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Criminal Justice: An Introduction, 14th edition

Published by Pearson (July 12, 2023) © 2024

  • Frank Schmalleger Emeritus, University of North Carolina

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For introductory courses in criminal justice.

The gold standard for criminal justice texts

Criminal Justice: An Introduction examines crime in the US, with a focus on police, courts and corrections. Students contemplate the fine line separating freedom from security. They also evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the US justice system. A wealth of internet resources along with author tweets (@schmalleger) build on concepts, while keeping pace with changes in the field.

The 14th Edition evaluates the impact of social media and cybercrime on US efforts to adapt to an increasingly multicultural society. It also adds four new types of social justice boxes questioning the viability of our freedoms in the context of an evermore dangerous world.

Hallmark features of this title

Themes in criminal justice today

  • Freedom or Safety? YOU Decide boxes in each chapter highlight a key theme of the text, individual rights vs. public order, while illustrating timely personal rights issues. Each box includes critical-thinking questions.
  • Evidence-Based Justice Reinvestment boxes in many chapters highlight effective evidence-based practices for the wise use of criminal justice resources.
  • Multiculturalism and Diversity boxes weigh the impact of US multiculturalism on the justice system.

Student resources

  • CJ Careers boxes introduce a variety of career options and outline the characteristics of each one in a Q&A format.
  • Full-color diagrams, illustrations, timelines and photographs throughout the text provide an inviting, highly visual experience.

New and updated features of this title

New social justice boxes

  • NEW: Reimagining Justice boxes in nearly every chapter focus on today’s most important social justice issues. They contain many new key terms and their definitions, such as Black Lives Matter, institutionalized racism, systemic bias, White privilege and nonbinary persons, among many others.
  • NEW: Is it Fair? boxes highlight disproportionality in today’s justice system. Each contains an “Ask Yourself” question for thought and discussion. Sample topics include white-collar crime, gun-crime victimization and the confinement of Native Americans.
  • NEW: Voices of Diversity boxes provide personal insights from experts in the social justice field. They explain how racial justice and social justice are closely intertwined. They also offer insight into possible solutions to many of today’s pressing problems in the criminal justice area.
  • NEW: Justice-Informed Policing boxes contain excerpts from the 2021 report New Era of Public Safety authored by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Topics include free speech, bias-free policing, and diversity in recruitment and hiring, among many others.

Features of Revel for the 14th Edition

  • Author Explanatory Videos of 2 to 3 minutes each are embedded into the narrative. They offer a verbal explanation of an important topic or concept, along with illuminating examples.
  • Point/CounterPoint Videos explore controversial issues from different viewpoints, from the fourth amendment and privacy, to prisoner rights and the death penalty, among many others.
  • Social Explorer Criminal Justice Data Maps integrated into the narrative examine crime and corrections data correlated with socioeconomic and other criminal justice data. Maps also show differences in state statutes on major issues such as marijuana legalization, the death penalty and the distribution of hate organizations across the US.

PART 1: CRIME IN AMERICA

  1. What Is Criminal Justice?
  2. The Crime Picture
  3. Criminal Law

PART 2: POLICING

  1. Policing: Agencies and Structure
  2. Policing: Purpose and Organization
  3. Policing: Legal Aspects
  4. Policing: Issues and Challenges

PART 3: ADJUDICATION

  1. The Courts: Structure and Participants
  2. Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial
  3. Sentencing

PART 4: CORRECTIONS

  1. Probation, Parole, and Reentry
  2. Prisons and Jails
  3. Prison Life

PART 5: JUVENILE JUSTICE

  1. Justice-Involved Youth

About our author

Frank Schmalleger, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and The Ohio State University, having earned both a master’s and a doctorate in sociology from The Ohio State University with a special emphasis in criminology. For 20 years, he taught criminology and criminal justice courses at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. For the last 16 of those years, he chaired the university’s Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice. The university named him Distinguished Professor in 1991.

Schmalleger has taught in the online graduate program of the New School for Social Research, helping build the world’s first electronic classrooms in support of distance learning on the internet.

As an adjunct professor with Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, Schmalleger helped develop the university’s graduate program in security administration and loss prevention. He taught courses in that curriculum for more than a decade. An avid web user and website builder, Schmalleger is also the creator of a number of award-winning websites, including some that support this textbook.

Frank Schmalleger is the author of numerous articles and more than 40 books, including the widely used Criminal Justice Today (Pearson, 2024), Criminology Today (Pearson, 2024) and Criminal Law Today (Pearson, 2022).

Schmalleger is also founding editor of the journal Criminal Justice Studies. He has served as editor for the Pearson series Criminal Justice in the Twenty-First Century and as imprint adviser for Greenwood Publishing Group’s criminal justice reference series.

Schmalleger’s philosophy of both teaching and writing can be summed up in these words: “In order to communicate knowledge we must first catch, then hold, a person’s interest, be it student, colleague or policymaker. Our writing, our speaking, and our teaching must be relevant to the problems facing people today, and they must in some way help solve those problems.” Visit the author’s website and follow his Tweets @schmalleger.

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