Allyn & Bacon / Prentice Hall

Criminal Justice



Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice, 2/E
Matt Robinson, Eastern Kentucky University

ISBN-10: 0131137875
ISBN-13: 9780131137875

Publisher: Prentice Hall
Copyright: 2005
Format: Paper; 480 pp
Published: 05/12/2004

Suggested retail price: $62.60
Not available for purchase at this time.

For courses in Introduction to Criminal Justice and Issues in Criminal Justice.

Unlike most other introductions to criminal justice—which cover the traditional topics from the perspective of how “things are supposed to be,” this text compares these ideals with the realities of criminal justice today and provides a critical interpretation of the role of race, ethnicity, and gender in criminal justice. Organized around a “planned change” approach, it provides a critical assessment of how well the system achieves its goals.

  • NEW - Reorganized into 4 parts—I. The Criminal Justice System: Ideals and Realities, II. Crime: Images and Realities, III. Components of Criminal Justice: Police, Courts and Corrections, IV. Bad Criminal Justice Policy and How to Fix This Mess.

    • Provides students and instructors with a more logically organized presentation of material.

  • NEW - "The Role of Politics and Ideology in Criminal Justice: Realities."

    • Focuses students attention on the crucial role of political and ideological factors in American criminal justice processes.

  • NEW - Added material on terrorism and America's war on terror throughout the text.

    • Presents a critical examination of terrorism and the criminal justice system's response to terrorism.

  • NEW - Updated coverage of contemporary issues—Including the war on terror, the "McDonaldization" of criminal justice, media coverage of terrorism, white collar crime, and more.

    • Helps students critically examine contemporary issues and policies.

  • NEW - Numerous figures and tables added throughout the text.

    • Makes the text more visually appealing to students.

  • A Realistic Portrayal of criminal justice practices.

    • Contains a much more realistic portrayal of criminal justice practice than most other introductory texts and argues that the system as a whole is aimed at doing justice and reducing crime.

  • Explores how well our nation's criminal justice systems meets its goals.

    • Provides students with research that illustrates exactly how and why our system fails to achieve justice and effectively reduce crime.

  • "Key Concepts" at the beginning of each chapter and "Key Terms" throughout.

    • Alerts students to the ideas and terms that are important to remember, and makes them easy to find and review later.

  • Discussion questions follow each chapter.

    • Stimulates group interaction and debate on the issues.

  • The book has been reorganized into 4 parts—I. The Criminal Justice System: Ideals and Realities, II. Crime: Images and Realities, III. Components of Criminal Justice: Police, Courts and Corrections, IV. Bad Criminal Justice Policy and How to Fix This Mess.

    • Provides students and instructors with a more logically organized presentation of material.

  • "The Role of Politics and Ideology in Criminal Justice: Realities."

    • Focuses students attention on the crucial role of political and ideological factors in American criminal justice processes.

  • Added material on terrorism and America's war on terror throughout the text.

    • Presents a critical examination of terrorism and the criminal justice system's response to terrorism.

  • Updated coverage of contemporary issues—Including the war on terror, the "McDonaldization" of criminal justice, media coverage of terrorism, white collar crime, and more.

    • Helps students critically examine contemporary issues and policies.

  • Numerous figures and tables added throughout the text.

    • Makes the text more visually appealing to students.

(NOTE: Each chapter contains a Conclusion and concludes with Discussion Questions.)

List of Figures and Tables.


Foreword to the Second Edition.


Preface.

I. THE "CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM": IDEALS AND REALITIES.

1. What Is the Criminal Justice System? Ideals.

What Is a System?

What Is the Criminal Justice System? Why the Criminal Justice System Is Not a System.

Ideal Goals of Criminal Justice.

Reducing Crime. Doing Justice.

What is Justice?

Conflicting Views of Justice. Due Process versus Crime Control. Justice Today.

Issue in Depth: Justitia—The Lady Justice.

2. The Role of Politics and Ideology in Criminal Justice: Realities.

Alternative Goals of Criminal Justice.

Serving Interests and Controlling the Population.

Functions Versus Purposes of Criminal Justice.

What is Politics?

What is Ideology?

How are Politics, Ideology, and Criminal Justice Related?

How Did Criminal Justice Become So Political and Ideological? Crime, Politics, and Ideology Today.

Issue in Depth: McDonaldization of America's Police, Courts, and Corrections.

3. The Law: Providing Equal Protection or Creating Bias?

What Is the Law?

Where Does the Law Come From?

Types of law.

Natural Law. Positive Law. Common Law. Criminal Law and Civil Law.

What Is the Purpose of the Criminal Law?

Who Makes the Law?

Demographics of Lawmakers. Voting Behavior Special Interests/Lobbying.

How the Criminal Law Fails to Protect Americans.

Big Tobacco.

Issue in Depth: New Antiterrorism Laws.

II. CRIME: IMAGES AND REALITIES.

4. Crime: Which Is Worse, Crime on the Streets or Crime in the Suites?

What Is a Crime?

Legal Definition of Crime.

Types of Crime in the United States.

Serious/Street Crime. Other Conceptions of Crime: White-collar Deviance. What is Victimization? A Comparison of Harms Associated with Crimes and "Noncrimes".

Sources of Crime Information: Do We Really Know How Much Crime is Out There?

Uniform Crime Reports. National Crime Victimization Survey. American Crime Trends, According to the UCR and NCVS. Self Report Studies. Sources of Data on White-collar Deviance.

Issue in Depth: Enron, WorIdCom, Tyco, and the Other Corporate Bandits.

5. "The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!" Media Portrayals of Crime and Criminal Justice.

An Introduction to the Media.

What the Media Do and Do Not Do.

Does It Matter? Are People Exposed to the Media?

Media Coverage of Crime and Criminal Justice.

The Focus of Media Reporting on Crime: What the Media Cover and Ignore. Crime Trends. Lack of Critical Coverage: Where's the Context? Media and Fear of Crime: The Chicken Little Phenomenon.

Explanations of Media Inaccuracy.

Organizational Factors: Entertainment for Profit. Peer Culture. Lack of Criminal Justice. The Role of Politics in the "Framing" of Crime.

Issue in Depth: Media Coverage of September 11th and the War on Terror.

III. COMPONENTS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: POLICE, COURTS, AND CORRECTIONS.

6. Law Enforcement: To Serve and Protect?

The Organization of Policing in the United States.

Basic Roles and Responsibilities of Police Officers: What Police Do and How They Do It.

How Police Serve Crime Victims.

The Move to Community Policing.

How Police are Supposed to Behave.

Innocent Bias: How Policing is Organized in the United States.

The Use of Police Discretion. The Use of Police Profiling. The Location of Police on the Streets of the United States. The Particular Focus of Police on Certain Types of Crimes. Policing the War on Drugs.

American Stop Rates and Arrest Rates.

Use of Force.

Differential Views of the Police.

Corruption in American Policing.

Issue in Depth: Corruption in the Criminal Justice Network.

7. Right to Trial? Injustice in Pretrial and Trial Procedures.

What are the Courts?

The Organization of Courts in the United States. What Courts Do. The Courtroom Workgroup.

An Imbalance of Power in the Court: From Judge to Prosecution.

Pretrial Procedures and Justice.

Bail As an Injustice. Plea Bargaining As an Injustice.

The Unequal Right to a Defense in the United States: Public versus Private Attorneys.

The "Exceptional Case" of Trial.

Stages of the Criminal Trial.

Issue in Depth: Wrongful Convictions.

8. Punishment: Does It Work and Is It Fair?

An Introduction to Sentencing.

Types of Sentences.

Methods of Punishment.

Punishment Facts.

Why Do We Punish?

Retribution. Incapacitation. Deterrence. Rehabilitation. Punishment: A Summary.

Is Punishment Effective?

What We've Learned From Offenders. What We've Learned From Other Criminal Justice Research.

Bias in the Sentencing Process.

Issue in Depth: Professor C. Ray Jeffery on Why Punishment Does Not Work.

9. Incarceration: Lock 'Em Up and Throw Away Your Money.

The Organization of Corrections in the United States.

America's Incarceration Rate.

What It Costs.

Who's In Prison and Jail?

What Happens in Prison? Pains of Imprisonment.

Loss of Liberty. Loss of Autonomy. Loss of Security. Deprivation of Heterosexual Relationships. Deprivation of Goods and Services. Loss of Voting Rights. Loss of Dignity. Stigmatization. Summary: Pains of Imprisonment.

Forgiving the Offender: Why Harass Parolees?

How and Why Corrections Reflects Criminal Justice Bias.

Issue in Depth: The Convict School of Criminology.

IV. BAD CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY AND HOW TO FIX THIS MESS.

10. The Ultimate Sanction: Death as Justice?

A Brief History of Capital Punishment.

Death Penalty Facts.

Public Support for Capital Punishment.

Justifications for Capital Punishment: Logical or Not?

Vengeance. Retribution. Incapacitation. Deterrence.

What's Wrong With the Death Penalty? Alleged Problems With the Administration of Death.

Issue in Depth: A Broken System, Parts I and II.

11. The "War on Drugs": Focusing on the Wrong Drugs?

The War on Drugs.

What Is a Drug?

Types of Drugs.

Extent of Drug Use in the United States.

Harms Associated with Drugs.

Legal Status of Each Drug: Why Are the Most Harmful Drugs Legal While Some Relatively Harmless Drugs Are Illegal?

The Role of the Media in Drug Scares.

Harms Caused By the Drug War.

On Legalization.

Issue in Depth: Decriminalize It!

12. The War on Crime as a Threat to Equality: Innocent Bias Against the Poor, People of Color, and Women.

Is the War On Crime A War on the Poor?

Is the Criminal Justice Network Biased Against People of Color?

Race, Ethnicity, and Social Class. Race, Ethnicity, Government Policy, and Criminal Justice.

Gender and Criminal Justice.

Issue in Depth: The Greatest Threat to Civil Rights Is the Criminal Justice Network.

13. Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations for the Future.

Summary: The Criminal Justice Network Fails to Achieve Justice and Reduce Crime.

Where to Go From Here: Alternatives to Current Criminal Justice Practice.

General Recommendations About Government and Informing Citizens. Recommendations About Reforming the Law and Crime. Recommendations About the Media. Recommendations About the Police. Recommendations About the Courts and About Sentencing. Recommendations About Corrections.

Likelihood of Success.

Issue in Depth: Toward Social Justice: Groups Doing the Work Now.

References.

Index.

    For courses in Introduction to Criminal Justice and Issues in Criminal Justice.

     

    Unlike most other books in introduction to criminal justice, this book addresses both the ideals and the realities of American criminal justice agencies. Rather than just covering the traditional topics from the perspective of how things are supposed to be, this text compares these ideals with the realities of what is happening in the system today. With an emphasis on critical examination, it explores the criminal law, crime images and realities, the role that ideology and politics play in criminal justice practice, the components of criminal justice, and problematic policies and possible resolutions.

     

  • 0135147743Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice, 3/E
    Robinson
    © 2009 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 540 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0135147743 | ISBN-13: 9780135147740
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

"Any institution that is interested in taking a critical approach to criminal justice issues could benefit from this text... This text can contribute to the development of a student's critical thinking skills." — Gwen Hunnicutt, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

"This text definitely stands out as one of the more Current and critical examinations of our justice system." — Charles A. Brawnier, Heartland Community College

"The comprehensiveness of this critical exposition sets it apart from other critical, treatises. It is-in fact a compendium of the separate issues targeted by individual critics in the critical criminological community in a straightforward, easy to read textbook. . For this reason, it should be essential, reading for not only those audiences earlier identified, but also for general audiences who wish to understand why the criminal justice system behaves as it does." — E.J. Williams, formerly of Fayetteville State University

JUSTICE BLIND? IDEALS AND REALITIES OF AMERICAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE critically examines criminal justice and media processes; including the political and ideological nature of lawmaking, crime and terrorism. It also raises questions about media coverage of crime, terrorism, and criminal justice, a growing concern in the quest for fairness and honesty within our political realm. Other important issues and topics are raised in an effort to facilitate factual and open discussion about the criminal justice system in areas such as policing, bail and plea bargaining, sentencing, punishment through incarceration and the death penalty, the war on drugs, and the role that race, class, and gender play in criminal justice.

Posing important questions, showing different viewpoints, and offering fair solutions, author Matthew B. Robinson provides a thought-provoking critique of American criminal justice aimed at bringing about real-world change in our political and criminal justice agencies.

View a Sample Chapter PDF:

  • Instructor's Manual, 2/E
    Robinson
    © 2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 130 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0131137891 | ISBN-13: 9780131137899


For Introduction to Criminal Justice


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