NYT EDITOR’S CHOICE Peabody Award finalist National Headliner Award winner WASHINGTON POST BEST NONFICTION OF 2023 Shortlisted for the 2024 Chicago Review of Books Award FROM THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF HIGH-RISERS comes a groundbreaking and honest investigation into the crisis of the American criminal justice systemthrough the lens of parole. Perfect for fans of Michelle Alexanders The New Jim Crow and Bryan Stevensons Just Mercy

Correction ranks among the very best books on life inside and outside of prison I have ever read.” Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted

Correction provides a revelatory lens for examining mass incarceration.” The Washington Post

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023: Chicago Review of Books, The Chicago Tribune, The Next Big Idea Club

The United States, alone, locks up a quarter of the worlds incarcerated people. And yet apart from clichspaying a debt to society; you do the crime, you do the timethere is little sense collectively in America what constitutes retribution or atonement. We dont actually know why we punish.

Ben Austens powerful exploration offers a behind-the-scenes look at the process of parole. Told through the portraits of two men imprisoned for murder, and the parole board that holds their freedom in the balance, Austens unflinching storytelling forces us to reckon with some of the most profound questions underlying the countrys values around crime and punishment. What must someone who commits a terrible act do to get a second chance? What does incarceration seek to accomplish?

An illuminating work of narrative nonfiction, Correction challenges us to consider for ourselves why and who we punishand how we might find a way out of an era of mass imprisonment.