Five of the best books about justice

David Lammy was born in London to Guianese parents and has served as the MP for Tottenham since 2000. He was the first black Briton to study at Harvard Law School and before entering politics practised as a barrister. He served as a minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and his first book, Out of the Ashes: Britain after the Riots, was published to widespread acclaim in 2011.

Lammy's latest book is Tribes: How Our Need to Belong Can Make or Break Society.

At the Guardian, he tagged five of the best books about the legal system:

As cuts [in justice system spending] deepen, the backlog of criminal cases grows, leaving defendants sitting in their cells waiting for a trial. Defendants such as Walter McMillian, who was sentenced to death in Alabama in 1988 for killing a white woman, serving six years before his conviction was overturned. In his powerful memoir, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson tells McMillian’s story and recalls his own struggles against injustice as a young lawyer. Thankfully, we do not have the death penalty in the UK. But our backlog of 41,000 criminal cases means some people are being held on remand for an even longer period than they would serve if convicted of their alleged offence.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Just Mercy is among Samantha Powers's six recommended books and Brené Brown's six top books that inspire bravery.

--Marshal Zeringue