The need for informed analyses of health policy is now greater than ever. The twelve essays in this volume show that public debates routinely bypass complex ethical, sociocultural, historical, and political questions about how we should address ideals of justice and equality in health care. Integrating perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, medicine, and public health, this volume illuminates the relationships between justice and health inequalities to enrich debates. Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice explores three questions: How do scholars approach relations between health inequalities and ideals of justice? When do justice considerations inform solutions to health inequalities, and how do specific health inequalities affect perceptions of injustice? And how can diverse scholarly approaches contribute to better health policy? From addressing patient agency in an inequitable health care environment to examining how scholars of social justice and health care amass evidence, this volume promotes a richer understanding of health and justice and how to achieve both. The contributors are Judith C. Barker, Paula Braveman, Paul Brodwin, Jami Suki Chang, Debra DeBruin, Leslie A. Dubbin, Sarah Horton, Carla C. Keirns, J. Paul Kelleher, Nicholas B. King, Eva Feder Kittay, Joan Liaschenko, Anne Drapkin Lyerly, Mary Faith Marshall, Carolyn Moxley Rouse, Jennifer Prah Ruger, and Janet K. Shim.

Providing an overview of the sociological approaches to law and criminal justice, this book focuses on how law and the criminal justice system inevitably affect one another, and the ways in which both are intimately connected with wider social forces.

Understanding justice is one of a series of student textbooks designed to cover the major areas of debate within the fields of criminology, criminal justice and penology. It provides a comprehensive account of the ideas and controversies that have arisen within law, philosophy, sociology and criminology about the punishment of criminals.

Why are there pronounced gender differences in rates of criminal victimization? Does gender influence the response of the criminal justice system and other parts of the community to offenders and to crime victims? What part does gender play in the etiology of illegal activities committed by both males and females? Understanding Gender, Crime, and Justice takes a contemporary look at such questions and considers areas that are often neglected in other books on gender, crime, and justice. In the last three decades, there has been an explosion of theory and related research relevant to gender, crime, and justice. Author Merry Morash, a well-known feminist scholar in the field of criminal justice, acquaints readers with key breakthroughs in criminological conceptualization and theories to explain the interplay between gender and both crime and justice. Understanding Gender, Crime, and Justice pays especial attention to race, ethnicity, and immigrant groups, and provides a unique comparative perspective. Key Features Includes first-person accounts from crime victims, workers in the justice system, male lawbreakers, and women engaged in prostitution to give insight into a diversity of experiences and standpoints Parallels the effects of gender and sexual orientation in laws, in patterns and causes of victimization, and in the responses of the justice system to both victims and offenders Integrates international examples to place U.S. experiences in a comparative perspective and to show gender inequities on a worldwide scale Provides numerous photos--unique for a text of this type--to portray people of all sorts in various regions of the world Includes Web site recommendations for further exploration of chapter topics Understanding Gender, Crime, and Justice is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses that focus on women and criminal justice. The book is also a valuable asset for gender courses in sociology and for women's studies programs.

* Why should offenders be punished - what should punishments be designed to achieve? * Why has imprisonment become the normal punishment for crime in modern industrial societies? * What is the relationship between theories of punishment and the actual penalties inflicted on offenders? This revised and updated edition of a highly successful text provides a comprehensive account of the ideas and controversies that have arisen within law, philosophy, sociology and criminology about the punishment of criminals. Written in a clear, accessible style, it summarises major philosophical ideas - retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation - and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. This new edition has been updated throughout including, for example, a new section on recent cultural studies of punishment and on the phenomenon of mass imprisonment that has emerged in the United States. This second edition includes a new chapter on restorative justice, which has developed considerably in theory and in practice since the publication of the first edition. The sociological perspectives of Durkheim, the Marxists, Foucault and their contemporary followers are analysed and assessed. A section on the criminological perspective on punishment looks at the influence of theory on penal policy, and at the impact of penal ideologies on those on whom punishment is inflicted. The contributions of feminist theorists, and the challenges they pose to masculinist accounts of punishment, are included. The concluding chapter presents critiques of the very idea of punishment, and looks at contemporary proposals which could make society's response to crime less dependent on punishment than at present. Understanding Justice has been designed for students from a range of disciplines and is suitable for a variety of crime-related courses in sociology, social policy, law and social work. It will also be useful to professionals in criminal justice agencies and to all those interested in understanding the issues behind public and political debates on punishment.

Few subjects provoke as much public fascination and political concern as crime, criminality, criminology, and criminal justice policy and practice. Understanding Criminal Justice seeks to provide students with a critical introduction to the range of theoretical, policy and operational issues faced by the criminal justice system in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It anticipates little or no prior knowledge of criminal justice, and seeks to provide an introduction to the area. This critical textbook provides both a thorough overview of the procedures central to the workings of the criminal justice system and a distillation of the topical debates that surround it. It outlines the political and historical context, detailing key procedures and challenging students to engage with current debates. Containing chapters on policing, prosecution, community justice and alternative modes of justice, this text provides a comprehensive coverage of the key topics included within undergraduate criminology programmes at an introductory level. Written in a lively and accessible style, this book will also be of interest to general readers and practitioners in the criminal justice system.

Provides a critical understanding and evaluation of police tactics and the use of force Police violence has historically played an important role in shaping public attitudes toward the government. Community trust and confidence in policing have been undermined by the perception that officers are using force unnecessarily, too frequently, or in problematic ways. The use of force, or harm suffered by a community as a result of such force, can also serve as a flashpoint, a spark that ignites long-simmering community hostility. In Evaluating Police Uses of Force, legal scholar Seth W. Stoughton, former deputy chief of police Jeffrey J. Noble, and distinguished criminologist Geoffrey P. Alpert explore a critical but largely overlooked facet of the difficult and controversial issues of police violence and accountability: how does society evaluate use-of-force incidents? By leading readers through answers to this question from four different perspectives—constitutional law, state law, administrative regulation, and community expectations—and by providing critical information about police tactics and force options that are implicated within those frameworks, Evaluating Police Uses of Force helps situate readers within broader conversations about governmental accountability, the role that police play in modern society, and how officers should go about fulfilling their duties.