Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century, 15th edition
Published by Pearson (January 23, 2018) © 2019
Frank Schmalleger

Title overview

For introductory courses in criminal justice.

Best-selling introduction to criminal justice

Criminal Justice Today leads the field as the gold standard for introductory criminal justice texts. Its comprehensive coverage focuses on crime in the US and the three traditional elements of the criminal justice system: police, courts and corrections. Drawing on a theme of individual freedom versus public order, Schmalleger challenges students to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the US justice system.

The 15th Edition narrows in on race and justice, police use of force and civil rights. These topics are viewed through the lens of recent police shootings and the ensuing “war on police” that continue to threaten national unity.

Hallmark features of this title

Current issues in criminal justice

  • UPDATED: CJ News and Issues boxes throughout the text showcase new developments in criminal justice, including topics related to diversity and technology.
  • Coverage of the growing significance of cybercrime contextualizes changes in both official and unofficial crime rates and their relationship to criminal activity.

Critical thinking and career prep

  • EXPANDED: Freedom OR Safety? YOU Decide boxes pose critical-thinking questions assessing whether and how the criminal justice system balances individual rights and public safety.
  • CJ Careers boxes describe a variety of criminal justice careers in a Q&A format, to introduce students to an assortment of career options and help them make appropriate career choices.

New and updated features of this title

Critical, comprehensive analysis of today's issues

  • NEW: Recent police shootings of unarmed black men in cities across the US, including in Ferguson, Baltimore and New York City are now addressed, as is as the ensuing “war on police.”
  • UPDATED: The 2016 US Supreme Court decision of Montgomery v. Louisiana is now examined in the juvenile justice chapter.
  • UPDATED: California Propositions 66 and 64 are now included in coverage of capital punishment and marijuana legalization, respectively.

A new focus on justice reinvestment

  • NEW: Evidence-based Justice Reinvestment boxes explore how the criminal justice system is affected by financial realities, such as budget shortfalls and limits on available resources.

Key features

Features of Revel Criminal Justice for the 15th Edition

  • Author Explanatory Videos allow students to hear insights and perspectives directly from the author.
  • Point / CounterPoint Videos present two opposing evidence-based arguments to help students analyze criminal justice issues.
  • Surveys within the Revel narrative ask students to respond to questions about controversial topics and important concepts. Students can then review a bar chart comparing their responses to those of all other students who answered the question.

Table of contents

PART 1: CRIME IN AMERICA

  1. What Is Criminal Justice?
  2. The Crime Picture
  3. The Search for Causes
  4. Criminal Law

PART 2: POLICING

  1. Policing: History and Structure
  2. Policing: Purpose and Organization
  3. Policing: Legal Aspects
  4. Policing: Issues and Challenges

PART 3: ADJUDICATION

  1. The Courts: Structure and Participants
  2. Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial
  3. Sentencing

PART 3: CORRECTIONS

  1. The Courts: Structure and Participants
  2. Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial
  3. Sentencing

PART 4: CORRECTIONS

  1. Probation, Parole, and Reentry
  2. Prisons and Jails
  3. Prison Life

PART 5: SPECIAL ISSUES

  1. Juvenile Justice
  2. Drugs and Crime
  3. Terrorism, Multinational Criminal Justice, and Global Issues
  4. High-Technology Crimes

Author bios

About our author

Frank Schmalleger, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and The Ohio State University, having earned both a master's (1970) and a doctorate in sociology (1974) from The Ohio State University with a special emphasis in criminology.

From 1976 to 1994, he taught criminology and criminal justice courses at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. For the last 16 of those years, he chaired the university's Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice. The university named him Distinguished Professor in 1991.

Schmalleger has taught in the online graduate program of the New School for Social Research, helping build the world's first electronic classrooms in support of distance learning on the internet. As an adjunct professor with Webster University in St. Louis, MO, Schmalleger helped develop the university's graduate program in security administration and loss prevention. He taught courses in that curriculum for more than a decade.

An avid Web user and website builder, Schmalleger is also the creator of award-winning websites, including some that support this textbook. Frank Schmalleger is the author of numerous articles and more than 40 books, including the widely used Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction (Pearson, 2018), Criminology Today (Pearson, 2019) and Criminal Law Today (Pearson, 2016). Schmalleger is also founding editor of the journal Criminal Justice Studies. He has served as editor for 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.”

Visit the author's website and follow his Tweets @schmalleger.

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