About our authors
Dr. James A. Fagin has taught in the criminal justice field since 1973. He has taught undergraduate and graduate classes, criminal justice classes for military officers at Command and General Staff College, and classes at police and correctional academies. Dr. Fagin has authored more than a dozen criminal justice texts. In producing this introductory textbook, Dr. Fagin has drawn on his extensive career experience within the entire spectrum of the criminal justice system, both in academia and within the criminal justice system.
In his academic career, he has been a professor of criminal justice studies and Program Director at Lincoln College-Normal (LCN) in Normal, Illinois; professor and chair of the Criminal Justice Department at Chaminade University of Honolulu, the oldest and largest criminal justice program in Hawaii; and assistant professor and Director of Outreach Programs at Wichita State University. In addition to his experience in criminal justice education, Dr. Fagin served as Graduate School Dean at East Stroudsburg University and as Acting President of Kima International Theological College, a three-year college in Kenya, East Africa.
Outside his academic career, Dr. Fagin has been a professional consultant to local and federal law enforcement agencies, the state courts, and local, state, and federal correctional facilities. He has also held positions as a commissioned deputy sheriff training officer and polygraph examiner for the Wyandotte County (Kansas) Sheriff's Department and a commissioned reserve police officer in the Kansas City (Kansas) Police Department. Additionally, Dr. Fagin served on the Kansas Victims' Rights Commission to help establish the charter victims' rights legislation for the state. He assisted in implementing the first domestic disturbance response policy for the Wichita, Kansas, Police Department.
A pioneer in criminal justice education, Dr. Fagin has been involved in innovative criminal justice education programs for over four decades. He developed one of the early models of statewide delivery of criminal justice undergraduate and graduate degrees for Kansas. During the developing years of criminal justice education, Dr. Fagin worked as a consultant and instructor for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) to develop model criminal justice curriculum in research, administration and planning to promote quality nationwide education in criminal justice. Under the oversight of LEAA, these model curriculums were developed by an elite team of practitioners and educators and were field-tested throughout the United States.
Dr. Fagin has written some of the classical literature on computer crime, police bargaining and unions, presidential candidate security, domestic disturbance resolution and hostage negotiations. His articles on international terrorism have been translated and published in major criminal justice journals in Japan. These works emerged from active involvement with federal, state and local criminal justice agencies. Dr. Fagin has received the American Society of Criminal Justice Hawai'i chapter's Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Administration for establishing a master's degree in public administration at Chaminade University of Honolulu, as well as numerous awards for contributions to hotel security, forensic investigations and excellence in teaching.
He holds a BA degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and an MS degree and a PhD from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Illinois. Textbooks such as this are an ongoing work in progress, and the author welcomes communication and correspondence about his work. You can contact Dr. Fagin by email.
Dr. Michele P. Bratina has taught in the criminal justice field since 2005, including undergraduate and graduate classes. Dr. Bratina has authored a diverse mix of publications, including book chapters, texts, encyclopedia entries and journal articles on topics such as human trafficking, psychiatric crisis intervention training with police, and the aging correctional population. Her exposure to multiple systems of care over the course of her career has helped her produce materials and to update existing materials as coauthor of an introductory textbook.
In addition to teaching university classes, Dr. Bratina has taught part of a curriculum for police crisis intervention at a rural local in South Central Pennsylvania. During her career, she has been an instructor of record for the criminal justice program at the University of Little Rock, Arkansas, and in the criminology department at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Program Director of the criminal justice and justice studies programs at Keiser University in West Palm Beach; and assistant professor of criminal justice at Shippensburg and West Chester universities, both in Pennsylvania.
In addition to her experience in academia, Dr. Bratina has worked for the Florida Department of Children and Families-Substance Abuse and Mental Health Program Office as a coordinator of forensic and children's mental health. As a result of this experience, she has been a professional consultant for local and county-level agencies pursuing data analysis and continued grant-funded programs pertaining to the management and care of justice-involved persons with mental illness and histories of trauma and addiction.
Dr. Bratina has particular expertise in crisis intervention team (CIT) training programs and has served as a consultant on several steering committees at various stages of program development and assessment. She received the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) SAGE Junior Faculty Professional Development Teaching Award multiple times for significant promise as a teacher. She has received other awards for excellence in mentoring, teaching and service contributions, including faculty of the year and an award for a human trafficking awareness event she directed at Shippensburg University.
Dr. Bratina received her BS degree in applied behavioral science from the Pennsylvania State University–Harrisburg, her MA in criminal justice at the University of Arkansas–Little Rock, and her PhD from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She also completed one year of study at the William H. Bowen School of Law, also in Little Rock, Arkansas. You can contact Dr. Bratina by email.
