The Book Prize Index

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

James Forman Jr.

"An original and consequential argument about race, crime, and the law Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics -- and their impact on people of color -- are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime. As Forman shows, the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office around the country amid a surge in crime. Many came to believe that tough measures -- such as stringent drug and gun laws and "pretext traffic stops" in poor African American neighborhoods -- were needed to secure a stable future for black communities.

Race & EthnicityRace & Ethnicity · medium confidenceRace & Ethnicity81 signalsLlm Classifier: Race & Ethnicity -> Race & EthnicityKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryKeyword Classifier: Race & Ethnicity -> Race & EthnicityCrime, Policing & ViolencePrisons & IncarcerationCourts & Trials

Award History

1 wins · 3 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Pulitzer Prize in General NonfictionMajor2018WinnerSecondary source
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionMajor2018LonglistOfficial source
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current InterestMajor2017FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (3)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    Some African Americans—especially early black mayors, judges, and police chiefs—helped escalate the war on crime by promoting tougher drug and gun laws and pretext traffic stops to secure stable futures for black communities.

    Model confidence 64%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    55 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 68%.