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Amy Bach

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Amy Bach (born 1968)[1] is an American a journalist, attorney, and author of Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, for which she won the 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.[2][3] She is the Founder and Executive Director of Measures for Justice, a nonprofit that collects and publishes county-level criminal justice performance data.[4] She founded the organization after she published her book.[5]

Background and education

Bach grew up in New York City, where she graduated from the Chapin School.[6] She earned her bachelor's in English and American Literature at Brown University in Rhode Island and was a Knight Foundation Journalism Fellow at Yale Law School where she received her master's degree in law. Bach was the recipient of an Echoing Green Fellowship in 2011. Bach graduated as a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 2012.[5][7]

Career

Bach worked as a freelance journalist, writing for The New York Times, The Nation, Slate (magazine), and New York Magazine.[7][8]

In 2001, Bach wrote an article titled "Justice on the Cheap," published in The Nation. Chronicling the story of Tasha McDonald and her difficulty in the Georgia court system, it was then, when she began looking closely into the plight of people and how they were treated in the criminal court system.[9][10] Bach, who spent eight years investigating the failure of the courts, utilizing her background as an attorney and journalist, wrote her book, Ordinary Justice, which was published in 2009.[7][11]

In a 2010 part of an essay, published in The Crime Report, which was adapted from a lecture she gave in February 2010, Bach recalled how:[8]

"Many did not realize that their behavior had devastating consequences for ordinary peoples' lives. Their mistakes had become so routine that they could no longer see their role in them.

This is ordinary injustice.

There was something else I noticed in that Georgia courtroom. As I watched the cases proceed, it became increasingly harder to hear what was going on. The prosecutor and defense attorney huddled around the bench, speaking softly to the judge. It looked like they were all on the same team – rather than opposing advocates duking it out before a neutral arbiter. Steve Bright, of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, asked the judge to speak up, and the judge installed a microphone. But the next day the microphone was gone. I went back and visited this court (with different sitting judges) for the next five years. There was never another microphone. And there was always a huddle."

— Amy Bach, February 15, 2010, essay adapted from the Law, Politics, and Media Lecture Series; S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University

After the publication of her book, Anthony Lewis of the New York Review of Books noted that "Bach has done something different: shown us the reality of the criminal justice process in microscopic, human detail. In different places across the country she watched went on in courtrooms. Her accounts of what she saw should open others' eyes to unwelcome reality. It is a revealing and important book," and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote that the book "Should be required reading for every judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer, clerk and defendant in courthouses everywhere."[12]

in 2011, following the publication of her book, Bach Founded Measures for Justice, a nonprofit that collects and publishes county-level criminal justice performance data, where she serves as the Executive director.[4]

Awards and recognition

  • 2005 Finalist Anthony Luckas Work-In-Progress Award, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.[7]
  • 2009 Green Bag Journal Award, for Exemplary Legal Writing in her book, Ordinary Injustice: How American Holds Court.[11][13]
  • 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, for Ordinary Injustice: How American Holds Court.[3]
  • 2018 The Academy of Criminal Justice Science's Leadership and Innovation Award.[5]
  • 2018 Charles Bronfman Prize for young humanitarians.[3]

Personal

Bach is married to John Markman, a doctor at the University of Rochester Medical Center. They have one son. They reside in Rochester, New York.[10]

References

  1. ^ Craig, Gary. "Rochester's Amy Bach wins $100,000 award for work to improve criminal justice operations". Democrat and Chronicle. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  2. ^ Mills, Steve (2009-12-21). "Review: 'Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court' by Amy Bach - Printers Row". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2015-10-03.
  3. ^ a b c "2010: "Ordinary Injustice", by Amy Bach". Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  4. ^ a b "Staff". Measures for Justice. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  5. ^ a b c "Skoll | Amy Bach". Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  6. ^ "The Chapin School: The Alumnae Presence at Chapin". www.chapin.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  7. ^ a b c d "Amy Bach". Echoing Green Fellows Directory. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  8. ^ a b ""Ordinary" Injustice". The Crime Report. 2010-02-25. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  9. ^ Bach, Amy (2001-05-03). "Justice on the Cheap". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  10. ^ a b Imag, Steve Jennings/Getty. "Author Who Researches Criminal Justice System Awarded $100K Bronfman Prize". The Forward. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  11. ^ a b Bach, Amy (2009). Ordinary injustice: how America holds court. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-7447-5. OCLC 232392064.
  12. ^ "Book Details". Tradebooks for Courses. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  13. ^ "Almanac & Reader". www.greenbag.org. Retrieved 2020-11-14.


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