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The Deserving
What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice
The Deserving
What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice
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Description
A groundbreaking new take on the American justice system from one of its unknown “mercy workers,” offering a powerful new vision of responsibility, punishment, and repair.
“We need the work that is mitigation. It is mercy work.” -Sister Helen Prejean
Elizabeth Vartkessian works with criminal defense teams as a mitigation specialist. She isn't part of the Innocence Project; her clients are often legally guilty, and often of terrible crimes. Rather, her job is to spend hundreds of hours per case talking to the parents, siblings, teachers, and neighbors of a defendant, situating their crimes in context.
Founder and director of nonprofit mitigation team Advancing Real Change Inc., Vartkessian weaves powerful, gripping stories from her extraordinary career into an inspiring argument for dignity in American justice. Her unique experience has taught her that when personal or generational trauma enters the body, it finds its way out eventually, sometimes through violence. She contends that we cannot hold her clients solely responsible for their actions, nor can we continue to stomach harsh penalties that deny real justice to perpetrators and victims alike.
Amid the Trump administration's record-high executions and calls to expand the use of the death penalty after decades of progress, The Deserving is required reading for a dangerous new era of rollbacks. Vartkessian offers a compelling, hope-filled vision of true rehabilitation replacing retribution.
Product details
| Published | Jan 20 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Audiobook |
| Duration | 8 hours and 20 minutes |
| ISBN | 9781639731411 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Elizabeth Vartkessian writes about death row like a detective crossed with a philosopher, propelling us one revelation at a time into a richer understanding of how violence begets violence. So many books and movies try to tell us why people harm and kill each other. We're always flashing back to the villain's childhood. But too often we give up and shrug off some people as monsters. Vartkessian offers a new, courageous vision for a society with less violence and more mercy, through an honest reckoning with how we fail the least among us.
Maurice Chammah, author of LET THE LORD SORT THEM: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEATH PENALTY


















