This one is for fans of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.

Before reading this book, I honestly had no idea how tough life was for the poor in New Orleans. Told from the perspective of a parole officer in the city who is working hard to keep offenders (who are mostly impoverished addicts) out of jail, author Jason Hardy writes about a few of the individuals he has worked with over the course of his career. The stories he tells are not 100% factual, but rather are dramatizations of typical people he has helped. Each vignette is eye-opening…and really depressing.

The book really helped me understand the problem of addiction in this country—and it especially helped me see how much money we are wasting on prison (about $33,000 per person per year) when we could be providing adequate social services for a fraction of the cost (about $4,000 per person per year).

A truly inspiring, enlightening book.

Thank you Amazon Vine and Simon Schuster for the ARC!

Find this book on Goodreads and Amazon.