For introductory courses in criminal justice.

An introduction to criminal justice through the lens of freedom and security

Built around the theme of tension between individual rights and public order, Revel^™ Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century guides criminal justice students in the struggle to find a satisfying balance between freedom and security. Its comprehensive coverage focuses on the crime picture in the US and the three traditional elements of the criminal justice system: police, courts, and corrections. Schmalleger challenges students to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the American justice system. The 16th Edition has been updated throughout with current issues and enhanced with additional "Freedom or Safety" boxes, which time and again question the viability of our freedoms in a world that has grown ever more dangerous.

Revel is Pearson’s newest way of delivering our respected content. Fully digital and highly engaging, Revel replaces the textbook and gives students everything they need for the course. Informed by extensive research on how people read, think, and learn, Revel is an interactive learning environment that enables students to read, practice, and study in one continuous experience – for less than the cost of a traditional textbook.

NOTE: Revel is a fully digital delivery of Pearson content. This ISBN is for the standalone Revel access card. In addition to this access card, you will need a course invite link, provided by your instructor, to register for and use Revel.

Frank Schmalleger, Ph.D., 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, Missouri, 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 a number 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, 2020), Criminology Today (Pearson, 2020), 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 at http://www.schmalleger.com, and follow his Tweets @schmalleger.

PART I: CRIME IN AMERICA
1. What Is Criminal Justice?
2. The Crime Picture
3. The Search for Causes
4. Criminal Law

PART II: POLICING
5. Policing: History and Structure
6. Policing: Purpose and Organization
7. Policing: Legal Aspects
8. Policing: Issues and Challenges

PART III: ADJUDICATION
9. The Courts: Structure and Participants
10. Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial
11. Sentencing

PART IV: CORRECTIONS
12. Probation, Parole, and Reentry
13. Prisons and Jails
14. Prison Life

PART V: SPECIAL ISSUES
15. Juvenile Justice
16. Drugs and Crime
17. Terrorism, Multinational Criminal Justice, and Global Issues
18. High-Technology Crimes