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Copyright, ii
About the Author, v
Foreword, xix
Preface, xxi
Acknowledgments, xxvi
Part I. The “Criminal Justice System”: Ideals and Realities, 1
Chapter 1. What Is the Criminal Justice System? Ideals, 3
Introduction, 3
What is a system?, 4
What is the “criminal justice system”?, 4
Why the “criminal justice system” is not a system, 5
Ideal goals of criminal justice, 13
Reducing crime, 14
Doing justice, 14
What is justice?, 15
Conflicting views of justice, 16
Due process versus crime control, 17
Justice today, 21
Conclusion, 25
Issue in Depth—Justitia—The Lady Justice, 26
Key Terms, 29
Discussion Questions, 29
Chapter 2. The Role of Politics and Ideology in Criminal Justice: Realities, 30
Introduction, 30
Alternative goals of criminal justice, 31
Serving interests and controlling the population, 31
Functions versus purposes of criminal justice, 33
What is politics?, 34
What is ideology?, 35
How are politics, ideology, and criminal justice related?, 35
How did criminal justice become so political and ideological?, 41
Crime, politics, and ideology today, 43
Conclusion, 44
Issue in Depth—McDonaldization of America’s Police, Courts, and Corrections, 45
Key Terms, 50
Discussion Questions, 50
Chapter 3. The Law: Providing Equal Protection or Creating Bias?, 52
Introduction, 52
What is the law?, 53
Where does the law come from?, 55
Types of law, 56
Natural law, 56
Positive law, 57
Common law, 61
Criminal law and civil law, 63
What is the purpose of the criminal law?, 64
Who makes the law?, 66
Demographics of lawmakers, 66
Voting behavior, 70
Special interests/lobbying, 72
How the criminal law fails to protect Americans, 74
Big tobacco, 75
Big oil, 76
Conclusion, 77
Issue in Depth—New Antiterrorism Laws, 77
Key Terms, 81
Discussion Questions, 81
Part II. Crime: Images and Realities, 83
Chapter 4. Crime: Which Is Worse, Crime on the Streets or Crime in the Suites?, 85
Introduction, 86
What is a crime?, 86
Legal definition of crime, 87
Types of crime in the United States, 89
Serious/street crime, 89
Other conceptions of crime: Elite deviance, 94
What Is Victimization?, 97
A comparison of harms associated with crimes and “noncrimes”, 99
Sources of crime information: Do we really know how much crime is out there?, 106
Uniform Crime Reports, 106
National Crime Victimization Survey, 108
American crime trends, according to the UCR and NCVS, 110
Self-report studies, 113
Sources of data on elite deviance, 116
Conclusion, 117
Issue in Depth—Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and the Other Corporate Bandits, 117
Key Terms, 121
Discussion Questions, 121
Chapter 5. The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!—Media Portrayals of Crime and Criminal Justice, 123
Introduction, 123
An introduction to the media, 124
What the media do and do not do, 128
Does it matter? Are people exposed to the media?, 129
Media coverage of crime and criminal justice, 130
Focus of media reporting on crime: What the media cover and ignore, 134
Crime trends, 138
Lack of critical coverage: Where’s the context?, 139
Media and fear of crime: The Chicken Little phenomenon, 143
Explanations of media inaccuracy, 146
Organizational factors: Entertainment for profit, 147
Peer culture, 148
Lack of criminal justice education, 149
The role of politics in the “framing” of crime, 149
Conclusion, 151
Issue in Depth—Media Coverage of September 11th and the War on Terror, 152
Key Terms, 159
Discussion Questions, 159
Part III. Components of Criminal Justice: Police, Courts, and Corrections, 161
Chapter 6. Law Enforcement: To Serve and Protect?, 163
Introduction, 163
The organization of policing in the United States, 164
Basic roles and responsibilities of police officers: What police do and how they do it, 168
How police serve crime victims, 169
The move to community policing, 171
How police are supposed to behave, 175
Innocent bias: Why even good policing produces bias, 178
The particular focus of police on certain types of crime, 178
The location of police on the streets of the United States, 179
The use of police discretion, 180
The use of police profiling, 181
Policing the war on drugs, 184
American stop rates and arrest rates, 186
Use of force, 189
Corruption in American policing, 192
Conclusion, 195
Issue in Depth—Corruption in the Criminal Justice Network, 195
Key Terms, 198
Discussion Questions, 199
Chapter 7. Right to Trial? Injustice in Pretrial and Trial Procedures, 200
Introduction, 201
What are the courts?, 201
The organization of courts in the United States, 201
What courts do, 202
Types of crimes handled by courts, 203
Characteristics of court clients, 204
The courtroom workgroup, 204
An imbalance of power in the court: From judge to prosecution, 209
Pretrial procedures and justice, 210
Bail as an injustice, 210
Plea bargaining as an injustice, 218
The unequal right to a defense in the United States: Public versus private attorneys, 221
The “exceptional case” of trial, 223
Stages of the criminal trial, 224
Conclusion, 227
Issue in Depth—Wrongful Convictions, 228
Key Terms, 234
Discussion Questions, 235
Chapter 8. Punishment: Does It Work and Is It Fair?, 236
Introduction, 237
An introduction to sentencing, 237
Types of sentences, 237
Methods of punishment, 241
Punishment facts, 244
Why do we punish?, 246
Retribution, 247
Incapacitation, 248
Deterrence, 250
Rehabilitation, 252
Toward restoration, 253
Punishment: A summary, 253
Is punishment effective?, 255
What we’ve learned from offenders, 255
What we’ve learned from other criminal justice research, 257
Bias in the sentencing process, 260
Conclusion, 267
Issue in Depth—C. Ray Jeffery Explains the Failure of American Punishment, 267
Key Terms, 269
Discussion Questions, 269
Chapter 9. Incarceration: Lock ’Em Up and Forget About ’Em, 270
Introduction, 271
The organization of corrections in the United States, 271
America’s incarceration rate, 271
What it costs, 277
Who’s in prison and jail?, 277
What happens in prison? Pains of imprisonment, 282
Loss of liberty, 283
Loss of autonomy, 289
Loss of security, 290
Deprivation of heterosexual relationships, 291
Deprivation of goods and services, 292
Loss of voting rights, 293
Loss of dignity, 293
Stigmatization, 293
Summary of Pains of imprisonment, 294
Forgiving the offender: Why harass parolees?, 296
How and why corrections reflects criminal justice bias, 297
Conclusion, 300
Issue in Depth—The Convict School of Criminology, 301
Key Terms, 303
Discussion Questions, 303
Part IV. Failing Criminal Justice Policy and Hope for the Future, 305
Chapter 10. The Ultimate Sanction: Death As Justice?, 307
Introduction, 307
A brief history of capital punishment, 308
Death penalty facts, 315
Public support for capital punishment, 326
Justifications for capital punishment: Logical or not?, 332
Vengeance, 332
Retribution, 333
Deterrence, 338
Incapacitation, 341
What’s wrong with the death penalty? Alleged problems with the administration of death, 341
Conclusion, 353
Issue in Depth—Expert Opinion on Capital Punishment, 353
Key Terms, 360
Discussion Questions, 360
Chapter 11. The “War on Drugs”: Focusing on the Wrong Drugs?, 361
Introduction, 362
The War on Drugs, 362
Goals of the drug war, 363
Elements of the drug war, 364
Drugs and crime, 366
A brief history of the drug war, 367
What is a drug?, 369
Types of drugs, 371
Extent of drug use in the United States, 373
Harms associated with drugs, 378
Legal status of each drug: Why are the most harmful drugs legal while some relatively harmless drugs are illegal?, 384
The role of the media in drug scares, 386
Harms caused by the drug war, 390
Alternatives to the drug war: Legalization and decriminalization, 394
Conclusion, 403
Issue in Depth—Drug War Lies?, 404
Key Terms, 410
Discussion Questions, 410
Chapter 12. The War on Crime as a Threat to Equality: Innocent Bias Against the Poor, People of Color, and Women, 411
Introduction, 411
Is the war on crime a war on the poor?, 412
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, 417
Is the criminal justice network biased against people of color?, 419
Race, ethnicity, and social class, 425
Race, ethnicity, government policy, and criminal justice, 429
Gender and criminal justice, 433
Conclusion, 438
Issue in Depth—The Greatest Threat to Civil Rights Is the Criminal Justice Network, 439
Key Terms, 442
Discussion Questions, 442
Chapter 13. Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations for the Future, 444
Introduction, 444
Summary: The criminal justice network fails to achieve justice and reduce crime, 445
Where to go from here: Alternatives to current criminal justice practice, 449
General recommendations about government and informing citizens, 450
Recommendations about reforming the law and crime, 452
Recommendations about the media, 453
Recommendations about the police, 454
Recommendations about the courts and about sentencing, 456
Recommendations about corrections, 458
Likelihood of success, 459
Conclusion, 460
Issue in Depth—Toward Social Justice: Groups Doing the Work Now, 460
Discussion Questions, 467
References, 469
Index, 501

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