Jill Leovy, Ghettoside ****

This is a book about a very simple idea: where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death, homicide becomes endemic. African Americans have suffered from just such a lack of effective criminal justice, and this, more than anything, is the reason for the nation's long-standing plague of black homicides.

Leovy, a Los Angeles Times reporter, argues for this "simple idea" with a combination of general historical/statistical research and specific stories from her own reporting. The core of Ghettoside is an account of a single murder case, somewhat representative (a young black man shot by another young black man for questionable reasons) and somewhat not (the victim was the son of an L.A. detective). The book spans out from this one case to tell about the dangerous area "south of the 10," the detective squad, the victim's families, and recalcitrant witnesses. Leovy has a great eye for detail and an empathetic feel for the milieu; her tone often becomes indignant when she starts making more abstract arguments.

Leovy's story is consistent with her thesis, but I don't think she proves it. If nothing else, though, Ghettoside shows that you can be pro-police and still lament structural racial bias.