Comic Book Crime
Comic Book Crime

Author: Nickie D. Phillips

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2013-07-15

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0814764525

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Superman, Batman, Daredevil, and Wonder Woman are iconic cultural figures that embody values of order, fairness, justice, and retribution. Comic Book Crime digs deep into these and other celebrated characters, providing a comprehensive understanding of crime and justice in contemporary American comic books. This is a world where justice is delivered, where heroes save ordinary citizens from certain doom, where evil is easily identified and thwarted by powers far greater than mere mortals could possess. Nickie Phillips and Staci Strobl explore these representations and show that comic books, as a historically important American cultural medium, participate in both reflecting and shaping an American ideological identity that is often focused on ideas of the apocalypse, utopia, retribution, and nationalism. Through an analysis of approximately 200 comic books sold from 2002 to 2010, as well as several years of immersion in comic book fan culture, Phillips and Strobl reveal the kinds of themes and plots popular comics feature in a post-9/11 context. They discuss heroes’ calculations of “deathworthiness,” or who should be killed in meting out justice, and how these judgments have as much to do with the hero’s character as they do with the actions of the villains. This fascinating volume also analyzes how class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are used to construct difference for both the heroes and the villains in ways that are both conservative and progressive. Engaging, sharp, and insightful, Comic Book Crime is a fresh take on the very meaning of truth, justice, and the American way.

Criminal Justice and the Pursuit of Truth
Criminal Justice and the Pursuit of Truth

Author: Hillier, Tim

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2021-06-16

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1529203198

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Can the criminal justice system achieve justice based on its ability to determine the truth? Drawing on a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, this book investigates the concept of truth – its complexities and nuances – and scrutinizes how well the criminal justice process facilitates truth-finding. From allegation to sentencing, the chapters take the reader on a journey through the criminal justice system, exposing the marginalization of truth-finding in favour of other jurisprudential or systemic values, such as expediency, procedural fairness and the presumption of innocence. This important work bridges the gap between what people expect from the criminal justice system and what it can legitimately deliver.

Finding the Truth with Criminal Investigation
Finding the Truth with Criminal Investigation

Author: Daniel A. Reilly

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-08-15

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1538113864

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The way a crime is defined is through criminal investigation. Criminal investigation is a multi-faceted effort that involves the study of facts presented by a criminal act or pattern of criminal conduct. These facts are then used to identify, locate and prove the guilt or innocence of a person or persons. Criminal investigation is usually carried out by a law enforcement agency using all of the resources available to discover, locate or establish evidence proving and verifying the relevant facts for presentation to a Court or other judicial authority. But how are these facts discovered? What resources do law enforcement use to uncover them? What is the process for a successful criminal investigation? In fact, how can we even define what is “criminal” in the first place? Daniel A. Reilly answers all these important questions, while providing the step by step process to gather facts, information, data, and evidence. Finding the Truth with Criminal Investigation is intended to answer all of the questions of who, what, where, when, why and how a violent crime occurred and/or was committed. It is intended for students in the field of criminal justice who wish to become criminal investigators – exposing them to the tools and processes needed to conduct a proper criminal investigation, but also real-life of working to support others as a team. Reilly spent a great deal of his professional life working on homicide cases, and he offers students his expertise in criminal investigation by successfully incorporating real-world context throughout this book.

Truth, Error, and Criminal Law
Truth, Error, and Criminal Law

Author: Larry Laudan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-06-05

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 113945708X

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Beginning with the premise that the principal function of a criminal trial is to find out the truth about a crime, Larry Laudan examines the rules of evidence and procedure that would be appropriate if the discovery of the truth were, as higher courts routinely claim, the overriding aim of the criminal justice system. Laudan mounts a systematic critique of existing rules and procedures that are obstacles to that quest. He also examines issues of error distribution by offering the first integrated analysis of the various mechanisms - the standard of proof, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof - for implementing society's view about the relative importance of the errors that can occur in a trial.

Truth v. Justice
Truth v. Justice

Author: Robert I. Rotberg

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1400832039

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The truth commission is an increasingly common fixture of newly democratic states with repressive or strife-ridden pasts. From South Africa to Haiti, truth commissions are at work with varying degrees of support and success. To many, they are the best--or only--way to achieve a full accounting of crimes committed against fellow citizens and to prevent future conflict. Others question whether a restorative justice that sets the guilty free, that cleanses society by words alone, can deter future abuses and allow victims and their families to heal. Here, leading philosophers, lawyers, social scientists, and activists representing several perspectives look at the process of truth commissioning in general and in post-apartheid South Africa. They ask whether the truth commission, as a method of seeking justice after conflict, is fair, moral, and effective in bringing about reconciliation. The authors weigh the virtues and failings of truth commissions, especially the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in their attempt to provide restorative rather than retributive justice. They examine, among other issues, the use of reparations as social policy and the granting of amnesty in exchange for testimony. Most of the contributors praise South Africa's decision to trade due process for the kinds of truth that permit closure. But they are skeptical that such revelations produce reconciliation, particularly in societies that remain divided after a compromise peace with no single victor, as in El Salvador. Ultimately, though, they find the truth commission to be a worthy if imperfect instrument for societies seeking to say "never again" with confidence. At a time when truth commissions have been proposed for Bosnia, Kosovo, Cyprus, East Timor, Cambodia, Nigeria, Palestine, and elsewhere, the authors' conclusion that restorative justice provides positive gains could not be more important. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Amy Gutmann, Rajeev Bhargava, Elizabeth Kiss, David A. Crocker, André du Toit, Alex Boraine, Dumisa Ntsebeza, Lisa Kois, Ronald C. Slye, Kent Greenawalt, Sanford Levinson, Martha Minow, Charles S. Maier, Charles Villa-Vicencio, and Wilhelm Verwoerd.

Criminal
Criminal

Author: Tom Gash

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2016-05-05

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0241960444

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The way we see and understand crime falls into two types of story that, in essence, have been told and retold many times throughout human history - in fiction, as in fact. Criminality is either a selfish choice, an aberration; or a forced choice, the product of social factors. These two stories continue to dominate both our views of and responses to crime. And, says Tom Gash, they are completely wrong. In seeking to dispel the myths that surround and inform our views of crime, Criminal argues that our obsession with 'big arguments' about crime's causes can lead us to mistake individual cases as proof of universal rules. How, he asks, can we suspend our knee-jerk reactions, and begin to understand crime for what it is: as a risk that can be managed and reduced.

Law and Lies
Law and Lies

Author: Austin Sarat

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-07-20

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1107108780

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This is the first book to thematically investigate lying in the American legal system.

When Truth Is All You Have
When Truth Is All You Have

Author: Jim McCloskey

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0385545045

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“A riveting and infuriating examination of criminal prosecutions, revealing how easy it is to convict the wrong person and how nearly impossible it is to undo the error.” —Washington Post "No one has illuminated this problem more thoughtfully and persistently." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would change his life. A former management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world; he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary at the age of 37. His first assignment, in 1980, was as a chaplain at Trenton State Prison. Among the inmates was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who'd been convicted of murder years earlier. He swore to McCloskey that he was innocent—and, over time, McCloskey came to believe him. With no legal or investigative training to speak of, McCloskey threw himself into the case. Two years later, thanks to those efforts, Jorge de los Santos walked free, fully exonerated. McCloskey had found his calling. He established Centurion Ministries, the first group in America devoted to overturning wrongful convictions. Together with his staff and a team of forensic experts, lawyers, and volunteers—through tireless investigation and an unflagging dedication to justice—Centurion has freed 65 innocent prisoners who had been sentenced to life or death. When Truth Is All You Have is McCloskey's inspirational story, as well as those of the unjustly imprisoned for whom he has fought. Spanning the nation, it is a chronicle of faith and doubt; of triumphant success and shattering failure. It candidly exposes a life of searching and struggle, uplifted by McCloskey's certainty that he had found what he was put on earth to do. Filled with generosity, humor, and compassion, it is the soul-bearing account of a man who has redeemed innumerable lives—and incited a movement—with nothing more than his unshakeable belief in the truth.

Prison Truth
Prison Truth

Author: William J. Drummond

Publisher: University of California Press

Published: 2020-01-07

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 0520298365

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San Quentin State Prison, California’s oldest prison and the nation’s largest, is notorious for once holding America’s most dangerous prisoners. But in 2008, the Bastille-by-the-Bay became a beacon for rehabilitation through the prisoner-run newspaper the San Quentin News. Prison Truth tells the story of how prisoners, many serving life terms, transformed the prison climate from what Johnny Cash called a living hell to an environment that fostered positive change in inmates’ lives. Award-winning journalist William J. Drummond takes us behind bars, introducing us to Arnulfo García, the visionary prisoner who led the revival of the newspaper. Drummond describes how the San Quentin News, after a twenty-year shutdown, was recalled to life under an enlightened warden and the small group of local retired newspaper veterans serving as advisers, which Drummond joined in 2012. Sharing how officials cautiously and often unwittingly allowed the newspaper to tell the stories of the incarcerated, Prison Truth illustrates the power of prison media to humanize the experiences of people inside penitentiary walls and to forge alliances with social justice networks seeking reform.

The Truth about Crime
The Truth about Crime

Author: Jean Comaroff

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 022642491X

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This new book by the well-known anthropologists Jean and John L. Comaroff explores the global preoccupation with criminality in the early twenty-first century, a preoccupation strikingly disproportionate, in most places and for most people, to the risks posed by lawlessness to the conduct of everyday life. Ours in an epoch in which law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcement are ever more critical registers in which societies construct, contest, and confront truths about themselves, an epoch in which criminology, broadly defined, has displaced sociology as the privileged means by which the social world knows itself. They also argue that as the result of a tectonic shift in the triangulation of capital, the state, and governance, the meanings attached to crime and, with it, the nature of policing, have undergone significant change; also, that there has been a palpable muddying of the lines between legality and illegality, between corruption and conventional business; even between crime-and-policing, which exist, nowadays, in ever greater, hyphenated complicity. Thinking through Crime and Policing is, therefore, an excursion into the contemporary Order of Things; or, rather, into the metaphysic of disorder that saturates the late modern world, indeed, has become its leitmotif. It is also a meditation on sovereignty and citizenship, on civility, class, and race, on the law and its transgression, on the political economy of representation.