“The Price of Mercy is a searing, compassionate, and utterly necessary book. Emily Galvin Almanza pulls back the curtain on America’s criminal legal system with the clarity of a lawyer and the heart of someone who’s seen the system’s devastating consequences up close. From her own teenage arrest to her years litigating as a public defender, Almanza shows us how bail, policing, and prisons destroy lives and families, and how we can begin to alleviate the harm and create a system that actually does justice.”
—Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow
“The Price of Mercy is an astonishing and moving achievement. Flying way below the dark clouds of political rhetoric about crime-and-punishment and law-and-order in America, Emily Galvin Almanza brings us instead into the police precinct interrogation room, the holding cell in the courthouse, the jury voir dire selection process, the judge’s chambers and the packed courtroom with dozens of cases, the sequestered jury deliberation room, the filthy and forlorn prison cell and the sorrows of family visitation day.
Unflinching, refreshingly pragmatic and bracingly humane, Emily Galvin Almanza commits us to a street-level systemic understanding of what’s actually working and what’s failing in American criminal justice. Her account of our penal condition, infused with personal stories, surprising statistics and tangible reform ideas, can be a serious game-changer for America—if we’re listening.”
— Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8), Ranking Member, U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Author of #1 New York Times Bestseller Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy
“The Price of Mercy is, quite simply, the gutsiest book ever written about the gritty reality of something nobody who reads this astonishing inside-the-walls account can continue to call the criminal justice system. Its insights are brilliant, its proposals pragmatic, and its potential impact on crime and punishment profound.”
— Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
“As a public defender, what Galvin-Almanza has seen is chilling—and in The Price of Mercy, she takes readers inside the system with crystalline insight, heart, and writerly skill. She shows that crime isn't what you see on TV, judges aren't umpires, and many in America have only as much freedom as they can buy. Anyone who cares about justice should read this urgently-needed book.”
— Jane Mayer, New Yorker Magazine Staff Writer and author of Dark Money
“In a political moment in which so much of the narrative around our criminal legal system is being distorted, misrepresented, and weaponized The Price of Mercy steps in to provide a necessary corrective. It is grounded in research, based in evidence, and centers the experiences of real people entangled in the system. I learned so much from these pages and I'm so glad this book exists."
—Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed
“The Price of Mercy is a clear-eyed examination of the failures of the system, and a hopeful blueprint of how we can create something better. Though it focuses on criminal justice, it is in many ways a commentary on something much broader – American politics, public service, and the institutions that define our lives.”
—Josie Duffy Rice, journalist
“The Price of Mercy is a necessary work and an excellent choice for book clubs.”
—Library Journal, STARRED review
