Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice Review

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As a former student of Professor Paul Butler, I was not surprised to find his book refreshing in its candor, raw in its emotion, and revolutionary in its outlook. At bottom, Professor Butler's analysis is grounded in the radical notion that the government should respect people's right to be secure in their persons and property, a right formerly enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Even more fundamentally, he argues that we should re-embrace freedom in this country in ways that range from not incarcerating nonviolent offenders to decriminalizing drugs. Our prisons, he points out, have made our lives more dangerous by serving to indoctrinate nonviolent offenders in the ways of violent crime. Not only are we squandering lives that might otherwise be productive, but we are also creating a contempt for law not seen since Prohibition and extending police power in a manner not consistent with a free society.
Ironically, Butler points out that prosecutorial bullying coupled with the indiscriminate use of paid informants ("snitches") has radically undermined the rule of law. Indiscriminate prosecution leads to a fatalistic attitude in some communities that come to regard prosecution more as an inevitable misfortune than an avoidable sanction. Paid informants not only undermine community trust and generate false information, but they also allow some of the worst offenders to carry on a life of crime in the knowledge that the police will protect and excuse their paid informers.
As the book's title suggests, Butler derives a series of principles for approaching the problems of criminal justice that are derived from hip hop culture. No disrespect, but I am about as familiar with hip hop as I am with Russian folk dancing, which is to say, not very. Yet given the immediacy of a genre like hip hop on today's streets and among today's youth, it is all the more necessary to read books like Butler's that serve as a bridge to new ideas. Butler's ideas about selective noncooperation with the police may raise an eyebrow in some, but mostly they constitute standard advice for anyone on the wrong end of an inquiry by law enforcement: do not consent to a search, ask for a lawyer, say nothing more until you have one. Even Butler's signature advocacy of jury nullification in cases of non-violent drug offenses is hardly a notion that would shock James Madison.
Later in the book, Butler raises questions about the possible uses of technology in providing alternatives to mass incarceration. However, he does not attempt to answer them, much less address the broad implications of placing intrusive monitoring devices in the hands of the bullying police and prosecutors he so eloquently decries elsewhere. Such a discussion deserves at least a book of its own, preferably one that examines the commoditization of information technology as a counterweight to Big Brother.
Butler concludes the book with a series of suggestions for citizen action with which anyone who believes we can shape our culture by improving our environment should find themselves in immediate sympathy. While in some ways a pastiche of personal memoir, social analysis, legal primer, and citizen handbook, this book is a compelling read and a call to action for anyone who has ever had a moment's concern about crime or racial justice in America.

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"Paul Butler utilizes his years as a prosecutor and law teacher to dramatically describe this country's war on crime as one encouraging what it seeks to eliminate, corrupting those commissioned to enforce its laws and, in the process, ruining more lives than it protects. Butler conveys this tragedy with a wry humor and through a careful review of studies, experience, and insight." --Derrick Bell, author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well and visiting professor at NYU Law School"A provocative and intelligent analysis of U.S. justice. Butler has a fresh and thought-provoking perspective on issues like the war on drugs, snitches, and whether locking so many people up really makes Americans safer. Butler's compelling writing makes Let's Get Free a great read, and his insightful analysis has the potential to make the United States a more just society." --Anthony D. Romero, executive director, American Civil Liberties Union
"Let's Get Free is a tour de force. This book is provocative and informative and creates a cross-generational dialogue that will enrich all those who read it. It helps us understand the complexity of crime and the need to moderate punishment. This is a good read and a must read."--Charles J, Ogletree Jr., author of When Law Fails, professor of law at Harvard and the executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice
Paul Butler was an ambitious federal prosecutor, a Harvard Law grad who traded in his corporate law salary to fight the good fight. It was those years on the front lines that convinced him that the American criminal justice system is fundamentally broken--it's not making the streets safer, nor helping the people he'd hoped, as a prosecutor, to protect.
In Let's Get Free, Butler, now an award-winning law professor, looks at several places where ordinary citizens interact with the justice system--as jurors, crime witnesses, and in encounters with the police--and explores what "doing the right thing" means in a corrupt system.
Butler's provocative proposals include jury nullification--voting "not guilty" in certain non-violent cases as a form of protest, just saying "no" when the police request your permission to search, and refusing to work inside the criminal justice system. And his groundbreaking "hip-hop theory of justice" reveals an important analysis of crime and punishment found in pop culture.
Chock full of great stories and cutting-edge analysis, this accessible and lively critique will change the way you think about crime and punishment in the United States. As Butler eloquently argues, when we end mass incarceration and excessive police power, everyone wins. Let's Get Free offers a powerful new vision of justice.

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