Voices from Criminal Justice：Thinking and Reflecting on the System

This innovative text/reader for undergraduate criminal justice courses in the United States provides a companion or alternative to traditional texts. Instead of providing a "catalog of information" this book gives students rich insights into what it is like to work within the system (as practitioners) as well as from those who experience criminal justice as outsiders (as citizens, clients, jurors, probationers, or inmates).
By providing qualitative and teachable articles from the perspective of those who experience the three components of the criminal justice system, students will be better informed about the realities of the day-to-day job of criminal justice professionals. A second, but equally important, part of the readings asks that students look beyond the actual content of the articles and use a "critical thinking" perspective to develop their own thoughts about the functions of the criminal justice system on a broader societal level. The Editors have used these articles and this approach very successfully in their large undergraduate criminal justice classes, assigning the readings together with an "essentials" paperback text.

Heith Copes is an associate professor in the Department of Justice Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His primary research uses qualitative methods to understand the decision to commit crime and deviance. His recent publications appear in British Journal of Criminology, Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Criminology and Public Policy, and Social Problems and he has received funding from the National Institute of Justice.

Mark Pogrebin is a professor of criminal justice in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver. He has authored and co-authored six books, the most recent, Guns, Violence And Criminal Behavior. He has published numerous journal articles and has thirty articles published in anthologies. He is a field researcher whose past studies have all used qualitative methods.

Part 1: Police 1. Saying One Thing, Meaning Another: The Role of Parables in Police Training Robert E. Ford 2. Humor in the Briefing Room: A Study of the Strategic Uses of Humor among Police Pogrebin Mark and Eric Poole 3. Social Context of Police Lying Jenifer Hunt and Peter Manning 4. Observations Regarding Key Operational Realities in a Compstat Model of Policing Dean Dabney 5. Reflections of African American Women on their Careers in Urban Policing Mark Pogrebin, Mary Dodge and Harold Chatman 6. Procedural Justice and Order Maintenance Policing Jacinta Gau and Rod Brunson 7. Sense-Making and Secondary Victimization Paul Stretesky 8. Legitimated Oppression Robert Duran 9. Between Normality and Deviance: The Breakdown of Batterers' Identity Following Police InterventionBuchbinder Eli and Zvi Eisikovits 10. Victims’ Voices: Domestic Assault Victims’ Perceptions of Police Demeanor Joyce Stephens and Peter G. Sinden Part 2: Judicial 11. Maintaining the Myth of Individualized Justice: Probation Presentence Reports John Rosecrance 12. Calling Your Bluff: How Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys Adapt Plea Bargaining Strategies to Increased Formalization Deirdre M. Bowen 13. But How Can You Sleep Nights In Lisa McIntyre 14. Discrediting Victims’ Allegations of Sexual Assault: Prosecutorial Accounts of Case Rejections Lisa Frohman 15. The Social Construction of Sophisticated Adolescents: How Judges Integrate Juvenile and Criminal Justice Decision-Making Models Alexes Harris 16. Female Recidivists Speak about their Experience in Drug Courts while Engaging in Appreciative Inquiry Michael Fischer, Brenda Geiger and Mary Ellen Hughes 17. Jurors’ Views of Civil Lawyers: Implications for Courtroom Communication Valerie P. Hans and Krista Sweigert 18. The Agencies of Abuse: Intimate Abusers' Experiences of Presumptive Arrest and Prosecution Keith Guzik 19. Preparing to Testify: Rape Survivors Negotiating the Criminal Justice Process Amanda Konradi 20. Families of Murder Victims’ Perceptions of Prosecutors Sarah Goodrum Part 3: Corrections 21. Women in Parole: Gendered Adaptations of Female Parole Agents in California Connie Ireland and Bruce Berg 22. Criers, Liars, and Manipulators: Probation Officers’ Views of Girls Emily Gaarder, Nancy Rodriguez and Marjorie S. Zatz 23. Construction of Meaning during Training for Probation and Parole John Crank 24. Sense-making in Prison: Inmate Identity as a Working Understanding John Riley 25. Accounts of Prison Work Stan Stojkovic 26. Denial of Parole: An Inmate Perspective Mary West-Smith, Mark Pogrebin and Eric D. Poole 27. How Registered Sex Offenders View Registries Richard Tewksbury and Matthew B. Lees 28. Ambivalent Action: Prison Adaptation Strategies of First-Time, Short-Term Inmates Thomas Schmid and Richard S. Jones 29. Riding the Bus: Barriers to Prison Victimization and Family Management Strategies Johnna Christian 30. Keeping Families Together: The Importance of Maintaining Mother-Child Contact for Incarcerated Women Zoann K. Snyder