I’m thankful for so much and to so many. My heart is so full. I’m sure I will miss names.
I’m grateful to my God, who would not reject me. Thank You for all You’ve done. And to the men and women in Detroit, New York, Chicago, and all the towns across the country that are too small for me to name without giving away your secrets, thank you. You shared your stories with me. They are precious in my eyes. Thank you to Ronald Simpson-Bey for our many late-night talks and the pints of Hennessy we have yet to drink. To Hazelette, for the blessing you are. To TJ—may many blessings be upon his loved ones. To Yusef—salute, good brother. To Amanda Alexander and Finn Bell (Finn!), Jhody Polk, and the wonderful Susan Burton: I’m fortunate to have crossed your paths and blessed to call you friends.
Thanks to a wonderful crew of research assistants and project volunteers, especially Emily, Nicole, Adrianna, Kyle, T’Kara, Demetrius, and Judy. Thanks also to Lester Kern, Durrell Washington, and Alize Hill, who gave me critical feedback on the book.
To Joe Summers, who was my pastor and is my friend, and to Donna Ainsworth, the Summers’ fam, and the good folks at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, especially Billy Joe and Adye Bell Evans, who fed us and loved us and adopted Jonathan, Adé, Janice, and me (I think in that order). We love you. I look forward to our next meal. And thank you to Jerry Walden and Peter Linebaugh (who I will say more about in a bit) for their constant friendship and support.
Speaking of friends, I’m blessed to have many. To my brother Keith—man, look how far we’ve come. Did we imagine any of this? God is good. And Harrison Williams, who has been A1 since day 1. I love you, brother. The esteemed gestalt psychologist Jelena Zeleskov Djoric taught me how to “meet the other at the contact boundary.” Thank you, my dear sister, and hug my brother Predrag, Isi and Sophie, and your aunt for that delicious meal. Janice and I were convinced after our trip that there was no warmer place than Belgrade. To Fergus McNeill, who is also my brother (I have the tartan to prove it!): there will be a reading in Glasgow for sure, and we’ll toast a Bowmore Single Malt, at least an eighteen (maybe one day a sixty-six!).
Speaking of brothers, shout-out to my clique (’cause ain’t nobody fresher), listed here in alphabetical order by first name: Desmond Patton, John Eason, Luke Shaefer, Michael Walker, Shaun Ossei Owusu, and Waverly Duck. The scripture says a friend sticks closer than a brother. We’ve read one another’s work. We’ve shared one another’s pain. We’ve broken bread together. You’ve blessed me. Megan Comfort is my dear sister who took me as a brother years ago. She’s been reading my work and writing way too many letters of support on my behalf for years. Megan, you’re incredible and deserve all the good that life has to offer.
Thank you to the great Peter Linebaugh (who will hate that I called him great, but that’s how I see him), a brilliant historian who is my comrade and friend. To Bruce Western, who showed up often and brought his sharp mind. Thanks again to Michael Walker and Megan Comfort, who play many roles in my life, and the brilliant Julian Thompson, Lester Kern, Matt Epperson, and Nicole Marwell (who I will say more about). My book workshop couldn’t have gone better. Thanks for helping me walk down these chapters; they got away on more than one occasion. And thank you to the sociologist and social theorist Loïc Wacquant, who has been a mentor from a distance and one of the people I’ve looked to as an example of a scholar who does theoretically rich sociological analyses.
I’ve been fortunate to have great support at the University of Michigan, where I did much of the research for this book, and at the Institute for Advanced Study, where I wrote the book proposal. My colleagues at the University of Michigan School of Social Work helped launch my professional journey. There are too many people to name, but thanks especially to Laura Lein, my first dean, and Robert Taylor, who introduced me to the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research, which, with the Ford School, the Curtis Center, and the Antipode Foundation, funded my research in Detroit. Heather Ann Thompson, the incomparable historian of urban life and the carceral state, encouraged me to write the book I wanted to write. She also provided real insight on how to navigate writing for the public. And Luke Shaefer (who wears many hats!) not only introduced me to my book agent, the wonderful (and patient) Lisa Adams, but broke bread with me many times, helping to make the University of Michigan a lovely place to work. So did my colleagues and friends at SSW, especially my homeboys Desmond Patton (the clique!), David Cordova, and the entire faculty and staff, including Karen Staller, who was my faculty mentor, and my colleagues Kristen Seefeldt, Beth Glover Reed, Letha Chadiha, Leslie Hollingsworth, Lorraine Gutiérrez, Rosemary Sarri, and Larry Gant for entertaining my ideas. Thank you to my dear friend in Anthropology, the brilliant Damani Partridge, and his lovely family, Sunita, Jasmine, and his equally brilliant and warm mother, for the dinners, brunches, and Zoom connections during COVID, and for letting me crash in Berlin, and thank you to the entire faculty and staff in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Big hugs to Alex Murphy, Sarah Fenstermaker, and Ashley Lucas for your constant warmth and support, and a great big thank-you to the incredible teams at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Prison Creative Arts Program, where I was honored to spend some time. Thanks really to the entire “Michigan mob,” including Martha Jones (now at Johns Hopkins), Heather Ann Thompson (again!), and Ruby Tapia, and the good folks at the Carceral State Project and the Institute for Social Research. I appreciate your support.
A shout-out to my crew at the Institute for Advanced Study, especially Lalaie Ameeriar, Andrew Dilts, and David Kazanjian (aka the Brooklyn pub-crawl crew), Ruha and Shawn Benjamin and the late Lee Ann Fuji (#blackexcellence), and Fadi Bardawill, Lori Allen (and Yezid!), Céline Bessière, Nick Cheesman, Karen Engle (my running buddy), Pascal Marichalar, Jonathan Morduch, Amy Borovoy, Ayşe Parla, Massimiliano Tomba, Emily Zackin, Linda Zerilli, Peter Redfield, and Elizabeth Mertz for breaking bread. Thanks to the entire 2016–2017 cohort in the School of Social Science for engaging with my work and to Didier Fassin, Ann-Claire Defossez, Bernard Harcourt, Joan Scott, Donne Petito, and Laura McCune who steered that beautiful ship. You all ate and drank and laughed with me way too late into the night and still managed to produce cutting-edge work and show off your dance moves at nerd prom. Plus, another shout-out to David Kazanjian because he read the entire book!
Thank you also to the good people at the American Bar Foundation, especially my dear sister, the brilliant Bernadette Atuahene, and the “wine and cheese crew,” Shaun Ossei-Owusu (thanks again, dear brother; I love watching you shine), Spencer Headworth, Rhaisa Williams, and John Robinson, and the good people at the Populations Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, especially Sarah Brayne and Becky Pettit, and my crew at Touro University, Dierdra Wilson, Nemesia Kelly, and Gayle Cummings for hearing out and pushing my work.
My colleagues at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, some of whom have already been named, have been a constant source of inspiration and friendship since I arrived in 2017.
My dean, Deb Gorman Smith, has provided nothing but support, as has the entire faculty and staff at SSA. And the incomparable Eve Ewing, Yanilda Gonzalez, and Nicole Marwell showed me so much love and support. They each read chapters and gave incredible feedback (Eve and Nicole read the entire book). So did Matt Epperson and Robert Vargas. I can’t thank you enough. And to my dear brother Julian Thompson, whose incredible work on drug courts is about to change the game. You are my friends, and you are precious to me. Speaking of friends, a shout-out to the friend lab, with Eve Ewing, Yanilda Gonzales, Robert Vargas, Aresha Martinez-Cordoza, and Nia Heard-Garris, who read my work, and Angela Garcia, Shanta Robinson, and my dear friend Gina Fedock, who have all been so good to me. And speaking of colleagues and friends, Joyce Bell! Waldo Johnson! Gina Samuels! All exclamation points. Fierce supporters and incredible colleagues. So much support from so many people. But this project has benefited from the support of many more.
Thank you to the fellows and fellowship team at New America, especially Sarah Jackson, Melissa Segura, Clara Fitzpatrick, Kevin Sack, and Rachel Aviv, who read and gave really good feedback on chapter 2, and to Awista Ayub, for her continued support and for running the fellows program so well. Thank you to the entire 2018–2019 New America cohort, whose work I so admire, and to Anne-Marie Slaughter and Tyra Mariani, for encouraging us all while putting in such excellent work to move our country forward.
What can I say about the mighty-mighty cohort of the Racial Democracy Crime and Justice Network and the rest of the RDCJN? We’ve been cracking the ground since 2014. Thank you especially to Michael Walker (so many hats, dear brother!), my sister Nicole Gonzales Van Cleve, Patrick Lopez-Aguado, Danny Gascón, Evelyn Patterson, Lallen Johnson, and Valerie Wright. And to the incomparable Ruth Peterson and Laurie Krivo, for starting it all, and Jody Miller and Rod Brunson, for keeping the party going.
I had such a deep crew of support at Loyola University Chicago, especially in the School of Social Work, at the Center for Urban Research and Learning, and in the Sociology Department, where I studied for six years. Thank you to the esteemed Maria Vidal de Haymes, who wrote so many letters of recommendation for me and listened to my ideas. She and Stephen Haymes gave me my first opportunity to publish and have been real friends over the years; I developed many of the ideas in this book during that time. Stephanie Chapman hired me to work as an adjunct professor and later a full-time instructor. That’s how I fed my family. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The entire Social Work Department gets as many heart emojis as I can muster. So does CURL, especially my mentor and dissertation chair Phil Nyden, and my friends at CURL, especially Gwendolyn Purifoye and my boy Joel Ritsema, without whom I wouldn’t have survived stats or graduate school or any one of those CURL projects. Along with the late, great dean Samuel Atto, Phil made sure my fellowships were funded and provided space for me to develop how I think. Thank you to Kellie Moore, my brilliant dissertation cochair, and to Rhys Williams and Robert Fairbanks for their work on my committee. My dear brother and mentor David Embrick was on my committee too. We spent many late nights at conferences chopping up social theory and religion and white supremacy, all the stuff that animates this book. I couldn’t have afforded those conferences had you not made a place for me to sleep on your floor. A shout-out to Phil Hong too!
To Pastor Mary Trout-Carr, whom I can’t thank enough. You’ve been a mother to me, a motherless child, and you helped dig me out of many a cold and dark place (a slimy pit, says the psalm). Thanks also to my brothers and sisters at the Christian Heritage Training Center Community Church—that new building looks real good! Thanks also to my brother Milano Harden, who has been a real friend to Janice and me—thank you for being a brother. Thank you, especially, to my dear friend and brother Melvin—I love you, man, and I’m proud of you. And to my brother Meridith Johnson, who has shown himself friendly on so many occasions. To my mother, Michele, and mother-in-law, Hyacinth, one who gave me life and one who made my life all the more rich. Thank you for being my family. I love you.
Thank you to my incredible literary agent, Lisa Adams. I don’t know how you worked the magic you did. I certainly did not send you a real book proposal when we met. I appreciate all you’ve done. And to Vanessa Mobley, my brilliant, impressive, and incredibly talented editor. You made this book so much better than I thought it could be. Thank you for believing in my project. I prayed for the right place to publish this book. You and your whole team are wonderful. Thank you to the entire team at Little, Brown and Co. for the work you do every day. Thank you for helping me bring this ship to harbor.
To my blood brothers and sisters, the ones I grew up with and ones I did not know so well. I cannot name you, to protect you. I love you, Skip and Ragala; it’s impossible to say what you mean to me—I just don’t have the words. To Laura and Donna (my sisters!) and my loves Mira and Ayanna. Props to Ellie and Michael. To Kyle, who went to sleep. I love you as I do your father. My heart is as full with your memory as it is sad that you are gone.
To my Jonathan, who brings so much light into my world, and to my Adé, who chose me and whom I chose. You bring me the kind of joy that’s hard to explain. To Rueben. To Jalen. To Jayla. To Amber (wow! Look where we are). I love you and I’m grateful for who you are and who you have become. Finally, to Janice: I would be lost without you. You accepted me for reasons I never quite understood. I was sleeping on couches and sometimes outdoors when we met at that little church. I didn’t know what to dream. You taught me to write. You told me things my grandmother told me, although you two never got the chance to meet. You believed in me. There is so much to say. I hope to tell you every day.
I’m blessed and grateful that so many people loved and supported me along the way. Many gave feedback on my ideas, but I didn’t always listen. The mistakes are proof of that, and they are mine alone. I’ll stop here by saying I love you to my God, my family, and my friends. You’ve made a cold world much warmer.