Book of the Week: THE VALLEY: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN A NEW ZEALAND CITY by Asher Emanuel
This important book provides unfiltered insight into the workings and shortcomings of the New Zealand criminal justice system by tracing its impacts on the lives of those who experience it first-hand. Written with a novelist’s eye for detail, entirely gripping and told largely in verbatim dialogue (the result of hundreds of hours of interviews over two years), The Valley follows three Hutt Valley men through courtrooms, prison, hospital, rehab, boarding houses, and welfare offices, demonstrating the particular mechanisms, disappointments and frustrations that perpetuate individual and social harm. If this is not already your world, this book is an eye-opener, providing a place of empathy from which to work to make life better for us all.