Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine

Emile Suotonye DeWeaver’s Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy and an Abolitionist Future combines social commentary and personal narrative into a powerful polemic against the ways white supremacy compromises our criminal justice system. This fiery debut is an original and provocative critique of the deeply troubling racial logic behind parole boards, police unions, Pr*son administrations, and more.

During his twenty-one years in Pr*son, DeWeaver covertly organized to pass legislation impacting juveniles in California’s criminal legal system; was a culture writer for Easy Street Magazine; and co-founded Pr*son Renaissance, an organization centering incarcerated voices and incarcerated leadership. DeWeaver draws on these experiences to interrogate the central premise of reform efforts, including prisoner rehabilitation programs, arguing that they demand self-abnegation, entrench white supremacy, and ignore the role of structural oppression.

“Incarceration helped me to develop as an artist only in the regard that the more deeply you are oppressed,” writes DeWeaver, “the more clearly you see the mechanisms of oppression and how they function without all of the window dressing.”

In the same vein as James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine adds a sharp and unique perspective to the growing discourse on racial justice, incarceration, and abolition. With lucid, urgent prose, DeWeaver intervenes in contemporary debates on criminal justice and racial justice efforts with his eye-opening discussion of the tools we need to end white supremacy—both within and outside the carceral setting.

Emile Suotonye DeWeaver is a formerly incarcerated activist, widely published essayist, owner of Re:Frame LLC, and a 2022 Soros Justice Fellow. California’s Governor Brown commuted his life sentence after twenty-one years for his community work. He has written for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, Colorlines, The Appeal, The Rumpus, and Seventh Wave. He lives in Oakland, California.

Emile will be joined in conversation by James King, director of programs at the Ella Baker Center. The Ella Baker Center organizes to shift resources away from prisons and punishment towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong. Named after civil rights hero Ella Baker, the Center mobilizes Black, Brown, and low-income people to build power and prosperity in communities.

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