The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice

ARC Executive Director Dr. Elizabeth Vartkessian’s clients are guilty of the most heinous crimes. But as Dr Vartkessian tells it, everyone has someone who loves them. Even people who have committed murder.

As a mitigator hired by criminal defence lawyers in the hope of reducing the severity of their clients’ punishments, Dr Vartkessian has spent hundreds of hours per case talking to mothers, siblings, teachers, and neighbours of a defendant, situating their crimes into context. As a detective of the accused person’s life, she learns details about familial behaviours and relationship patterns, community settings – and what she finds, every single time, is that when personal or generational trauma enters the body, it finds its way out eventually.

In this fascinating book, packed with the moving, real-life stories of the clients she has worked with over the past 20 years, The Deserving describes the vital role a mitigator plays in developing an understanding of how her clients arrived at the point in their life where they committed their crime. We learn that very few people (if any) are born evil, but that the forces that shape us as we grow up can lead to the most tragic of outcomes.

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.

To find upcoming speaking and book events, visit Liz’s website elizabethvartkessian.com.

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