Priority prosecution of high-rate dangerous criminals should help reduce crime, either by making sure that serious offenders are incarcerated, or by lengthening their sentences. But priority prosecution programs can't always focus on high-rate dangerous offenders. Sometimes offenders' instant offenses or prior records do not clearly indicate the nature of their actual criminal behavior. The concrete advice offered in this report will be useful to every DA who wants to improve office practices for selecting high-rate dangerous offenders for priority prosecution.

Hailed as the most engaging and accessible introductory text available, Exploring Criminal Justice provides a clear, complete, and credible introduction to the U.S. criminal justice system. Using an easy-to-follow, attention-grabbing writing style, this text explains the overarching processes and purposes of the criminal justice system. The functions of each component—police, courts, corrections—and the relationships between them are described in detail while rich and captivating pedagogy encourages students to think about how each component affects their daily lives. This thoroughly up-to-date text provides contemporary data, case studies, and references for all topics. Exploring Criminal Justice devotes an entire chapter to the emerging crimes of terrorism and cybercrime and the role these controversial topics play in the modern criminal justice system. Special attention is also given to juvenile offenders and issues relating to women and minorities. In addition, this text provides thorough integration of criminological theory and policy as it presents both historical context and current features of the U.S. criminal justice system.