{"product_id":"the-deserving-1","title":"The Deserving","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMitigation is a relatively young field, filled with the scrappy, resourceful, impassioned energy like Elizabeth Vartkessian. \u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eMitigation work is a kind of portraiture. It is the essential craft of presenting the whole person to a jury. And through a jury, the world.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe need the work that is mitigation. It is mercy work.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e--Sister Helen Prejean, author of \u003ci\u003eDead Man Walking\u003c\/i\u003e, from the foreword \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor readers of \u003ci\u003eJust Mercy\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe New Jim Crow\u003c\/i\u003e, a groundbreaking new take on the American justice system from one of its unknown \"mercy workers,\" offering a powerful new vision of responsibility, punishment, and repair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElizabeth Vartkessian works with criminal defense teams as a mitigation specialist or \"mercy worker.\"\u003c\/b\u003e Her job is not to prove defendants' innocence, for they are often guilty, but rather to collect information that might make sense of their behavior. She spends hundreds of hours situating their crimes in context by investigating their histories and communities, talking to their parents, siblings, teachers, and neighbors. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis context changes everything; it rehumanizes. \u003c\/b\u003eVartkessian has spent decades fighting for juries to see it. Here she offers both a window into the groundbreaking work that is mitigation and a moving account of the individuals whose lives she has defended. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eShe also lays out a possible future.\u003c\/b\u003e Vartkessian's experience shows clearly that violence is an expression of compounded trauma. In case after case, she turns up inflection points where support--adequate housing or childcare, the proper diagnosis or treatment--would have redirected a defendant's path\u003ci\u003e away\u003c\/i\u003e from that violence. What if the values of mitigation--curiosity, context, and mercy--became the values of our criminal justice system? We might stop crime before it happens. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn an era of dangerous rollbacks and record-high executions, \u003ci\u003eThe Deserving \u003c\/i\u003eis an inspiring argument for true rehabilitation replacing retribution.\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48833457258701,"sku":"9798260202012","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0557\/1529\/9533\/files\/imageloader_4df9e7b5-ad23-4f0b-9b33-564ef6188c3b.jpg?v=1790873082","url":"https:\/\/booksatmidnight.com\/products\/the-deserving-1","provider":"Books At Midnight","version":"1.0","type":"link"}