Description
Book SynopsisVoices from Criminal Justice, Second Edition, gives students rich insights into what it is like to work within the system as a practitioner, as well as to experience criminal justice as outsidersas citizens, clients, jurors, probationers, or inmates. These qualitative and teachable articles cover all three components of the criminal justice system, ensuring students will be better informed about the realities of the day-to-day job of criminal justice professionals in law enforcement, courts, and corrections. At the same time, the juxtaposition of insider and outsider views allows students to look beyond the actual content of the articles and develop their own views about the functions and flaws of the criminal justice system on a broader societal level.
Seven new articles have been added in this second edition, based on topical relevance, recent publication, and ability to stimulate discussions and critical thought. They range from examinations of job stress fo
Trade Review
What better way to introduce today's students and tomorrow's criminal justice practitioners to the world of criminal justice administration than through a set of well-constructed ethnographic reports detailing the lived experiences of the participants in the process? This is a welcome addition to the field. — Malcom M. Feeley, Professor of Jurisprudence and Sociology, University of California at Berkeley
Voices represents a robust effort to understand the lived experience of criminal justice system participants. The ethnographic selections are engaging, readable, and expose students to the broad array of players. The book's unique insider/outsider perspective provides probing and incisive accounts of key issues facing the field today. — Bruce Jacobs, Professor of Criminology, University of Texas, Dallas
The book brings various practitioners in the criminal justice system to life through ethnographic research. The collection puts a human face on the system and will draw students to the subject. It will also remind academics why they entered the field. — Ralph Weisheit, Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Illinois State University
Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Thinking and Reflecting on Criminal Justice Issues
Heith Copes and Mark Pogrebin
I. POLICE
A. Practitioners
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- Reinventing the Matron: The Continued Importance of Gendered Images and Division of Labor in Modern Policing
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Don L. Kurtz, Travis Linnemann and L. Susan Williams
Kurtz, Linnemann, and Williams examine the historical role of the police matron and how the legacy continues to define women’s status in the current police and correctional workforce.
- A Qualitative Assessment of Stress Perceptions among Members of Homicide Unit
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Dean A. Dabney, Heith Copes, Richard Tewksbury and Shila R. Hawk-Tourtelot
Dabney and his co-authors conducted an ethnographic study of homicide investigations in a large urban police department and focused on those occupational factors that cause job related stress.
- Racialized Policing: Officers’ Voices on Policing Latino and African American Neighborhoods
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Vera Sanchez, Claudio & Dennis Rosenbaum
Vera Sanchez and Rosenbaum examine how police officers socially construct race within Latino and African American neighborhoods
- Vice Isn’t Nice: A Look at the Effects of Working Undercover
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Mark R. Pogrebin and Eric Poole
Pogrebin and Poole explore the consequences of working undercover for police officers. They show that working undercover has a significant impact on how police interact with informants, criminals, other officers, and their families.
- Reflections of African American Women on their Careers in Urban Policing
Mark R. Pogrebin, Mary Dodge, & Harold Chatman
Pogrebin, Chatman, and Dodge analyze the social-organizational relationships and interactions that relegate African-American police women as outsiders within their own police department.
B. Outsiders
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- Procedural Justice and Order Maintenance Policing
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Jacinta Gau and Rod Brunson
Gau and Brunson explore the tension between procedural justice and order maintenance policing as it affects the self-reported experiences with police by young inner-city minority youth.
- Urban Youth Encounters with Legitimately Oppressive Gang Enforcement
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Robert Duran
Duran concentrates on the relationship between police and gangs in two cities where suspected gang members perceive being stopped by police as racial and ethnic profiling.
- Sense-making and secondary victimization
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Paul Stretesky, Tara O’Connor Shelley, Michael J. Hogan, and N. Prabha Unnithan
Stretesky, Shelley, Hogan, and Unnithan examine the perceptions of the families of cold-case homicide victims to determine their interactions and relationship with law enforcement detectives assigned to their case.
- Victims’ Voices: Domestic Assault Victims’ Perceptions of Police Demeanor
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Joyce Stephens and Peter G. Sinden
Stephens and Sinden present the voices of domestic assault victims by eliciting their perspectives about and experiences with the mandatory arrest policy and police demeanor.
- We Trust You, But Not That Much: Examining Police-Black Clergy Partnerships to Reduce Youth Violence
Rod K. Brunson, Anthony Braga, David Hureau, and Kashea Pegram
Brunson and colleagues offer an understanding of the role police and black clergy play in formulation partnership in an attempt to improve community based crime prevention.
II. JUDICIAL
A. Practitioners
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- Representing the Underdog: The Righteous Development of Death Penalty Defense Attorneys
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Sarah Goodrum, Mark Pogrebin, and Matthew W. Greife
Goodrum, Pogrebin and Greife explore the development and motivations of death penalty defense lawyers and the life experiences that lead them to this professional calling.
- How can you Prosecute those People?
Paul Butler
Butler, a former federal prosecutor discusses the debate about the ethics of defense work with that of prosecutor’s work and examines the problematic aspects of the prosecution role.
3. Calling Your Bluff: How Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys Adapt Plea Bargaining Strategies to Increased Formalization.
Deidra Bowen
In this article, Rowen focuses on new types of plea-bargaining models as compared to the more traditional models in the past.
4. Examining the Death Penalty Insiders Perspective: Capital Bench and Bar Interviews
Sherri DioGuardi
DioGuardi examines experienced capital judicial participants (defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges) thoughts concerning the existence and use of the death penalty.
5. Maintaining the Myth of Individualized Justice: Probation Presentence Reports
John Rosecrance
In this article, Rosecrance argues that probation pre-sentence reports emphasize some offender characteristics more than others. He explains how a stereotyping process is used by officers who write these reports and how current offense and prior criminal history determine a pre-scripted sentencing recommendation.
B. Outsiders
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- Preparing to Testify: Rape Survivors Negotiating the Criminal Justice Process
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Amanda Konradi
Konradi focuses on how victims of sexual assault prepare themselves for court appearances. She also discusses survivors’ views of the criminal justice process.
- Expecting an Ally and Getting a Prosecutor
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Sarah Goodrum
Goodrum explores, through an interactionist perspective, the families of homicide victims’ experiences with prosecutors and the criminal court system.
- Female Recidivists Speak about their Experience in Drug Courts while Engaging in Appreciative Inquiry
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Michael Fischer, Brenda Geiger, and Mary Ellen Hughes
Fischer, Geiger, and Hughes study woman drug-court program participants’ perceptions and evaluations of their current and past experiences while in the program.
- Jurors’ Views of Civil Lawyers: Implications for Courtroom Communication
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Valerie P. Hans and Krista Sweigert
Hans and Sweigert’s focus on the decision-making process of jurors serving on civil court trials and their opinions of trial lawyers’ courtroom behavior and communication skills.
- Engaging with Criminal Prosecution: The Victim’s Perspective
Melissa E. Dichter, Catherine Cerulli, Catherine L. Kothari, Francis K. Barg, and Karin V. Rhodes
These authors examine the barriers women who are victims of intimate partner violence face when participating with the prosecution as the most important witness in the court in their case.
III. CORRECTIONS
A. Practitioners
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- Accounts of Prison Work
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Stan Stojkovic
In his field study of prison correctional officers and their working environments, Stojkovic explores the accounts provided by officers when discussing their relations with prisoners, administrators and their officer peers.
- Sense-making in Prison: Inmate Identity as a Working Understanding
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John Riley
Riley’s study observes the ways correctional officers in a maximum security prison formulate, communicate, and justify a shared understanding of the identity of inmates under their supervision.
- Gender and Occupational Culture Conflict: A Study of Women Jail Officers
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Eric Poole and Mark R. Pogrebin
Poole and Pogrebin offer a female perspective of sheriffs’ deputy corrections work in county jails. They discuss the various work-related issues that woman jailers face in their occupational role in a male dominated organization.
- Criers, Liars, and Manipulators: Probation Officers’ Views of Girls
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Emily Gaarder, Nancy Rodriguez & Marjorie S. Zatz
In this study, the authors analyze the perceptions on female juveniles held by professionals involved in the juvenile court decision-making process.
- Construction of Meaning During Training for Probation and Parole
John Crank
Crank examines the ideological changes in the training environment of probation and parole officers when a more punitive model of treatment for offenders was instituted in a peace officer training program in one state.
B. Outsiders
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- Denial of Parole: An Inmate Perspective
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Mary West-Smith, Mark R. Pogrebin and Eric D. Poole
West-Smith, Pogrebin, and Poole examine parole decision-making from the point of view of those inmates who have been denied an early release by the parole board.
- How Registered Sex Offenders View Registries
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Richard Tewksbury
Tewksbury assess the perceptions of sex offender registrants regarding the value of having these registries as a method of deterring future sex offense and maintaining public safety.
- Keeping Families Together: The Importance of Maintaining Mother-Child Contact for Incarcerated Women
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Zoann K. Snyder
Snyder’s research examines incarcerated mothers’ attempts at maintaining relationships with their children through a visitation program.
- Employment Isn’t Enough: Financial Obstacles Experienced by Ex-Prisoners During the Reentry Process
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Mark R. Pogrebin, Mary West-Smith, Alexandra Walker, and N. Prabha Unnithan
Once released to the community ex-prisoners face monetary debts incurred prior to their incarceration together with their mandated fees required by parole, which place them in an untenable financial situation.
- Navigating the Job Search after Incarceration: The Experiences of Work-Release Participants
Andrea Cantora
Cantora examines women who are residing in a community corrections facility and focused her observation on the difficulties they experience during their job search.
