Book Review: Unfair by Adam Benforado

Unfair seeks to outline the science behind many issues facing the criminal justice system in the United States. Classic and not-so-classic psychological research is cited alongside (only slightly related in many cases) anecdotes about unfair situations that have really happened. The lack of citations was extremely annoying, leaving the reader to look everything up in the back of the book. Many cited experiments and the accompanying anecdotes lacked a concrete link. For instance, I find it extremely hard to believe that DNA result interpretation bias is widespread, and the author doesn't provide a single example of this happening, only cases where jury bias persists in spite of exonerating DNA evidence. Overall, I would recommend this book, especially to someone without much of a psychology background, as a primer and a jumping off point for major discussions that need to be had in our country. I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.