Let's get free

Paul Butler was an ambitious federal prosecutor, a Harvard Law grad who traded in his corporate law salary to fight the good fight. It was those years on the front lines that convinced him that the American criminal justice system is fundamentally broken -- it's not making the streets safer, nor helping the people he'd hoped, as a prosecutor, to protect.

In Let's Get Free, Butler, now an award-winning law professor, looks at several places where ordinary citizens interact with the justice system -- as jurors, crime witnesses, and in encounters with the police -- and explores what "doing the right thing" means in a corrupt system. Butler's provocative proposals include jury nullification -- voting "not guilty" in certain non-violent cases as a form of protest, just saying "no" when the police request your permission to search, and refusing to work inside the criminal justice system. And his groundbreaking "hip-hop theory of justice" reveals an important analysis of crime and punishment found in pop culture. Chock full of great stories and cutting-edge analysis, this accessible and lively critique will change the way you think about crime and punishment in the United States. As Butler eloquently argues, when we end mass incarceration and excessive police power, everyone wins. Let's Get Free offers a powerful new vision of justice.