Böcker av Russell Marks

Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated people on the planet. Indigenous men are fifteen times more likely to be locked up than their non-Indigenous counterparts; Indigenous women are twenty-one times more likely.Featuring vivid case studies and drawing on a deep sense of history, Black Lives, White Law explores Australia's extraordinary record of locking up First Nations people. It examines Australia's system of criminal justice - the web of laws and courts and police and prisons - and how that system interacts with First Nations people and communities. How is it that so many are locked up? Why have imprisonment rates increased in recent years? Is this situation fair? Almost everyone agrees that it's not. And yet it keeps getting worse.In this groundbreaking book, Russell Marks investigates Australia's incarceration epidemic. What would happen if the institutions of Australian justice received the same scrutiny to which they routinely subject Indigenous Australians?

Presenting the one and only Mr Paul Keating - at his straight - shooting, scumbag - calling, merciless best. Paul lets rip - on John Howard: ''The little desiccated coconut is under pressure and he is attacking anything he can get his hands on.'' On Peter Costello: ''The thing about poor old Costello is he is all tip and no iceberg.'' On John Hewson: ''[His performance] is like being flogged with a warm lettuce.'' On Andrew Peacock: ''...what we have here is an intellectual rust bucket.'' On Wilson Tuckey: ''...you stupid foul - mouthed grub.'' On Tony Abbott: ''If Tony Abbott ends up the prime minister of Australia, you've got to say, God help us.'' And that's just a taste.

If the goal of our justice system is to reduce crime and create a safer society, then we must do better. According to conventional wisdom, severely punishing offenders reduces the likelihood that they'll offend again. Why, then, do so many who go to prison continue to commit crimes after their release? What do we actually know about offenders and the reasons they break the law? In Crime & Punishment, Russell Marks argues that the lives of most criminal offenders - and indeed of many victims of crime - are marked by often staggering disadvantage. For many offenders, prison only increases their chances of committing further crimes. And despite what some media outlets and politicians want us to believe, harsher sentences do not help most victims to heal. Drawing on his experience as a lawyer, Marks eloquently makes the case for restorative justice and community correction, whereby offenders are obliged to engage with victims and make amends. Crime & Punishment is a provocative call for change to a justice system in desperate need of renewal.