Ezra's Bookshelf

Becoming Ms. Burton

by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn · 252 pages · ~4.5 hrs

Biography & MemoirLaw & Justice

Recommended on

buy on bookshop.org →
Susan Burton spent decades cycling through California's prison system, locked up repeatedly for drug offenses rooted in untreated trauma. Her crime, ultimately, was poverty: lacking resources for rehab, she found herself incarcerated whenever addiction overwhelmed her. After her final release, she founded A New Way of Life, an organization that has helped over a thousand formerly incarcerated women rebuild their lives. This memoir, cowritten with journalist Cari Lynn, tells Burton's story from childhood trauma through addiction, incarceration, and transformation. Her son was killed by a car when he was five years old; unable to access mental health care, she turned to drugs. Each arrest compounded her difficulties, making housing and employment harder to find, pushing her deeper into cycles she could not escape alone. The book documents how she broke those cycles and then built an organization to help others do the same. Burton's work has been recognized with awards and featured in major media. Her story illustrates how the War on Drugs criminalized responses to trauma while failing to provide alternatives. Readers interested in criminal justice reform, addiction, or simply human resilience will find inspiration in Burton's journey from prisoner to advocate.

For fans of