Marc Morjé Howard’s Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment and the Real American Exceptionalism delivers a sweeping analysis of the criminal justice systems in the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Western democratic countries similar to the US that covers a range of economic, cultural, and geopolitical aspects. Supplementing legal analysis with criminological and sociopolitical scholarship on US mass incarceration, Howard explores what makes the US criminal justice system “unusually cruel.” Compared to other countries, US plea-bargaining processes are more coercive, sentences terms lengthier, prison conditions less humane, and obstacles to reentry staggering. Despite a brief reflection on the legal implications of his analysis and the necessary broad treatment given different sociopolitical histories of each country, Unusually Cruel in its systematic contextualization of the “life cycle” of the America criminal justice system is an eye-opening addition to existing criminal justice scholarship.In the first substantive chapter, Howard compares plea bargaining across the four countries listed above, emphasizing how European legal structures and the more limited powers of European prosecutors create a more equal plea-bargaining practice than in the United States. Highlighting the discrepancies between the American ideal and the actual practice, Howard outlines formal and informal controls that tilt the bargaining process against defendants, such as prosecutorial overcharging (adding charges with weak evidence to pressure the defendant to plea), frequently overburdened public defenders, and the judicial tendency to punish defendants with hefty sentences when they refuse to plea. In France and Germany, Howard argues, transparency requirements limit such coercive maneuvers. For example, in France, prosecutors typically pursue plea bargains only in cases involving minor offenses, and stricter controls over prosecutorial conduct often reduce overcharging; in Germany, plea bargains are no substitute for trial in any case. Both strategies ultimately check more egregious abuses and render minor misconduct easier to detect. Usefully underscoring the similarities in the adversarial systems of the US and the UK, Howard nonetheless cites the UK’s 2009 reforms to show how British courts and lawmakers have been much more responsive to international calls since the 1960s for more limited prosecutorial discretion. Meanwhile in America, political backlash against the civil rights movement and the liberal Warren Court during the same intervening years has led to an increasingly powerful prosecutorial office.In chapter 3, Howard follows a defendant, now adjudged guilty, into the sentencing process. Where political pressure in the United States tends to result in ever-harsher punishment for defendants, the sway of the United Nations as well as fundamentally different orientations toward punishment make European sentences both less lengthy and less costly. Only a small percentage of sentences in continental Europe last longer than a year. Howard argues that this difference stems from a fundamental belief in the role of the state and the goals of punishment. As proof of concept, he pivots to a country he labels “unusually humane” in contrast to the US (74). Howard argues that Scandinavian countries’ emphasis on rehabilitation and the conception of the state as having a positive role in the return of the former offender to society has resulted in its strikingly low prison populations: the absence of private prisons, the existence of open prisons (wherein prisoners nearing the end of their sentence gain more freedoms), and the close relationship between academics and professionals in setting policies for reentry each prioritizes the return of former offenders to society rather than their punishment and incapacitation. The Scandinavian example is an extreme case, but like other European countries, it has long fostered a moral obligation to rehabilitate inside prison and assist those in need more broadly by pulling on the levers of the welfare state. The effectiveness of these Western European programs, Howard argues, should move political leaders to prioritize programs that are behavior-oriented and targeted to specific categories of offenders. Thus, he places those programs in sharp contrast to the American case.In the final substantive chapters, Howard draws heavily on the shift in American political opinion on crime policy during the mid-twentieth century. In the midst of the racially coded, law-and-order backlash that followed on the heels of the civil rights movement, Republican lawmakers lambasted the administration of President Lyndon Johnson for failing to meaningfully address purportedly rising crime rates and rampant recidivism. Partially motivated by the election evidenced by later admissions, Richard Nixon’s campaign paved the way for federal action in local crime control and laid the groundwork for mass incarceration, primarily through the War on Drugs. While criminologists continue to debate whether the rise in reported crime at the time reflected an actual increase in crime, it is difficult to deny the frustration with rehabilitative programs of the day, which was exemplified by the infamous declaration by sociologist Robert Martinson that “nothing works” in prisoner rehabilitation. Racial hostility contributed to the turning away from the goals of Johnson’s Great Society and toward a more conservative, retributively oriented system.From an originally slow start among Southern politicians reacting to the civil rights gains by Black Americans, the election of Richard Nixon proved “get tough” policies to be so politically expedient that “virtually all American politicians” had to prove that they were sufficiently tough on crime by supporting more and more punitive criminal justice policies—or suffer in the polls (164). The tough-on-crime rhetoric was soon echoed by the media and spread to the judiciary. Although more recent US Supreme Court rulings have checked the harshest sentencing schemes with cases like Graham v. Florida (2010) (life without parole for juvenile crimes other than murder held unconstitutional) and Roper v. Simmons (2005) (the execution of minors is “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment), crime coverage has continued to amplify public fear. Because many state judges in the United States are elected, judicial candidates during much of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century appealed to a public disenchanted with the more rehabilitative goals of the earlier twentieth century. Howard suggests an apolitical judiciary, such as in Western Europe where judges are appointed through a merit system and unbound by strict sentencing guidelines, reduces electoral pressure. Concluding that the American conditions of sentencing, parole, and reentry in particular are unlikely to change without depoliticizing judicial selection and restricting the use of incarceration to serious offenses, Howard argues that France, Germany, and the UK provide concrete models.The book culminates in a chapter explaining how and why the American criminal justice system is more punitive—and less effective—than other European countries in the administration of justice, and concludes by inviting the reader to imagine ways the United States can learn from these other nations. Borrowing from previous scholars such as Michelle Alexander, Douglas Blackmon, and Angela Davis, Howard points to race, politics, business, and religion as the primary mechanisms driving mass incarceration beginning in the 1970s. Howard argues that the particular context and history of race in the American criminal justice system led to the development of various systems of control, including the prison, in an effort to subdue the emancipated Black body. The tremendous growth in the criminal justice system since the 1970s has furthermore caused federal, state, and local governments to turn to private companies in efforts to ease budgetary strain; this not only has resulted in more surveillance for already marginalized and overpoliced communities but also in the rise of private prisons, which tend to view incarcerated persons as resources for cheap labor rather than people in need of aid. To this well-known narrative, however, Howard adds the political power of evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church. These religious institutions are tremendously influential among the comparatively religious American public and legislature as they have influenced debate and legislation on a wide range of issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage, and the criminal justice system. Of particular note, Howard draws attention to the powerful ability of evangelical Christians to find political allies, coordinate their efforts, and exert political influence over elections and legislation. As the perils of private actors, private prisons, and private interest groups become subject to more scrutiny by academics, Howard’s contribution in this area is highly relevant.Unusually Cruel responds in part to Angela Davis’s call to expand the imaginary of what American criminal justice could be. In foregrounding conceptual differences between America and similarly situated European nations at the foundation of criminal jurisprudence—questions so fundamental to criminal law such as who deserves punishment and what punishment should look like—Howard exposes tensions within our legal and within American identity itself. But most pressing for his scholarship, perhaps, is that American jurisprudence may accord little weight to the practices of other countries in extending fundamental rights to citizens within the American states, which handle most criminal matters. Howard raises still other questions, among them: Because race has left an indelible imprint on criminal justice in the United States, what, for example, may be added to his analysis of France’s criminal justice system by confronting its colonial history and treatment of Algerian immigrants?Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment, and the Real American Exceptionalism provides a much-needed international perspective on American criminal justice, and prompts readers to reexamine assumptions about what criminal justice should look like in the United States. Howard successfully elucidates, at each phase in the life cycle of criminal justice, true American exceptionalism—its stark punitiveness in comparison to similar nations—and how the confluence of race, politics, religion, and business contributed to the sharp deviation by the United States from its peers across the Atlantic during the 1970s. As scholars, lawyers, and activists seek new avenues for change in an era of great political upheaval both domestically and abroad, Howard’s work charts a potentially revolutionary path forward.