Professor Joe Soss is co-author of a new book, Legal Plunder: The Predatory Dimensions of Criminal Justice, published by the University of Chicago Press. 

Drawing on historical and contemporary evidence, the book explores how policing and punishment in the United States have changed over the last four decades to extract public and private revenues from America’s poorest and most vulnerable communities.

Soss and his co-author Joshua Page examine the predatory dimensions of criminal legal governance to show how practices that criminalize, police, and punish have been modified  to siphon resources from subordinated groups, subsidize governments, and generate corporate profits. The book argues we can no longer afford to overlook these issues or the efforts to dismantle them.