Let's Get Free is the first book by Paul Butler, a George Washington University law professor and former prosecutor who has since made it his professional mission to try and reform what he came to realize was a broken system -- one too broken to be fixed from the inside.

The book grew out of a well-received law review article Professor Butler wrote in 2004, Much Respect: Toward a Hip-Hop Theory of Punishment, 56 Stanford Law Review 983. It wouldn't be quite right to say that this book as an "expansion" of the arguments of the article -- while there is a chapter of the book that gives a condensed version of the article's attempt to synthesize philosophical and hip-hop values regarding punishment and reentry, the book as a whole makes a more direct appeal for a criminal justice system less focused on mass incarceration, and more focused on actually keeping people safe from harm.

The book's strongest elements, by far, are when Butler talks about his own experiences as a prosecutor and how -- well-meaning as he was -- his position within the system inevitably caused him to take actions which were fundamentally incompatible with securing either justice or security. Butler writes these sections vividly, and they demonstrate well that Butler is far from some random hippie with a peace-and-flowers approach to dealing with crime. He was a believer in the role prosecutors play in America, and only slowly came upon the realization that his day-to-day activities as a prosecutor not only were not making America safer, but probably couldn't be reformed to do so even if he wanted to. So he left.

The portions of the book where he talks about specific reform provisions (jury nullification, decriminalization of drug possession) drag a bit, not because they're poorly argued but because they've been made before. There is less of an opportunity for story-telling here and more just a rat-a-tat-tat of facts, which can't really sustain a strong narrative flow.

But overall, Let's Get Free is a very solid read, and dare I say an important one -- not just because of the arguments he makes but because of where he comes from making them. Again, Butler is not some airy-headed academic. He's someone with considerable experience in the trenches of criminal law, and someone who makes clear he has precisely zero qualms about putting bad people behind bars. He just wants to make sure they're actually bad people, and that when they do go away the communities they leave behind are left stronger and safer as a result. ( )

Butler, a former prosecutor, writes eloquently about why he stopped being a prosecutor, a role in which he often prosecuted other black men and served, he feels, to legitimate the system that incarcerates Americans—and especially black men—at appalling and counterproductive rates. He covers jury nullification, drug crimes, “snitching,” and other topics, with discussion at the end about what hip-hop has to teach the law about reintegration and recognition of the humanity of offenders. Recommended. ( )