Book Review: Exonerated: A History of the Innocence Movement

• Author: David M. Siegel
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567719826647
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews
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Despite these critiques, overall, this a valuable book that adds to the existing knowledge based on
drug courts. Perhaps the most obvious strength of the book is that readers, regardless of their
previous knowledge on the topic, will develop an in-depth understanding on the role of drug courts
in the criminal justice system. There are many goals that readers can accomplish, such as learning
how to evaluate an existing drug court, how to develop a new drug court consistent with best practice
standards, and, on a personal level, the importance of training staff on implicit bias to assure all races
and ethnicities have an equal opportunity to benefit from drug courts. Since 1989, meta-analyses and
other rigorous research methods have demonstrated drug courts effectiveness at reducing criminal
recidivism rates for individuals who have substance use disorders, and readers may contemplate the
next steps for drug courts. Therefore, it is fitting that the book ends with a chapter on the future of
drug courts. In the final chapter, Faye S. Taxman, George Mason University, Criminology, Law and
Society Department, and colleagues explore how drug courts can be used to address the opioid
epidemic in the United States and offer the creative idea of training legal professionals on the use
of evidence-based therapies and techniques, such as motivational interviewing and cognitive
behavioral therapy.
Norris, R. J. (2017).
Exonerated: A History of the Innocence Movement. New York: NYU Press. 288 pp. $35, ISBN 978-1-4798-8627-2.
Reviewed by: David M. Siegel, New England Law Boston, Boston, MA, USA
DOI: 10.1177/1057567719826647
How does a national movement lacking a single overarching goal arise in 20 years when it directly
benefits comparatively few people? How wrongful convictions became not just hypothetical pos-
sibilities but demonstrable failures, with identifiable sources of error, causes of risk, and an advo-
cacy network for change, is the story of Robert J. Norris’s Exonerated: A History of the Innocence
Movement. The degree to which there is one “prize” for the movement is his ultimate, and largely
unanswered, question.
This is the first book length treatment of the legal and policy...