NCCD Announces 2015 Distinguished Achievement Award Winner

December 15, 2015 | National Council on Crime and Delinquency

bryan-stevenson

NCCD is pleased to congratulate author, lawyer, and Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson on receiving the Media for a Just Society Awards’ highest honor, the Distinguished Achievement Award. In selecting a winner, NCCD seeks works that illustrate current realities or the promise of reform, especially those that help people understand the complex issues surrounding the nation’s social systems. 

NCCD is pleased to congratulate author, lawyer, and Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson on receiving the Media for a Just Society Awards’ highest honor, the Distinguished Achievement Award. In selecting a winner, NCCD seeks works that illustrate current realities or the promise of reform, especially those that help people understand the complex issues surrounding the nation’s social systems. 

CEO Kathy Park presented the award to Stevenson at an event in October. In her remarks, Park noted that “Just Mercy is the epitome of what the Distinguished Achievement Award was created to recognize: a strong, humanizing work of art with a love of justice at its core. It unflinchingly portrays some of the worst problems with our justice system, and the most severe effects those problems can have on a person’s life. Most of all, it shows us exactly what is at stake in our systems, and what an incredible impact one person can make.”

Just Mercy is a powerful true story—and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of justice.

NCCD applauds the work of Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative, and urges you all to read Just Mercy, this year’s Distinguished Achievement Award winner.

Watch Stevenson’s moving acceptance speech at the recent award reception and book signing in Madison, Wisconsin.