Review: Endangered by Jean Love Cush

The subject of Jean Love Cush's novel is one that is close to my heart. Not only are the state of our prison system and our criminal justice system's inherent racial bias topics that I am very passionate about, but there are also many, many people whom I care about who have to worry about this on a daily basis. This is not okay.

The gist of the story in Endangered is this: Malik is a fifteen-year-old Black boy living in Philadelphia. Twenty-eight murders have been committed in Philly in the twenty days since the new year started. When Malik's friend, Troy, becomes murder victim number twenty-nine, an anonymous call to police names Malik as the murderer. When the police show up on the street corner where Malik is hanging with some of his other friends, Malik's friends run while Malik does exactly as his mother has told him--he doesn't resist, he doesn't say anything, and he allows the police to rough him up, arrest him, and take him to the local detention center. They charge Malik with First-Degree Murder, with no further investigation.

What Malik and his mother failed to understand is that according to Pennsylvania law, minors charged with murder are automatically tried as adults. If convicted, Malik could spend the rest of his life in an adult prison, where he will surely be turned into the hardened criminal that he currently is not.

The post Review: Endangered by Jean Love Cush was written by Heather and first appeared on Between the Covers.