The ninth edition of Criminal Law for Police Officers presents the historical concepts fundamental to understanding criminal law. The book is written in a non-legalese format, which makes it very student friendly. Areas covered include jurisdiction, matters of responsibility and accountability, and general principles about the criminal act. Book jacket.
Criminology Explains Police Violence offers a concise and targeted overview of criminological theory applied to the phenomenon of police violence. In this engaging and accessible book, Philip M. Stinson, Sr. highlights the similarities and differences among criminological theories, and provides linkages across explanatory levels and across time and geography to explain police violence. This book is appropriate as a resource in criminology, policing, and criminal justice special topic courses, as well as a variety of violence and police courses such as policing, policing administration, police-community relations, police misconduct, and violence in society. Stinson uses examples from his own research to explore police violence, acknowledging the difficulty in studying the topic because violence is often seen as a normal part of policing.
Now in its fifteenth edition, this well-respected and highly regarded book covers all areas of law and legal procedure which are of interest to police officers. Updated to include new legislation such as the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, the Deregulation Act 2015, the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the Serious Crime Act 2015 and the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. There is also discussion of important changes to PACE Codes A, and E, new case law and a revised structure reflecting the changing nature of policing and the challenges officers face. Comprehensive and easy to understand, Police Law is an indispensable everyday reference book for police officers, and is the only book covering all areas of police law. The book also provides a good source of information for members of the public who wish to refer to a legal text written in an accessible way. Police Law is accompanied by a useful companion website containing regular updates on changes in the law throughout the life of the print edition.
A Chicago journalist reveals how pervasive police misconduct, brutality, and corruption are changing the perspective of the criminal justice system and eroding the morals of the American people. In this shocking yet fascinating volume, an award-winning Chicago journalist goes behind the headlines to provide a far-reaching analysis of brutality, vice, and corruption among men and women who have sworn to serve and protect. This timely book draws on actual cases to examine the widespread phenomenon of corruption inside law enforcement agencies. It looks at the effort of criminal elements and gangs to infiltrate police departments and the criminal justice system, and it discusses how vigilante justice is encouraged by claims of police misconduct. Of particular importance to readers, the book also exposes the trickle-down effect of police corruption as it affects American values and society as a whole. But the news is not all bad. Police departments across the nation are fighting back against abuse of power, and the author sheds light on the escalating battle they are waging against rogue police officers involved in criminal activity. Through Stanford's investigative work and firsthand interviews with leading law enforcement professionals, readers will be privy to the backstory of the struggle of police commands to insulate their departments against the criminality and corruption so prevalent today.
The now-famous videotape of the beating of Rodney King precipitated a national outcry against police violence. Skolnick and Fyfe, two of the nation's top experts on law enforcement, use the incident to introduce a revealing historical analysis of such violence and the extent of its survival in law enforcement today.
Violent crime has been rising sharply in many American cities after two decades of decline. Homicides jumped nearly 17 percent in 2015 in the largest 50 cities, the biggest one-year increase since 1993. The reason is what Heather Mac Donald first identified nationally as the “Ferguson effect”: Since the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, officers have been backing off of proactive policing, and criminals are becoming emboldened. This book expands on Mac Donald’s groundbreaking and controversial reporting on the Ferguson effect and the criminal-justice system. It deconstructs the central narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement: that racist cops are the greatest threat to young black males. On the contrary, it is criminals and gangbangers who are responsible for the high black homicide death rate. The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the conceit of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department. Mac Donald gives voice to the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing. She warns that race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. This book is a call for a more honest and informed debate about policing, crime, and race.
Providing a complete view of U.S. legal principles, this book addresses distinct issues as well as the overlays and connections between them. It presents as a cohesive whole the interrelationships between constitutional principles, statutory criminal laws, procedural law, and common-law evidentiary doctrines. This fully revised and updated new edition also includes discussion questions and hypothetical scenarios to check learning. Constitutional principles are the foundation upon which substantive criminal law, criminal procedure law, and evidence laws rely. The concepts of due process, legality, specificity, notice, equality, and fairness are intrinsic to these three disciplines, and a firm understanding of their implications is necessary for a thorough comprehension of the topic. This book examines the tensions produced by balancing the ideals of individual liberty embodied in the Constitution against society’s need to enforce criminal laws as a means of achieving social control, order, and safety. Relying on his first-hand experience as a law enforcement official and criminal defense attorney, the author presents issues that highlight the difficulties in applying constitutional principles to specific criminal justice situations. Each chapter of the text contains a realistic problem in the form of a fact pattern that focuses on one or more classic criminal justice issues to which readers can relate. These problems are presented from the points of view of citizens caught up in a police investigation and of police officers attempting to enforce the law within the framework of constitutional protections. This book is ideal for courses in criminal law and procedure that seek to focus on the philosophical underpinnings of the system.
