Crime & Criminals

Address To The Prisoners In The Cook County Jail & Other Writings On Crime & Punishment

by Clarence Darrow

with contributions by Leon M. Despres, and Carol Heise

Publication date: January 2000
Paperback: $8.00

Purchase from AK Press

Darrow's Crime & Criminals, originally published by Charles H. Kerr in 1902, is not only one of the greatest works by the greatest attorney in US history, it is also a little masterpiece in the literature of social criticism and the struggle for freedom. In a few pages radiant with the forceful eloquence and dry humor for which he was so justly renowned, Darrow offers the man in the street—or more precisely in this case, in jail—a crash course in the theory and practice of law and criminology. He discusses what crime is, what causes it, why more people go to jail in winter than in summer, why the real criminals almost never go to prison, why punishment doesn't work, and—in the end—why the US criminal justice system is in fact a system of injustice, a colossal and barbaric failure. This new edition includes a remarkable essay "Darrow's Crime And Criminals A Century Later," by Leon M. Despres. Opening with valuable biographical and historical background regarding Darrow's views on crime and criminals, Despres also discusses the results of a survey made in 1996, in which a number of prisoners at Cook County Jail were invited to comment on Darrow's 1902 talk. This edition also features excerpts from several other writings by Darrow on law, crime, and punishment. An important afterword by Carol Heises, an attorney and activist involved with prisoners on Cook County Jail's Death Row, focuses on Darrow's views on capital punishment. Plus, a foreword from Penelope Rosemont.