Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction

For introductory courses in criminal justice.

The gold standard for criminal justice texts
Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction examines crime in the US with a focus on police, courts, and corrections. Students contemplate the fine line separating freedom from security, and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the American justice system. A wealth of Internet resources along with author tweets (@schmalleger) build on central ideas in the text, while keeping pace with changes in a continually changing field. Emphasizing the need for systemic change, the 13th edition includes revised coverage of large-scale crimes pervasive in the US, as well as policing issues and challenges, sentencing guidelines, and state laws redefining the age of criminal responsibility.

Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction, 13th Edition, is also available via Revel^™ , an interactive learning environment that enables students to read, practice, and study in one continuous experience.

Frank Schmalleger, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, where he taught criminal justice courses for 20 years and chaired the university’s Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice for 16 of those years. In 1991 the university awarded him the title of Distinguished Professor, and the university named him Professor Emeritus in 2001.

Dr. Schmalleger holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Ohio State University, having earned both a master’s degree (1970) and a doctorate in sociology (1974) with a special emphasis in criminology from Ohio State University.

As an adjunct professor at 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 over a decade. Schmalleger has also taught in the online graduate program of the New School for Social Research, helping to build the world’s first electronic classrooms. Schmalleger is the creator of a number of award-winning websites, including one that supports this textbook.

Frank Schmalleger is the author of numerous articles and many books, including the widely used Criminal Justice Today (Pearson, 2019); Criminology Today (Pearson, 2019); Criminal Law Today (Pearson, 2016); and The Definitive Guide to Criminal Justice and Criminology on the World Wide Web (Pearson, 2009).

Schmalleger is also the founding editor of the journal Criminal Justice Studies. He has served as editor of 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.”

PART 1: CRIME IN AMERICA
1. What Is Criminal Justice?
2. The Crime Picture
3. Criminal Law

PART 2: POLICING
4. Policing: Purpose and Organization
5. Policing: Legal Aspects
6. Policing: Issues and Challenges

PART 3: ADJUDICATION
7. The Courts
8. The Courtroom Work Group and the Criminal Trial
9. Sentencing

PART 4: CORRECTIONS
10. Probation, Parole, and Reentry
11. Prisons and Jails
12. Prison Life

PART 5: THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
13. Juvenile Justice