Books

Since my work in 2014 and 2015 on a series published by Slate — a project supported by a yearlong Soros Justice Media Fellowship — I focused most of my reporting on examples and issues that I intended to explore in a book.

I have decided no longer to pursue that dream — nearly 45 years of hard work seems more than enough if I want to enjoy my golden years without the stresses and frustrations of reporting on complex issues and then wrestling those thoughts to the ground with a succession of editors, all for shockingly low pay.

But I may put my ideas down in some other form; perhaps a Substack series.

What ties all of my work together? One big question: What would it look like to have a truly victim-centered system of justice — one that does not treat the punishment of offenders, and the offering of token gestures of sympathy, as the full extent of our obligation to our fellow citizens?

I started down this path telling stories about how the punitive justice policies of this country were warped by a particular brand of crime victim advocacy, and how those policies did not serve all victims or solve all the problems they were intended to solve.

From there, I homed in on the most common and most vulnerable victims of the most serious violence: the victims of community gun violence. Often ignored and misunderstood, even blamed for their plight, these victims — mostly young Black men — have needs that go unmet by a system that solves far too few crimes of this sort and that does too little to address untreated trauma and to prevent such violence in the first place.

I documented the solutions that have accumulated the best track records of success, and chronicled the growth of the community gun violence intervention strategies, as well as the growing use of evidence-based policing strategies that prevent violence while trying to minimize the harms caused by indiscriminate, abusive policing tactics.

The people doing this work — in community organizations, in the academy, and in policing and government — have made great strides, and deserve far more support than they receive from a political culture that usually fights about the wrong things and offers the wrong solutions when it comes to everyday gun violence on our city streets.

So … I have thoughts, and evidence, and compelling characters to share. And maybe I will at some point in the near future.

God’s Nobodies: Misguided faith and murder in the life of one American family
2012
Four years after his father died a hero's death fighting a fire, Tim Ginocchetti was behind bars for killing his mother. How one tragedy led to another is a true story that puts a horrifying twist on the familiar one of bullied gay teens. In this case, the bully was the teen's own mother, and instead of harming himself he killed her in a momentary but irreversible explosion of rage. God’s Nobodies exposes the destruction of a meek young man whose only refuge was a childlike fantasy world of his own imagination. His family's blind obedience to their minister compounded the losses, first by turning Pam Ginocchetti against her son, and then by turning the rest of Tim's family against his loving grandmother — the one person brave enough to take a stand for forgiveness and truth after Pam's death. God’s Nobodies – the title comes from a biblical story twisted beyond recognition by the family’s minister, a central character in the story – spent 10 weeks on Amazon’s top-10 nonfiction list of Kindle Singles. It is also available from Audible.com.

This e-single (shorter than a typical book, longer than a typical magazine article) is available only in digital form but a Kindle device is not required. At this link, you’ll find free Kindle reading apps for computers and phones.