Flawed Criminal Justice Policies

Flawed Criminal Justice Policies

Author: Frances P. Reddington

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781594609367

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This textbook reader examines the concept of flawed policies in the criminal justice arena. The authors address the costs of bad criminal justice policy and offer suggestions for the creation of good, sound, evidence-based policy. Specific topics highlighted include: * The War on Drugs * Immigration Laws * The Patriot Act and Terrorist Laws * Sentencing Guidelines * Three Strikes Laws * Capital Punishment * Sex Offender Laws * "Get Tough" Juvenile Policy * Zero Tolerance in Schools * Policies for Mental Health Offenders * Policies with Pregnant Offenders Courses appropriate for this textbook reader include upper level undergraduate and graduate level criminal justice courses dealing at least in part with public policies, the media impact on law making, public fear of crime and the legislative response. Other disciplines will also find this book an excellent supplement to their courses in Psychology, Political Science, Public Administration and Policy. "As a policy-oriented coursebook in the social science arena, Flawed Criminal Justice Policies by Reddington and Bonham is unparalleled. The authors' proficiency in examining unsustainable criminal justice policies, the misguided public perception and the capricious nature of the media's portrayal of crime compels students to reexamine our nation's crime problem from a much more common sense approach. My students described the textbook as 'practical, real world and thought provoking'. I highly recommend this text and many of my colleagues have also adopted it. It will truly engage your students and elicit great debates and classroom discussion." -- Professor Joanne C. Metzger J.D, Temple University, Department of Criminal Justice The Teacher's Manual is available as a pdf via email or on a CD. Please contact Beth Hall at [email protected] to request a copy. PowerPoint slides are available upon adoption. Sample slides from the full, 153-slide presentation are available to view here. Email [email protected] for more information.


Out-of-Control Criminal Justice

Out-of-Control Criminal Justice

Author: Daniel P. Mears

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-09-28

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 110716169X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book shows how to reduce out-of-control criminal justice and create greater public safety, justice, and accountability at less cost.


The Collapse of American Criminal Justice

The Collapse of American Criminal Justice

Author: William J. Stuntz

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-09-30

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 0674051750

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Rule of law has vanished in America’s criminal justice system. Prosecutors decide whom to punish; most accused never face a jury; policing is inconsistent; plea bargaining is rampant; and draconian sentencing fills prisons with mostly minority defendants. A leading criminal law scholar looks to history for the roots of these problems—and solutions.


Illusion of Order

Illusion of Order

Author: Bernard E. Harcourt

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2005-02-15

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780674038318

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first book to challenge the broken-windows theory of crime, which argues that permitting minor misdemeanors, such as loitering and vagrancy, to go unpunished only encourages more serious crime. The theory has revolutionized policing in the United States and abroad, with its emphasis on policies that crack down on disorderly conduct and aggressively enforce misdemeanor laws. The problem, argues Bernard Harcourt, is that although the broken-windows theory has been around for nearly thirty years, it has never been empirically verified. Indeed, existing data suggest that it is false. Conceptually, it rests on unexamined categories of law abiders and disorderly people and of order and disorder, which have no intrinsic reality, independent of the techniques of punishment that we implement in our society. How did the new order-maintenance approach to criminal justice--a theory without solid empirical support, a theory that is conceptually flawed and results in aggressive detentions of tens of thousands of our fellow citizens--come to be one of the leading criminal justice theories embraced by progressive reformers, policymakers, and academics throughout the world? This book explores the reasons why. It also presents a new, more thoughtful vision of criminal justice.


Crime Control, Politics and Policy

Crime Control, Politics and Policy

Author: Peter J. Benekos

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-09-25

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1317523474

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book reviews concepts, information and points of view that help to explain the context and constraints of the criminal justice system. The chapters summarize developments in public policy and crime control, and interweave themes central to the discussion: the impact of ideology, the role of the media, and the politicization of crime and criminal justice.


Making Sense of Criminal Justice

Making Sense of Criminal Justice

Author: G. Larry Mays

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2018-06

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9780190679279

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Rather than providing students with "the answers," Making Sense of Criminal Justice: Policies and Practices, Third Edition, challenges them to think critically about how the criminal justice system deals with challenging situations--like the use of force by the police--and offers a framework for lively classroom discussions and debates.


The New Criminal Justice Thinking

The New Criminal Justice Thinking

Author: Sharon Dolovich

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2017-03-28

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 1479831549

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A vital collection for reforming criminal justice After five decades of punitive expansion, the entire U.S. criminal justice system— mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, police practices, the treatment of juveniles and the mentally ill, glaring racial disparity, the death penalty and more — faces challenging questions. What exactly is criminal justice? How much of it is a system of law and how much is a collection of situational social practices? What roles do the Constitution and the Supreme Court play? How do race and gender shape outcomes? How does change happen, and what changes or adaptations should be pursued? The New Criminal Justice Thinking addresses the challenges of this historic moment by asking essential theoretical and practical questions about how the criminal system operates. In this thorough and thoughtful volume, scholars from across the disciplines of legal theory, sociology, criminology, Critical Race Theory, and organizational theory offer crucial insights into how the criminal system works in both theory and practice. By engaging both classic issues and new understandings, this volume offers a comprehensive framework for thinking about the modern justice system. For those interested in criminal law and justice, The New Criminal Justice Thinking offers a profound discussion of the complexities of our deeply flawed criminal justice system, complexities that neither legal theory nor social science can answer alone.


The Feminist War on Crime

The Feminist War on Crime

Author: Aya Gruber

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2020-05-26

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0520973143

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Many feminists grapple with the problem of hyper-incarceration in the United States, and yet commentators on gender crime continue to assert that criminal law is not tough enough. This punitive impulse, prominent legal scholar Aya Gruber argues, is dangerous and counterproductive. In their quest to secure women’s protection from domestic violence and rape, American feminists have become soldiers in the war on crime by emphasizing white female victimhood, expanding the power of police and prosecutors, touting the problem-solving power of incarceration, and diverting resources toward law enforcement and away from marginalized communities. Deploying vivid cases and unflinching analysis, The Feminist War on Crime documents the failure of the state to combat sexual and domestic violence through law and punishment. Zero-tolerance anti-violence law and policy tend to make women less safe and more fragile. Mandatory arrests, no-drop prosecutions, forced separation, and incarceration embroil poor women of color in a criminal justice system that is historically hostile to them. This carceral approach exacerbates social inequalities by diverting more power and resources toward a fundamentally flawed criminal justice system, further harming victims, perpetrators, and communities alike. In order to reverse this troubling course, Gruber contends that we must abandon the conventional feminist wisdom, fight violence against women without reinforcing the American prison state, and use criminalization as a technique of last—not first—resort.


Who Are the Criminals?

Who Are the Criminals?

Author: John Hagan

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-10-04

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 140083631X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How did the United States go from being a country that tries to rehabilitate street criminals and prevent white-collar crime to one that harshly punishes common lawbreakers while at the same time encouraging corporate crime through a massive deregulation of business? Why do street criminals get stiff prison sentences, a practice that has led to the disaster of mass incarceration, while white-collar criminals, who arguably harm more people, get slaps on the wrist--if they are prosecuted at all? In Who Are the Criminals?, one of America's leading criminologists provides new answers to these vitally important questions by telling how the politicization of crime in the twentieth century transformed and distorted crime policymaking and led Americans to fear street crime too much and corporate crime too little. John Hagan argues that the recent history of American criminal justice can be divided into two eras--the age of Roosevelt (roughly 1933 to 1973) and the age of Reagan (1974 to 2008). A focus on rehabilitation, corporate regulation, and the social roots of crime in the earlier period was dramatically reversed in the later era. In the age of Reagan, the focus shifted to the harsh treatment of street crimes, especially drug offenses, which disproportionately affected minorities and the poor and resulted in wholesale imprisonment. At the same time, a massive deregulation of business provided new opportunities, incentives, and even rationalizations for white-collar crime--and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The time for moving beyond Reagan-era crime policies is long overdue, Hagan argues. The understanding of crime must be reshaped and we must reconsider the relative harms and punishments of street and corporate crimes.


The Law's Flaws

The Law's Flaws

Author: Larry Laudan

Publisher:

Published: 2016-08-22

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781848901995

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is a book about the law's failure as a system of empirical inquiry. While the US Supreme Court repeatedly says that the aim of a trial is to find out the truth about a crime, there is abundant evidence that many of the rules of evidence and legal procedure are not truth-conducive. Quite the contrary; many are truth-thwarting. Relevant evidence of defendant's guilt is often excluded; reasonable inferences from the available evidence are likewise often excluded. When a defendant elects not to testify, jurors are told to draw no inculpatory inferences from the former's refusal to be questioned. If evidence of prior crimes committed by the defendant is admitted (and often it is excluded), jurors are strictly told to use them only for deciding whether the defendant lied during his testimony and not as evidence of his guilt. Making matters worse, the most important evidence rule of all (saying that defendant can be convicted only if there are no reasonable doubts about his guilt) is monumentally vague; and judges are under firm instruction to decline jurors' frequent requests to explain what a 'reasonable doubt' is. Lastly, this book examines the fact that American courts collect little information about how often they convict the innocent and no information about how often they acquit the guilty. This is tragic because ignorance of the error rates in trials and in plea bargains means that citizens have no grounds for confidence in the judicial system; such a condition of non-transparency should be unacceptable in a democracy. Reform is urgent and this book sketches some of the necessary changes.