Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
On the Run
- Fugitive Life in an American City
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £19.00
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
A riveting, groundbreaking account of how the war on crime has torn apart inner-city communities. Forty years in, the tough-on-crime turn in American politics has spurred a prison boom of historic proportions that disproportionately affects Black communities. It has also torn at the lives of those on the outside. As arrest quotas and high-tech surveillance criminalize entire blocks, a climate of fear and suspicion pervades daily life, not only for young men entangled in the legal system but for their family members and working neighbors. Alice Goffman spent six years in one Philadelphia neighborhood, documenting the routine stops, searches, raids, and beatings that young men navigate as they come of age. In the course of her research, she became roommates with Mike and Chuck, two friends trying to make ends meet between low-wage jobs and the drug trade. Like many in the neighborhood, Mike and Chuck were caught up in a cycle of court cases, probation sentences, and low-level warrants, with no clear way out. We observe their girlfriends and mothers enduring raids and interrogations, "clean" residents struggling to go to school and work every day as the cops chase down neighbors in the streets, and others eking out livings by providing clean urine, fake documents, and off-the-books medical care. This fugitive world is the hidden counterpoint to mass incarceration, the grim underside of our nation's social experiment in punishing Black men and their families. While recognizing the drug trade's damage, On the Run reveals a justice system gone awry: It is an exemplary work of scholarship highlighting the failures of the war on crime and a compassionate chronicle of the families caught in the midst of it.
Critic reviews
What listeners say about On the Run
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 15-09-22
On The Run
I listened to this book as one of two we were asked to read over the summer, before the start of our Sociology / Criminology BA Hons degree course begins.
I’m so glad that I listened to rather than read it, as the narrator was so good, she made you feel as though you were there.
A truly fascinating book. I can fully understand why it won awards.
Utterly absorbing, educational and heartbreaking all at the same time.
I totally get why the university wanted us to read this book.
Hopefully we will have much discussion about it.
It is certainly one that will stay with me for a long time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Slater8r
- 30-03-17
Amazing
Having just finished Ghettoside, I bought this book and found it equally insightful and moving. An amazing piece of work.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 23-09-15
Amazing book, a real eye-opener
Do you think you even suspect what is going on in the US? I didn't. This book made me angry, made me cry, and made me feel ashamed of believing that finally Americans and the American government were really coming to terms with their racist history. I assume there must be similar books about other ethnic groups, Latinos, Asian, etc but I haven't gotten there yet. This really shows how the judicial system, the policing state and cultural ignorance can do to less favoured groups.
I'm ashamed! And I don't even live there!
A strong reading, I really recommend it, and hope you have the mindset to understand and accept the message it delivers.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!