand some ways to start. The way he uses a real life example in part 2 of the book, then circles back to discuss where the system had failed, and ends with how to address that failure with policy or activism.
Want to read
May 31, 2020Recommendation from https://bookshop.org/shop/baratunde
February 7, 2022
Solid introduction to an alternative to our current criminal legal system, would very much recommend.
December 19, 2020
I don't disagree with anything here, but I think it's pretty superficial and repetitive of other scholarship in the area. The writing just didn't spark for me, and I think people who aren't already convinced wouldn't find these arguments convincing.
April 23, 2021
Agreeable but generally unenlightening rehash of what progressives/leftists already know: policing and incarceration as practiced in the US are massively abusive and wasteful constructs that very often undermine the nominal aim of achieving public safety; the problem is deeply systemic and can only be addressed by radically recalibrating societal incentives and attitudes.
Norris opens by detailing the failures of our current system and the tough-on-crime mentality, which he identifies as rooted in a "framework of fear". I did appreciate his framing of public safety as concerning all manner of intersecting "harms", many of which are systemic injustices that, however injurious, go largely unaddressed because they don't fit into the narrow framework of individual crime and punishment.
The middle section of the book sketches out a philosophy of restorative justice for harms done, where accountability and rehabilitation happen via direct engagement with the communities of those involved. I'm very much on board with the lofty ideals here but would've liked to see much more concrete discussion of implementations - this sort of approach relies on a foundation of rock-solid community ties and absolutely doesn't happen overnight.
(My favorite learning from this book came up in this section: a case study on Richmond's Office of Neighborhood Safety, which adopted a radical strategy to curb rampant gun violence by commissioning a team of formerly incarcerated "change agents", explicitly unaffiliated with criminal legal authorities, to spend time in the community and weave a holistic support system for those at greatest risk of violence. The so-called "Richmond model", now beginning to be imitated elsewhere, ended up working wonders for the city, and I'm highly interested in understanding what made it tick and how to pursue broader applications of these principles.)
To close out, Norris tells a number of personal stories from individuals and families affected, often tragically, by the criminal legal system. Applying the framework of non-criminal harms inextricably implicated in criminalized outcomes, he emphasizes that social justice - racial, economic, gender justice; health, education, housing justice - is indispensable to sanely managing the issues that, untreated, boil over as violent/traumatic crime. His policy recommendations are quite standard progressive fare, but I suppose it's valuable to have the connections to public safety clearly stated and collected in one place.
Overall: a decent survey but lacking in depth. Probably more suited to readers just starting to engage with these ideas.
Norris opens by detailing the failures of our current system and the tough-on-crime mentality, which he identifies as rooted in a "framework of fear". I did appreciate his framing of public safety as concerning all manner of intersecting "harms", many of which are systemic injustices that, however injurious, go largely unaddressed because they don't fit into the narrow framework of individual crime and punishment.
The middle section of the book sketches out a philosophy of restorative justice for harms done, where accountability and rehabilitation happen via direct engagement with the communities of those involved. I'm very much on board with the lofty ideals here but would've liked to see much more concrete discussion of implementations - this sort of approach relies on a foundation of rock-solid community ties and absolutely doesn't happen overnight.
(My favorite learning from this book came up in this section: a case study on Richmond's Office of Neighborhood Safety, which adopted a radical strategy to curb rampant gun violence by commissioning a team of formerly incarcerated "change agents", explicitly unaffiliated with criminal legal authorities, to spend time in the community and weave a holistic support system for those at greatest risk of violence. The so-called "Richmond model", now beginning to be imitated elsewhere, ended up working wonders for the city, and I'm highly interested in understanding what made it tick and how to pursue broader applications of these principles.)
To close out, Norris tells a number of personal stories from individuals and families affected, often tragically, by the criminal legal system. Applying the framework of non-criminal harms inextricably implicated in criminalized outcomes, he emphasizes that social justice - racial, economic, gender justice; health, education, housing justice - is indispensable to sanely managing the issues that, untreated, boil over as violent/traumatic crime. His policy recommendations are quite standard progressive fare, but I suppose it's valuable to have the connections to public safety clearly stated and collected in one place.
Overall: a decent survey but lacking in depth. Probably more suited to readers just starting to engage with these ideas.
March 24, 2022
Norris plays to both emotions and reason to make his case, and I believe he does so effectively. Almost every question and concern I had going into the book and that came up as I was reading he addresses at least minimally, and many were addressed in depth. I'm not sure whether I'm depressed or inspired or just numb after finishing though. The things that need to change in our society seem overwhelming.
July 10, 2022
This author does a great job highlighting how a culture of fear is rampant in our country and shares many different approaches to homelessness, “crime”, and drug abuse. He discussed a culture of care approach, and shared ways it was successful in certain areas of the country. He has the receipts. Culture of care > culture of fear.
January 21, 2023
Liberal Socialism at its finest. Point blank. Norris has all the right bells and whistles: white supremacy is a pervasive blight on human life, capitalism corrodes socioeconomic stability for the benefit of a few, misogyny/transphobia/homophobia gets people killed, etc. But beneath the veneer of a sharp analysis, Norris does little to actually question the structures at play that reinforce these systems of domination.
For example, Norris believes that police can be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and held accountable to their respective communities (Pg. 79 of my copy). But as a law school graduate, Norris should know that police have no legal obligation to protect anyone (as ruled by SCOTUS on multiple occasions) and legal constructions like qualified immunity largely protect them from any meaningful repercussions. This is not a 'lefty' spin, just law on the books. More still, modern American police descended from SLAVE CATCHERS - white supremacy is at its core but that is eschewed for a vision that police can be redeemed.
From the limited engagement with abolitionist thinkers (aside from the sparse mention of Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore) to the idealism of his recommendations to what we *should* do without laying out why we don't (hint: because of the structures he himself acknowledges), this book is an all around disappointment.
Better Recommendations:
Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin
Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell
We Do This 'Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
For example, Norris believes that police can be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and held accountable to their respective communities (Pg. 79 of my copy). But as a law school graduate, Norris should know that police have no legal obligation to protect anyone (as ruled by SCOTUS on multiple occasions) and legal constructions like qualified immunity largely protect them from any meaningful repercussions. This is not a 'lefty' spin, just law on the books. More still, modern American police descended from SLAVE CATCHERS - white supremacy is at its core but that is eschewed for a vision that police can be redeemed.
From the limited engagement with abolitionist thinkers (aside from the sparse mention of Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore) to the idealism of his recommendations to what we *should* do without laying out why we don't (hint: because of the structures he himself acknowledges), this book is an all around disappointment.
Better Recommendations:
Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin
Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell
We Do This 'Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
August 18, 2020
I remember the first time I read about decarceration; I couldn’t imagine it. But the seed had been planted. Then this year after the murder of George Floyd, “Defund the police” was added to the more familiar protest chants. The central meaning was to substitute spending on well being for spending on police and prisons. Beyond that were differences of degree from total abolition to limiting police to responding only to violent situations. Zach Norris’ book appeared at a better time than could have been planned.
The book begins the process of visualizing safety based on something other than policing and prison. In fact statistics and anecdotes convey that policing and prisons do not live up to their safety promise. The frame is shifted from crime to harm, from punishment to reparative justice, from division to community. Examples of successful programs are given.
Three chapters each begin with a longer narration of an experience with our current system that is followed by analysis of points where the person had been failed, points where change is possible. I found these to be the strongest chapters.
Getting from “here” to “there” seems impossible. However, I am reminded of the saying that all systemic changes for the better started out as “too utopian.” I will keep reading.
The book begins the process of visualizing safety based on something other than policing and prison. In fact statistics and anecdotes convey that policing and prisons do not live up to their safety promise. The frame is shifted from crime to harm, from punishment to reparative justice, from division to community. Examples of successful programs are given.
Three chapters each begin with a longer narration of an experience with our current system that is followed by analysis of points where the person had been failed, points where change is possible. I found these to be the strongest chapters.
Getting from “here” to “there” seems impossible. However, I am reminded of the saying that all systemic changes for the better started out as “too utopian.” I will keep reading.
June 7, 2020
A plainspoken, personal and thorough account of how society has shaped the contours of safety and violence throughout American history and a practical and moral case for what we can do about it now. This book has the potential to get people talking, thinking and acting with profound impact.
“Most violence is not just a matter of individual pathology—it is created. Poverty drives violence. Inequity drives violence. Lack of opportunity drives violence. Shame and isolation drive violence. And . . . violence drives violence.”
“The framework of fear has led to the traumatization of not just the individuals who have been targeted, dehumanized, and criminalized, but the traumatization of entire communities, unfathomable devastation that will be decades in the reckoning. Because trauma is as much a chief cause of violence as the result of violence, our current fear-based system paradoxically generates more harm than it prevents in never-ending cycles of trauma.”
“Most violence is not just a matter of individual pathology—it is created. Poverty drives violence. Inequity drives violence. Lack of opportunity drives violence. Shame and isolation drive violence. And . . . violence drives violence.”
“The framework of fear has led to the traumatization of not just the individuals who have been targeted, dehumanized, and criminalized, but the traumatization of entire communities, unfathomable devastation that will be decades in the reckoning. Because trauma is as much a chief cause of violence as the result of violence, our current fear-based system paradoxically generates more harm than it prevents in never-ending cycles of trauma.”
September 24, 2020
An essential work regarding moving our society toward a framework of caring and prevention, rather than fear and punishment. There is a pretty large library of assumed knowledge to make this book easier to understand, so I would recommend reading The New Jim Crow and a work on understanding systemic racism in US policy (Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, So You Want to Talk About Race, Stamped From the Beginning, and/or How to Be Antiracist) to have necessary context. Norris quotes quite a few of these works and draws from their knowledge in addition to in-depth interviews with restorative justice workers and survivors of the current system. It's a short, but still heavy read that is worth everyone's time. With preparatory reading, it is also quite digestible.
March 5, 2021
Provided some inspiring case studies and made a lot of really good points, but I had a hard time not feeling pessimistic reading this and wondering whether change will ever come. There’s no clear answer to a lot of the problems named in the book, which is no fault of the author but at times it felt like the book was just re-naming the issues & oppressions that have been constants (in various forms) throughout all of the US’ history...
November 2, 2021
Author Zach Norris presented an excellent argument for alternate options to how the USA deals with policing, punishing and caring for its citizens with complicated issues with various root causes. I highly recommend it to anyone curious if there's another, better way to treat mental illness and to ensure nobody falls through any cracks in our admittedly weak social network.
March 12, 2020
Overall, I really like how Norris framed a lot of the systemic issues in terms of fear and safety. For a newcomer to the racial equity conversation, the introduction and first chapter are a nice summary of racial equity concepts. I really liked the stories that he wove into the sections. Overall, definitely worth reading! 4 stars
March 22, 2020
Definitely an educational read! Norris is a clear yet dynamic writer and you can tell he's just getting started as a thought leader. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about restorative justice and it's real world applications on schools, prisons,neighborhoods, and our democracy as a whole.
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