Ghettoside by Jill Leovy

I don't normally read "true crime", equating it with people who slow down while driving to stare at an accident scene, but Leovy attempts more a study, almost of an anthropological nature, to explore black on black homicide rates in Los Angeles, by working alongside detectives in south L.A.  I have worked in policing as a dispatcher for over 25 years so have always struggled with my own prejudices as to why violent crime persists.  Leovy's thesis is fairly simple, by this I mean clearly portrayed, that the perception by black people in the neighbourhoods of south L.A. is that police and politicians do not care, because they are black, and thus they must police themselves. The homicide rates are staggering, almost impossible to comprehend.  Leovy backs her thesis with some history of the south and the need for extralegal imperatives in marginalised societies. She then turns her thesis on its head by following some of the dedicated detectives in their attempt and ultimate success in solving the murder of Bryant Tenelle, age 17.  Leovy explores the abject fear of witnesses to come forward due to the very real threat of reprisal.  She portrays the community's sense of exhaustion with police, that it is just another black man killed.  But a detective, John Skaggs, feels very deeply about the problem, stating with sadness and exasperation "all these innocent men!".   Tenelle had no gang ties and is the son of a police detective himself.   I wondered if the book would have had the same impact were Leovy to choose another victim to write about. Black lives matter but the emphasis on solving the homicide of a son of a police officer lends the book a certain slant that the son of a drug dealer or prostitute may be less interesting or of less impact to the reader.