Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair
A restorative-justice practitioner's case for addressing violence without relying on prison. (Listed as required NEG reading in the workbook's tournament checklist.)
A note on links: As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. Each title links to Amazon with the affiliate tag greenwoodwalk-20. This is not an exhaustive list of every source in the workbook — the book also cites many free online essays, encyclopedia entries, and reports. A few out-of-print titles link to an Amazon search rather than a single edition.
Philosophy & Theory
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Argues that mass incarceration operates as a contemporary system of racial control.
Are Prisons Obsolete?
A concise abolitionist argument questioning the prison as a social institution.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
A lawyer's account of defending the condemned, and a moving case for mercy in the justice system.
The Law
A classical-liberal essay on justice, law, and the proper limits of the state.
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
A landmark history of how modern punishment shifted from the body to surveillance and the soul.
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The Punished: New Perspectives on the History of Punishment
Essays on the history of punishment. Limited availability online — the link runs an Amazon search so you can pick the right edition.
Retributive Perspectives
The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice Among the Worst of the Worst
A retributivist's argument that the worst crimes deserve proportionate punishment.
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When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in American Politics
A conservative analysis of crime and incarceration. This citation could not be verified on Amazon — the link runs a search so you can confirm the exact title.
Body Count: Moral Poverty and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs
A 1990s conservative argument linking "moral poverty" to violent crime.
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Crime and Punishment in America
A conservative examination of crime policy. This citation could not be verified on Amazon — the link runs a search so you can confirm the exact edition.
Restorative Justice
The Little Book of Restorative Justice
The standard short introduction to restorative justice from the field's founding voice.
Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for Our Times
The foundational text reframing crime as harm to people and relationships rather than to the state.
The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice
Restorative-justice principles applied to racial harm and reconciliation.
Victim Perspectives
No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
An investigation of domestic violence and the systems that fail its victims.
The Crime Victim's Guide to Justice
A practical guide to victims' rights and how to navigate the justice process. (Workbook lists the author as Mary Achilles; the published author is Mary L. Boland.)
Incarceration & Reform
Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform
Argues that prosecutorial discretion, not drug laws, is the real driver of mass incarceration.
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms
A critique arguing that many "reforms" simply extend carceral control by other means.
A Colony in a Nation
On the two Americas of policing and justice, and how order and law come apart.
Data & Social Science
Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence
Data-driven analysis of the great crime decline and what it took to sustain it.
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison
Argues that the criminal justice system reflects and reinforces class inequality.
Historical Context
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
Pulitzer Prize-winning history of forced labor and convict leasing after emancipation.
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America
Traces how crime statistics shaped ideas of race in American cities.
Christian Perspectives
Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It's Killing Us
A Christian argument against the death penalty rooted in grace and the gospel.
Redeeming Justice: Reclaiming God's Vision for Doing Good in the World
A Christian vision for biblical justice and doing good in the world.
Logic & Argument
The Fallacy Detective
Thirty-eight lessons on recognizing bad reasoning — a homeschool favorite for sharpening the logic every debater needs.
The workbook also points students to free online essays and primary sources — from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to the Code of Hammurabi — collected in its Free Online Resources appendix.
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