Structure

The book is structured chronologically, tracing Brittany’s journey from childhood to a leader in the mass incarceration movement. This overarching chronological structure is punctuated by backtracking into Brittany’s clients’ stories. Brittany weaves together these stories to present a nuanced picture of mass incarceration. Her own story allows her to amplify each of her client’s stories; each of these background narratives exposes a distinct aspect of the justice system’s flaws. Essentially, her clients’ stories serve as mini-memoirs within the book, each one detailing a unique story using the same chronological structure. In this sense, Brittany uses her book deal in the same way that she used her Texas Outstanding Young Lawyer Award – to present “a bigger platform to share [her] clients’ stories, to tell the truth about what’s going on in the criminal justice system (168).

To further organize the text, Brittany divides the...