Designed to inspire conversation and critical thinking, Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice presents students with a carefully selected collection of readings regarding timely and relevant issues within the criminal justice discipline. Readers are challenged to develop informed opinions on individual topics and then take a step back to consider all of the issues addressed to better understand the complex challenges of working within the criminal justice system.

Criminal justice procedure is the bedrock of human rights. Surprisingly, however, in an era of unprecedented change in criminal justice around the world, it is often dismissed as technical and unimportant. This failure to take procedure seriously has a terrible cost, allowing reform to be driven by purely pragmatic considerations, cost-cutting or foreign influence. Current US political domination, for example, has produced a historic and global shift towards more adversarial procedure, which is widely misunderstood and inconsistently implemented. This book addresses such issues by bringing together a huge range of historical and contemporary research on criminal justice in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas. It proposes a theory of procedure derived from the three great international trial modes of 'inquisitorial justice', 'adversarial justice' and 'popular justice'. This approach opens up the possibility of assessing criminal justice from a more objective standpoint, as well as providing a sourcebook for comparative study and practical reform around the world.

Criminal Justice Policy provides a thematic overview of criminal justice policy and its relationship to the American criminal justice system. Scholars, practitioners, and politicians continually debate the value of these policies in their evaluations of the current system. As the nature of this subject involves a host of issues (including politics, public sentiment, research, and practice), the authors expertly highlight these concerns on criminal justice policy and address the implications for the overall system and society at large. This text is organized into three parts: Foundations of criminal justice policy focuses on the role of politics, best practices, and street level bureaucracy in criminal justice policy. Criminal justice policy in action provides an analysis of fifteen different policy issues in criminal justice, such as immigration, drugs, mental health and capital punishment. Each section begins with a basic summary of the policy, accompanied by a brief synopsis of the framing issues. This brief, but informative summary, draws students’ attention to essential concepts and ideas, provides a roadmap for what they can expect to learn, and ensures continuity throughout the text. The text concludes with a discussion about the future directions of criminal justice policy.

This student-friendly introductory core text describes the criminal justice process in the United States — outlining the decisions, practices, people and issues involved. It provides a solid introduction to the mechanisms of the criminal justice system, with balanced coverage of the issues presented by each facet of the process, including a thorough review of practices and controversies in law enforcement, the criminal courts and corrections. Each chapter is enhanced by important terms, boxes, photos, and review questions. Includes a glossary.