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Check for Availabilityout of stock. Click on the button below to search for this title in other formats.  This title in other formats:Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouseby Steve Bogira
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Steve Bogira's riveting book takes us into the heart of America's criminal justice system. Courtroom 302 is the story of one year in one courtroom in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country.
We see the system through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, the spectators' gallery. When the judge and his staff go to the scene of the crime during a burglary trial, we go with them on the sheriff's bus. We witness from behind the scenes the highest-profile case of the year: three young white men, one of them the son of a reputed mobster, charged with the racially motivated beating of a thirteen-year-old black boy. And we follow the cases that are the daily grind of the court, like that of the middle-aged man whose crack addiction brings him repeatedly back before the judge. Bogira shows us how the war on drugs is choking the system, and how in most instances justice is dispensed — as, under the circumstances, it must be — rapidly and mindlessly. The stories that unfold in the courtroom are often tragic, but they no longer seem so to the people who work there. Says a deputy in 302: "You hear this stuff every day, and you're like, 'Let's go, let's go, let's get this over with and move on to the next thing.'" Steve Bogira is, as Robert Caro says, "a masterful reporter." His special gift is his understanding of people — and his ability to make us see and understand them. Fast-paced, gripping, and bursting with character and incident, Courtroom 302 is a unique illumination of our criminal court system that raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice. Review:"Chicago-based journalist Bogira's first book is an outstanding journey inside the American criminal justice system that nicely complements last year's Blue Blood, Edward Conlon's inside look at the life of a big-city cop. Like that instant classic, this book — centered on the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, 'the biggest and busiest felony courthouse in the nation' — punctures the popular myths engendered by TV shows like Law and Order to provide a balanced view of the realities of the day-to-day, assembly-line grind that marks so much of the process from arrest to final disposition. The author's ability to gain the trust of so many different participants in the grim drama — judges, public defenders, prosecutors, court officers, prison guards and many defendants — is remarkable, and he often comes close to presenting a more complete picture of the truth of a particular crime than emerge in court in the or in the few cases that actually go to trial. Despite this access, Bogira does not gild the people he describes; even Judge Daniel Locallo, the book's central figure — whose courtroom witnesses racial violence, pathetic thievery, the abused and the mentally incompetent, and who, on balance emerges positively — is portrayed warts and all. The brilliance of Bogira's insights will lead many to hope that he will follow this debut with proposals to cure the many ills he has diagnosed. Agent, David Black." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"Addictive portrait of an American courtroom....Modern-day muckraking at its best." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) Review:"Drawing on interviews and his own observations, Bogira offers a keen perspective on a single courtroom and the broader social implications that should concern us all. Readers interested in social issues and the criminal justice system will be engrossed." Booklist Review:"[B]y focusing on something small — the cases coming before one judge, in a single courtroom — [Bogira] gets a handle on something large and hard to make sense of: the American way of criminal justice." New York Times Book Review Review:"[P]owerful and moving....Bogira's genius is to remind us that great reporters don't need to discover new worlds to tell compelling stories; great reporters can make any story compelling." Los Angeles Times Review:"In this important and illuminating work, Steve Bogira shines a blazing new light on America?s criminal justice system. This book is filled with one revelatory insight after another about how that system really works. And in his stories about the people — from the judge and the lawyers to the defendants — whose lives come together in a single American courtroom, in a single year, Mr. Bogira shows that he is a masterful reporter not only of our country's criminal justice system but also of human beings caught up in its gears." Robert A. Caro, author of Master of the Senate Review:"Courtroom 302 is a wonderfully vivid portrait of a criminal courtroom in the nation?s busiest courthouse, and of the cops and robbers, lawyers, judges, and assorted creatures of the law who arrive there. It makes informative and often moving reading." Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent and One L Review:"Gripping....Bogira captures the unspoken realities of the criminal justice system....Triumphant in its detail." The Washington Post Review:"This fascinating book teems with individual human dramas, but in attempting to capture the sheer quantity, Bogira never zeroes in on a single case to hook the reader emotionally. (Grade: B)" Entertainment Weekly Review:"It is much like David Simon's book Homicide...in that it is particularly revealing of the mindset of the players in the system....Given rare access, Bogira has made the most of it." Chicago Tribune Review:"[A]n immensely important book that exposes how American's criminal justice system really works.... Review:"In short, if you're thinking of going to law school and getting into criminal law, read this book. If you want to be depressed about the sheer enormity of big-city 'justice,' read this book. Unfortunately, it's hard to enthusiastically recommend it to anyone else." Rocky Mountain News Review:"[D]azzling yet disturbing.... Synopsis:Fast-paced and bursting with character and incident, this is a singularly illuminating exploration of America's criminal justice system from the inside out. About the AuthorSteve Bogira graduated from Northwestern University and has been a prize-winning writer for the Chicago Reader since 1981. He is a former Alicia Patterson Fellow. He lives with his wife in Evanston, Illinois. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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