Hard bargains

the long version

"The convergence of tough-on-crime politics, stiffer sentencing laws, and jurisdictional expansion in the 1970s and 1980s increased the powers of federal prosecutors in unprecedented ways. [The author] investigates the increased power of these prosecutors in our age of mass incarceration. [The author] documents how prosecutors use punitive federal drug laws to coerce guilty pleas and obtain long prison sentences for defendants—particularly those who are African American— and exposes deep injustices in the federal courts. [This book] proposes a broad overhaul of the federal criminal justice system to restore the balance of power and retreat from the punitive indulgences of the war on drugs."--