NCJ Number
89796
Editor(s)
D E J MacNamara
Date Published
1982
Length
254 pages
Annotation
This anthology of 48 articles, decisions, laws, and statistics primarily from the 1980-81 period provides criminal justice instructors and students with the recent literature in the police, judicial system, juvenile justice, and correctional fields.
Abstract
The first group of selections addresses broad issues in American criminal justice, including violent crime, assassination, and gun control. Papers in the police section consider occupational stress, ogranizational structure with attention to the military model, discipline, career management, officers killed on duty, use of deadly force, the black officer, undercover work, and private security guards. The judicial system section begins with an overview of the legal system and the problems it presents for older persons, while subsequent articles explore specific issues -- plea bargaining, secret witnesses, informants, the jury system, polygraphs, television in the courtroom, victim assistance programs, and disciplining errant judges. Articles on juvenile justice analyze the rights of juvenile offenders, criticize the juvenile court system, and relate juvenile crime to a denigration of spiritual and religious values. Descriptions of juvenile delinquency prevention programs consider day-evening centers as an alternative to institutionalization, child abuse detection, and residential schools for seriously disruptive juveniles. Other authors survey the 1979-80 murders of black youths in Atlanta, legal problems faced by classroom teachers in maintaining discipline, and drug abuse among the military. The final selections focus on prison overcrowding, parole, the medical model of rehabilitation, and New Mexico's death penalty statute. Also discussed are various aspects of the correction guard's job. The book contains approximately 200 references, a glossary, an index, and a topic guide to correlate readings with a criminal justice curriculum. See also NCJ 86314.