With all the crime and true crime books out there about grisly murdered and high-stakes heists, it’s a nice change of pace occasionally to read about what comes after. Just because someone’s in handcuffs doesn’t mean the story is over. The accused enters the justice system, where lawyers do battle on their behalf and a complex system of rules governs how they can defend themselves. In the event that they’re found guilty, there’s a whole new world waiting for them behind bars. Here are thirteen books about the justice system that show that side of the story.
Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman
Before Orange Is The New Black was a TV show, it was a memoir about the author’s year spent in a women’s prison. She’d built a life for herself on shaky foundations, and despite all the outward trappings of having it together, she couldn’t outrun her past as a reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase full of drug money. It caught up to her, and she was sentenced to fifteen months behind bars. It’s a rare insight into the world of a women’s prison, with its cast of characters from all walks of life, its arbitrary rules, and its amplified heartbreaks and triumphs.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Roy and Celestial are a young black couple, newlyweds, and they’ve “done everything right”, but their lives are still torn apart when Roy is accused of sexually assaulting a woman. An American Marriage isn’t a did-he-or-didn’t-he story, but a case of mistaken identity, with the weight of hundreds of years of systemic racism behind it. A black man was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he paid the price: convicted and sentenced to twelve years in prison. As much as this novel addresses very timely issues with the justice system, it also looks at what it takes to make or break a marriage, and the sliding doors moments that affect all our lives. Read my full review of An American Marriage here.
This House Of Grief by Helen Garner
On Father’s Day 2005, Australians were rocked by the news that aggrieved father Robert Farquharson had driven a car containing his three young sons into a dam, and the boys had drowned. We were collectively glued to our televisions as the court case played out, with the witnesses and family members forced to re-live the tragedy again and again. Helen Garner attended court every day, and in This House Of Grief, she examines not only the crime itself, but the “exacting procedure and brutal spectacle of Australia’s criminal justice system”. Read my full review of This House Of Grief here.
Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi
Not only does Helter Skelter cover one of the most talked-about crimes of the 20th century (the murders of seven wealthy Californians at the hands of members of the cult called The Family, under the direction of Charles Manson), it’s the definitive insider account, having been written by the lead prosecutor in the case against the perpetrators. It’s gripping, it’s scandalous, it’s horrifying, and Bugliosi’s role gives it a ring of authenticity that you don’t get with an outsider’s perspective on the criminal justice system. Read my full review of Helter Skelter here.
Whiteley On Trial by Gabriella Coslovich
Whiteley On Trial covers one of the most sensational cases of alleged art fraud in Australia’s criminal history. Two men stood accused of creating forgeries of the work of Brett Whiteley, one of the country’s most revered artists who died in 1992. A jury found the two men guilty – only for an appeals court to later acquit them entirely. The paintings in question were returned to their rightful owners, but are they forgeries, or genuine articles? That’s the $4.5 million question, one that the justice system struggles to definitively answer, and it is examined from every angle in this searching and penetrating non-fiction book.
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
In 2016, the name Brock Turner made headlines around the world, but in Know My Name, his victim Chanel Miller reclaims her name, her story, and the years lost to her silent battle. Turner’s assault is only the beginning. In gut-wrenching detail, Miller describes the ways in which she was repeatedly violated over the following years: the investigation, the hearing, the trial, the sentencing, the aftermath. Institutions seem to fail her at every turn. And, of course, Miller does remind us at intervals (though she shouldn’t have to) that her experience with the justice system isn’t unusual. One in five women have a version of this story that they could tell. Read my full review of Know My Name here.
The Lasting Harm by Lucia Osborne-Crowley
You’d be forgiven for thinking you know the story of Jeffrey Epstein. It was covered extensively in the media: the underage girls, the private jets, the apparent suicide in custody. You might even know the name of Ghislaine Maxwell, his partner in crime, who conspired with him to traffic young women for sexual abuse. But you probably don’t know the stories of their victims, the irrevocable damage they did to vulnerable young women, and the personal cost of bringing them to justice. That’s what Lucia Osborne-Crowley uncovers in The Lasting Harm, her account of Maxwell’s trial. Read my full review of The Lasting Harm here.
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
In John Grisham’s most iconic work of non-fiction, The Innocent Man, he uncovers the failures of the justice system that led to the arrest and conviction of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz. The rape and murder of twenty-one-year-old cocktail waitress Debra Sue Carter remained unsolved for several years, until police – for reasons that were never made clear – zeroed in on Williamson and Fritz. In the absence of any physical evidence, the cops relied on junk science and jailhouse snitches to secure the conviction. Fritz got life, Williamson ended up on death row. This book will horrify anyone who parrots the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ line.
Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee
The title of Bri Lee’s memoir, Eggshell Skull, is taken from an old legal doctrine. It’s the principle that a defendant cannot use a victim’s unknown weakness as a defence in a criminal trial. If you punch a guy, you can’t use the fact that you had no way of knowing his skull was made of eggshell as an excuse for killing him. The phrase takes on new meaning over the course of Lee’s story, as the man who abused her has to reckon with her unknown strength. Read my full review of Eggshell Skull here.
The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper
In 2004, Palm Island man Cameron Doomadgee was arrested for swearing at a police officer. Forty minutes later, he was dead in the jailhouse. This story should be a shocking one-off accident, but it’s a sadly common progression of events for First Nations people interacting with Australia’s justice system. In The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper spends three years trying to untangle the struggle for power, revenge, and justice on Palm Island. She was invited to tell this story by the lawyer who represented Doomadgee’s family, and went on to win a slew of awards for this vital work.
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
The Children Act is named for a UK Act of Parliament (Children Act 1989), which established a legal framework for the protection and welfare of children. In McEwan’s story, a High Court judge is called to rule on the case of a 17-year-old boy who is refusing life-saving medical treatment on religious grounds. It’s a thorny ethical dilemma, the kind that courts are called upon to decide all the time, and this story reveals how the ‘impartial’ justice system is comprised of humans with their own foils and foibles in making decisions for the lives and wellbeing of others. Read my full review of The Children Act here.
The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
The Executioner’s Song is “a trip down the wrong side of the tracks”, for which Mailer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Its subject, Gary Gilmore, robbed two men and murdered them in cold blood in 1976. When he was convicted for his crimes, he requested the death penalty. In a bizarre turn, he winds up fighting for the right to die, with the justice system going to great lengths to keep him alive. With authority and compassion, Mailer – a man infamously losing the fight against his own demons – tells Gilmore’s story, and the stories of those drawn into his web of lies and loneliness.
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
In The Mars Room, a “spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America”, Rachel Kushner tells the story of a woman serving two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility. Outside, the world continues turning without her, taking her young son further and further away. Inside is her new reality: women doing anything they can to survive, guards wielding power apparently just to prove that they can, and all the absurdities of institutional living.
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