Introduction to Criminal Justice combines up-to-date information with hands-on activities to immerse students in the constantly evolving criminal justice system. By featuring events and people that have recently made headlines, students can better understand the far-reaching impact of the law. The emphasis on hands-on applications encourages students to build a better understanding of the law in and out of the classroom.
3.5 stars. I had to read this book for a college course, and it honestly wasn’t the worse, but the last chapter kind of felt like it just took a sudden turn into a lens through “the Jetsons” tv show. It was pretty interesting and informative in a majority of the chapters though.
As textbooks go, this one was pretty good. It's comprehensive enough to give students a good basic understanding of the history, theory, and practice of criminal justice in the United States. One feature of this book that I especially liked was the "Careers in Criminal Justice" blurbs throughout; various specific jobs in the field are described by people who actually hold those positions. This included what the job entails, what they like best and what they like the least, an outline of their own education, and usually a recommendation as to what someone may want to study or do if they are interested in pursuing that particular job as well. This is something I think should be a feature included throughout any introductory textbook; it would potentially be helpful to students who are unsure of what direction they may want to take, simply because they don't really know what kinds of jobs are really available.
This book provides short description of the historical development of criminal law by breaking down some theories of victimization, criminal responsibility, measuring crimes and how they are reported, explanation of the criminal justice system, touches some basis on terrorism and cyber-crime, etc. Basically it covers fundamentals of the justice system.
I had to read this for my Intro to Criminal Justice class. It was really just a lot of statistics so it was pretty boring. But there were some surprising and interesting things which were discussed.