Novel Justice is a book event series hosted by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. We invite authors to discuss recently published criminal justice books and to engage in Q&A with faculty and students. David Sklansky is the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. His book, A Pattern of Violence: How the Law Classifies Crimes and What It Means for Justice, reveals how inconsistent ideas about violence, enshrined in law, are at the root of the problems that plague our entire criminal justice system-from mass incarceration to police brutality.