Book Review: Arresting citizenship: The democratic consequences of American Crime Control

• Author: David E. Barlow
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016815571201
• Published date: 01 June 2015
• Date: 01 June 2015
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

benefactors, and the gut-wrenched reader, when he is murdered during a rash and uncharacteristi-

cally ill-conceived ‘‘last, big job.’’

The reader of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace is ultimately left with the question of

‘‘why?’’—Why did Robert Peace stay so involved in his illicit activities when he had so much poten-

tial to have a successful and legitimate living? We desire to know and this desire drives the pursuit of

theoretical explanations—but can we know? Theoretically explaining criminal acts presupposes that

an explanation is possible, but when we try to apply theoretical frameworks to any particular case,

such as that of Robert Peace, those theories are always found wanting. Indeed, Robert Peace is a

juxtaposition of criminal and genius, thus engendering ambivalence in the reader and particularly

the social scientist. Upon reflection, one is left to ponder the role of criminological theory, as well

as justice policy, generally.

Hobbs’s compelling narrative provides ample material for scholars and students of criminal jus-

tice and criminology to consider. (The first author of this review used it to argue for the forbidding

multiplicity of plausible ‘‘explanations’’ for ‘‘crime’’ in a graduate criminological theory class, and

the second author has assigned it as the basis for a term paper in a course examining the intersection

of race and crime issues.) Strain, social bonds, self-control, conflict, labeling, and even rational

choice and conservative individual responsibility models of criminal behavior can all potentially see

vindication of their perspectives in Robert Peace’s story.

However, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, although engendering depressive realism in

the reader, is by design a narrative and not a sociological analysis in general or a criminological anal-

ysis in particular. Furthermore, its strength as a story is also its weakness in terms of the ‘‘lessons’’it

suggests. Surely there is a reason The Often Much Shorter, Just as Tragic, but not Particularly Nota-

ble Lives of Hundreds of Other Black Males Who Didn’t Have Robert Peace’s Extraordinary Talent

is not an actual book. Nor is there a book about the individual from East Orange who dodges crack

dealers and bullets to gain basic, but steady, low-wage employment, avoid the pitfalls of ‘‘easy

money,’’ and live a simple and peaceful, if unremarkable, life. Although both of these stories are

perhaps more common and more important to the criminal justice field as a whole, they probably

lack the marketing appeal of Robert Peace’s unusual life.

Nonetheless, Hobbs’s beautifully written and emotionally compelling account of his friend’s life

and death challenges the reader to contemplate the ultimate roles of criminological theory and pol-

icy. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace potentially reminds a field obsessed with aggregate

statistical correlations, causal explanations, and tortured by the quest for ‘‘solutions’’ to crime, that

behind every ‘‘crime’’ is an individual ‘‘criminal,’’ with a unique, often poignant and compelling,

and possibly incomprehensible, story.

Lerman, A. E., & Weaver, V. M. (2014).

Arresting citizenship: The democratic consequences of American Crime Control. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago

Press. ix, 330 pp. $27.50 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-226-13783-4

Reviewed by: David E. Barlow, Department of Criminal Justice, Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016815571201

Lerman and Weaver (2014) provide unique insight into the psychological and political impacts of

current crime control policies in the United States on those who are most affected by these policies.

The authors go beyond the current literature on racial disparities in criminal justice, which typically

238 Criminal Justice Review 40(2)