Ghettoside

Leovy argues that a main factor in black on black violence in the United States, and the overwhelming number of black male victims, is a lack of policing, investigations, and convictions in the state justice systems in response to the extreme ratio of murders. She points out that areas that cannot rely on state justice often turn to retributive justice in the form of vigilante and gang action, becoming a vicious cycle. Ghettoside focuses on a few cases that were pursued with appropriate viger: the death of a LAPD detective's son mainly and a few other deaths, tracking a couple of south central homicide detectives through the investigations and court cases. Leovy, an investigative journalist, spent years imbedded in group, and is able to bring each personality to life in her descriptions.

Not “true crime” in the conventional sense, though it does follow one specific murder case through investigation and trial. However, the victim of that murder is a young black man, as are his killers, which isn't usually the case in most true crime stories (or at least not the ones that get the most attention). Leovy also takes a wider perspective, focusing on the steady drumbeat of unsolved murders happening while the main case is still pending. One of the things you hear a lot about in criminal justice is overpolicing of poor and minority communities (which is absolutely a problem), but this book sheds light on how those communities are, at the same time, tragically under-policed when it comes to the most serious crimes. People are arrested for minor drug charges or traffic violations, while others can literally get away with murder. It's a disservice on both sides of the equation, and this book should spark conversations about what we're really doing with police resources and whose lives are ending unvalued.

It's weird to know that something you read in February will be the best thing you read all year.

The book focuses on one Bryant Tenelle, a young 18 year old boy gunned down mere blocks from his home. It serves as a microcosm of the larger issue of murder in this contentious neighbourhood. After covering homicide and being embedded with the 77th Street precinct in South Central Los Angeles for over a decade Jill Leovy has a unique insight into this problem.

She argues it's the absence of law that is the primary cause of the high homicide rate in predominantly black neighbourhoods. As she puts it “where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death - homicide becomes endemic.”

This absence leads to criminals being emboldened, bystanders living in fear and a cycle of violence where violent acts may be the only way to settle a dispute or exact revenge. Pair that with the crackdown on minor crimes fuelled by the “Broken Windows” theory and you have growing resentment as citizens feel that police are looking for control, not justice.

It's an incredibly readable book and Leovy is an evocative writer.

The central theme of this book needs to be shouted from the rooftops: If murders in south central LA were all investigated with the vigor that murders elsewhere in LA are, there would be fewer black men murdering black men. Leovy doesn't discount other reasons for so-called “black-on-black” crime, but she's focused on the above reason.

It's too bad that this book is relatively disjointed in making its case–it reads like a bunch of newspaper articles put together, which isn't bad on the face of it, but I would have rather had more coherent analysis of the central theme.

Still, it's worth reading: The real people involved investigating and being the victims of homicides in south central LA is heartrendingly fascinating.