Reddit reviews Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair

Thanks so much!

As for what to read, it really depends on what you're interested in but I always recommend the classics when it comes to anything to do with the left first.

However, if you'd like something more modern and lighter here are some of my recent favorites:

• Why Marx Was Right - Terry Eagleton is a fantastic author and this book has sold more than one friend of mine on the concept of Marxism. A great resource to learn more about the socialist left and hear the other side of the story if you've been sold the mainstream narrative on Marx.
  
  
• A Cure for Capitalism - An elegant roadmap for ethically dismantling capitalism by the most prominant Marxist economist alive today, Richard D. Wolff. Very utility-based and pretty ideologically pure to Marx while still taking into account modern economic circumstances.
  
  
• No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy - this one is a great take-down of how modern NGO organizations (especially the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) are the premium outlet for soft imperialism for the US.
  
  
• Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair - added this because it was a very impactful, recent read for me. A lot of left-of-republican people support some kind of prison reform but we usually view it through the lens of helping "non-violent offenders". This book digs into that distinction and how we, as a society, can't seriously try to broach meaningful prison reform before we confront the notion of helping those who have done violent things in their past.
  
  
• [Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women] (https://www.amazon.com/Backlash-Undeclared-Against-American-Women/dp/0307345424/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550926471&sr=1-4&keywords=backlash) - probably my favorite book on modern feminism and why it is, in fact, not obsolete and how saying/believing as much is key to the ideology behind the attacks from the patriarchal ruling class. Can't recommend it enough if you're on the fence about feminism.
  
  
• How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic - Written in the 70's by a couple of Marxists during the communist purge in Chile, this book does a fantastic job of unwrapping how ideology baked into pop culture can very effectively influence the masses. Though I can only recommend this one if you're already hard sold on Socialism because you might not even agree with some of the core premises if you're on the fence and will likely get little out of it.
  
  
• Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? - Mark Fisher's seminal work deconstructing how capitalism infects everything in modern life. He killed himself a few years after publishing it. My most recommended book, probably.

This is a great question that I've had to type my answer to multiple times because my computer is a dynsfunctional catastrophe. I'm generally opposed to punitivity (what I would describe as justice via inflicting pain on someone who's caused pain) though that can easily be mistaken with dis-incentivism, using punishment to disincentivize causing pain which is something I'm not opposed to though I may often doubt its efficacy. The restricted scenario in which I think there's a mild legitimate role for punitivity is the knowledge that sometimes crime victims find some solace in it, though I tend to think this isn't the greatest justification, but beats nothing. In general, I think Danielle Sered makes a fantastic case in her book Until We Reckon for a non-carceral response to violent crime, wherein she convincingly fights the notion that imprisoning people is the most healing way to deal with harm - actually, her organization finds far higher rates of victim satisfaction with methods that are predicated around open exchange from and behavioral modifications by crime perpetrators. In short, I don't think prison is a smart way to deal with criminal harm, I think it's a method primarily predicated on devastating those convicted of hurting others, and one that can disincetivise the accused from acknowledging harm they caused if they are, in fact, guilty. I don't think it's always a bad option, but I think it's a wildly over-used one.