It was a warm, still, July summer night in 2014, when an 85-year-old woman, a beloved grandmother and neighbor, was viciously murdered by someone who slipped quietly into her bedroom and slit her throat and watched her bleed to death in less than a minute.Who committed this awful murder, how, and why? The perpetrator of this horrible crime was the woman's own grandson, an adored and trusted family member. He was married and also had four children of his own. James W. Marquart walks...

In late summer 1923, legal hangings in Texas came to an end, and the electric chair replaced the gallows. Of 520 convicted capital offenders sentenced to die between 1923 and 1972, 361 were actually executed, thus maintaining Texas’ traditional reputation as a staunch supporter of capital punishment.This book is the single most comprehensive examination to date of capital punishment in any one state, drawing on data for legal executions from 1819 to 1990. The authors show persuasively how ...

How does a prison achieve institutional order while safeguarding prisoners' rights? Since the early 1960s, prison reform advocates have aggressively used the courts to extend rights and improve life for inmates, while prison administrators have been slow to alter the status quo. Litigated reform has been the most significant force in obtaining change.An Appeal to Justice is a critical tudy of how the Texas Department of Corrections was transformed by Ruiz v. Estelle

Decades after the U.S. Supreme Court and certain governmental actions struck down racial segregation in the larger society, American prison administrators still boldly adhered to discriminatory practices. Not until 1975 did legislation prohibit racial segregation and discrimination in Texas prisons. However, vestiges of this practice endured behind prison walls. Charting the transformation from segregation to desegregation in Texas prisons—which resulted in Texas prisons becoming one of th...

This book investigates the unintended and deadly consequences of criminal justice reforms through observing the effects of prison depopulation sentencing reform on county jails. This mixed-methods case study explores how California’s sentencing reform efforts in 2011 (Assembly Bill 109) and 2014 (Proposition 47) to depopulate California state prisons impacted California county jail inmate culture and experiences. Its results demonstrate how California county jails inmate culture became mor...

What should be done with minors who kill, maim, defile, and destroy the lives of others? The state of Texas deals with some of its most serious and violent youthful offenders through “determinate sentencing,” a unique sentencing structure that blends parts of the juvenile and adult justice systems. Once adjudicated via determinate sentencing, offenders are first incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). As they approach age eighteen, they are either transferred to the Texas prison ...

Explore current social developments, issues, and controversies concerning young victims!The Victimization of Children: Emerging Issues keeps students and practitioners working with young victims on the cutting edge of the latest research developments regarding crimes against children. Leading experts from the legal, medical, and sociological communities explore some of the most urgent issues involving child victims. Researchers and practitioners in victim services, social work, men...

Praise for Forensic Psychology and Law"In Forensic Psychology and Law, three internationally known experts provide exceptional coverage of a wide array of topics that address both the clinical applications of forensic psychology and the role of psychological science in understanding and evaluating legal assumptions and processes."—Norman Poythress, PhD, Research Director and Professor, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institu...

Introduction to Forensic Psychology, Third Edition, has been completely restructured to explain in greater detail how courses on forensic psychology are taught, making it more applicable as a textbook than previous editions. It also features more figures, tables and text boxes, making it a true textbook. What this book has that others do not is equal representation of criminal behavior, the court systems, and law enforcement/prisons. It also has equal representation of criminal and civil f...

Crime in the United States has fluctuated considerably over the past thirty years, as have the policy approaches to deal with it. During this time criminologists and other scholars have helped to shed light on the role of incarceration, prevention, drugs, guns, policing, and numerous other aspects to crime control. Yet the latest research is rarely heard in public discussions and is often missing from the desks of policymakers. This book accessibly summarizes the latest scientific informat...

New York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceDrawing on never-before-published original source detail, the epic story of two of the most consequential, and largely forgotten, moments in Supreme Court history.For two hundred years, the constitutionality of capital punishment had been axiomatic. But in 1962, Justice Arthur Goldberg and his clerk Alan Dershowitz dared to suggest otherwise, launching an underfunded band of civil rights attorneys on a quixotic crusade. In ...

A comprehensive, readable analysis of the key issues of the Black Lives Matter movement, this thought-provoking and compelling anthology features essays by some of the nation’s most influential and respected criminal justice experts and legal scholars.“Somewhere among the anger, mourning and malice that Policing the Black Man documents lies the pursuit of justice. This powerful book demands our fierce attention.” —Toni MorrisonPolicing the Blac...