"Every year, approximately 13 million Americans are charged with misdemeanor offenses. Those cases make up the vast majority--over 80 percent--of the US criminal system. While the crimes are typically minor, the punishments often ruin people's lives. Although we now recognize mass incarceration as a multibillion-dollar dehumanizing debacle, the misdemeanor behemoth does quieter damage on an even grander scale, making the poor poorer and widening our nation's racial divide. Presenting a profound new perspective on American criminal justice, [this book] demonstrates how our enormous misdemeanor system operates as a powerful engine of error, injustice, and inequality. Drawing on a decade of original research, prize-winning legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff lays bare the inner workings of our massive and surprisingly harsh petty offense process. People arrested for crimes as minor as driving on a suspended license or loitering are routinely incarcerated when they can't afford bail. Defendants are rushed through courts, often without lawyers, while many judges process cases in mere minutes. Nearly everyone pleads guilty. Many of these convictions are wrongful: innocent people frequently plead guilty to crimes they did not actually commit. In the end, millions of Americans--most of them poor and people of color--are stigmatized as criminals, impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of life's basic resources such as driver's licenses, jobs, and housing. Urgent and revelatory, [this book] shows how America's sprawling misdemeanor system makes our entire country less safe, less fair, and less equal."--Dust jacket.