Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice (2nd Edition)
Editorial Reviews
Review
"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
Book Description
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. MARTIN LUTHER KING, "A Letter from the Birmingham Jail" As eloquently written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his letter from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, when an injustice occurs anywhere, justice everywhere is threatened. King wrote this letter on April 16, 1963, after being jailed for "civil disobedience," a peaceful, nonviolent form of resistance. The letter was his response to criticisms that, as an "outsider" from Atlanta, he had no Business in Birmingham. King countered: I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham .... We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. S0, injustice anywhere in America is a threat to all persons living in the United States. And injustice in America is every American's business. The injustices of American criminal justice are the motivation for this book. As children, we grow up reciting Francis Bellamy's Pledge of Allegiance, written in 1892. It states, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation (under God), indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." With liberty and justice for all this is the ideal we all pledge to assure. But what are "liberty" and "justice"? And does "for all" really include all of us? When I began my college experience as a criminology and criminal justice major, I had some ideas in my head about what agencies of criminal justice were supposed to achieve. I thought that police, courts, and corrections were supposed to protect us from harmful acts committed intentionally by other people. In my first semester, however, I learned that these agencies of criminal justice in the United States are focused on only a small portion of all harmful acts. Many other behaviors that are committed intentionally, acts that kill and injure people and result in loss of property, nevertheless are not "crimes" or are not vigorously pursued by such agencies. Later, in graduate school, I learned about the massive criminal justice expansion of the last 30 years of the 20th century, an expansion driven not by facts about crime or increasing crime rates but by politics, fear, and the desire to be punitive and at times downright hateful toward certain segments of the population. To me, this incongruence between the ideals of American criminal justice and the realities of the American criminal justice didn't seem right. How can the United States spend so much money and direct so much effort toward punishing a relatively small portion of harmful behaviors while virtually ignoring so many others? Why would we disinvest in the nation's future by overrelying on methods of crime control that we know are ineffective, while failing even to try methods that seem more promising? None of this seemed "just" to me. If justice really meant what I had always thought it meant, how could criminal justice in the United States, of all places, be so unjust? That is the question addressed in this book. Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice attempts to demonstrate how and why American criminal justice agencies fail to live up to their ideals and, thus, are unjust. This book grew out of my experiences with teaching an introductory criminal justice course more than 30 times. Through my teaching, I realized that no introductory criminal justice text on the market exposed readers to the realities of criminal justice in the United States. This book strives to do that. THE MAIN ASSERTION OF JUSTICE BLIND? The book proceeds from the following assertions: Myths and stereotypes about crime, criminals, and criminal justice are created when acts are defined as crimes by the criminal law. These myths and stereotypes are reinforced as the mass media broadcast stories about crime, criminals, and criminal justice. These myths and stereotypes are also reinforced as police, courts, and corrections enforce the criminal law. Because the criminal law in the United States is inherently biased against certain groups (e.g., the poor, people of color, and women), the activities of police, courts, and corrections are also biased against these groups. This does not suggest that the U.S. media, police, courts, and corrections are intentionally biased. Rather, by focusing on those acts that come to be defined as "serious" in the criminal law, each of these institutions becomes biased in an "innocent" way. The figure on page xix illustrates how this "innocent bias" is created in the United States. The arrows suggest that each step of the process affects all other stages that is, that myths and stereotypes about crime, criminals, and criminal justice created by the criminal law are strengthened as agencies of criminal justice and the media operate. Throughout this book, I elaborate on this process and provide evidence for the main assertions listed here. CHAPTER BY CHAPTER The book is divided into four main parts. In Part I, The "Criminal Justice System": Ideals and Realities, I discuss the most important issues necessary to gaining a complete understanding of the reality of criminal justice practice in the United States. In Chapter One, I define the common term criminal justice system and show that there really is no such thing as a system of criminal justice in the United States. Nevertheless, I seek to identify the ideal goals of what I term the criminal justice network that is, what American criminal justice is supposed to be aimed at achieving. At the end of Chapter One, in the Issue in Depth, I take a close look at Lady Justitia, whose image adorns the cover of this book. In Chapter Two, I explore alternative goals of criminal justice, including serving limited interests and controlling the population. In this chapter, I discuss the role of politics and ideology in American criminal justice to provide a more realistic assessment of what criminal justice is really all about. These important topics were investigated briefly in Chapter One of the first edition but have been developed into a new chapter here so as to discuss them more fully. The new Issue in Depth at the end of Chapter Two examines the issue of what impact "McDonaldization" has had m American criminal justice, showing that the overriding ideology of American criminal justice clearly parallels that of our fast-food industry. In Chapter Three, I begin my analysis of actual criminal justice practice with an examination of the lawmaking process. In this chapter, I explore American law, including types of law, purposes of criminal law, and a detailed examination of who makes the law and votes for it. I also provide a detailed satisfaction on how money shapes politics. A new section has been added that illustrates how the criminal law fails to protect Americans. A new Issue in Depth has also been added at the end of the chapter, examining laws that have been passed to fight terrorism in the United States. These laws erode basic freedoms and thus provide a good example of the struggle to balance crime prevention efforts with protections of our own rights. In Part II of the book, Crime: Images and Realities, I discuss the most important issues necessary to gaining a complete understanding of crime in the United States. In Chapter Four, I define the term crime and lay out different types of crime in the United States. In this chapter, I also discuss different sources of crime data and then examine long-term crime trends. Most importantly, I identify the most dangerous forms of crime in America white-collar deviance. A detailed examination of recent large-scale financial scandals involving companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and many others is added in a new Issue in Depth at the end of the chapter. In Chapter Five, I examine the role of the media in crime and criminal justice. Because no one can fully understand crime or criminal justice activity without understanding how these issues are framed in the mass media, this chapter is one of the most important in the book. I have added a new Issue in Depth to show how the tragedy of September 11, 2001, has been used for political gain and ratings by mainstream media outlets. My goal in this chapter is to illustrate how media inaccuracy drives dangerous criminal justice policies. In Part III of the book, Components of Criminal Justice: Police, Courts, and Corrections, I discuss the basics of police, courts, and corrections (as in all introductory texts) and provide detailed, critical assessments of each component of criminal justice (unlike most introductory texts). In Chapter Six, I not only provide descriptions of who the police are, how policing is organized in the United States, and basic responsibilities of American police officers, but also carefully examine the realities of American policing. I introduce the concept of "innocent bias" to show the fundamental flaws of policing in the United States and examine differential stop rates and arrest rates and issues such as the use of force, opinion of the police, and corruption in American policing. The Issue in Depth at the end of the chapter deals with corruption in criminal justice generally and law enforcement particularly. In Chapter Seven, I examine basic court issues such as the organization of courts in the United States, basic court functions, and responsibilities of the courtroom workgroup. I also discuss injustices in pretrial procedures such as bail and plea bargaining, as well as in trial procedures. I have added a new section on the imbalance of power in the court, demonstrating how power has been shifted from judges to prosecutors over the past 30 years. In the Issue in Depth at the end of the chapter, I examine the causes of wrongful conviction. In Chapter Eight, I examine num...
Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice (2nd Edition)
Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice (2nd Edition),Matthew Barnett Robinson,Prentice Hall,0131137875,Criminal Law - General,Criminal justice, Administrati,Criminal justice, Administration of,Criminology,Political Freedom & Security - Law Enforcement,Political Science,Politics/International Relations,Social Science,Social justice,Sociology,United States,Political Science / Law Enforcement
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