A comprehensive survey of the theory, research and forensic implications related to suggestibility in legal contexts that includes the latest research. * Provides a useful digest for academics and a trusted text for students of forensic and applied psychology * A vital resource for legal practitioners who need to familiarize themselves with the subject * Includes practical suggestions for minimizing witness suggestibility in interviews * Features topics that focus on suggestibility at each stage - from witnessing a crime through to trial

Nine black teenagers were accused of raping two white women on a train in 1931 in northern Alabama. They were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in the town of Scottsboro in little more than two weeks. The "Scottsboro Boys" case rapidly captured public attention and became a lightning rod for fundamental issues of social justice including racial discrimination, class oppression, and legal fairness. Involving years of appeals, the Scottsboro trials resulted in two landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings and were a vortex for the sometimes-competing interests of the American Communist Party, the NAACP, and the young men themselves. The cases resulted in a damning portrayal of "southern justice" and corresponding social mores in several national and international media outlets, and in a spirited defense of the judicial system and prevailing cultural norms in other news reports, particularly in the South. Here, Acker details the alleged crimes, their legal aftermath, and their immediate and enduring social significance as evidenced in media portrayals and other forms of popular culture. Using extensive media reports, including contemporaneous newspaper accounts and interpretations of the proceedings, as well as the sallies of champions of various organizations and social causes, the author illustrates the role of the media in the cases and the effect the cases had on society at the time. In addition to tracing the history of the cases and their media portrayal, the book explores the legacy of the Scottsboro trials and appeals. It examines several issues relevant to the cases that, even today, have enduring significance to law and popular perceptions of justice, including capitalpunishment, racial discrimination, innocence, the composition and functioning of trial juries, the quality of legal counsel for indigents, evidentiary issues in rape cases, and media interactions with the courts. More than a true crime tale, this book takes readers through the crime but also illustrates its enduring legacy.

A contemporary, fact-filled resource on the historical, legal, medical, and political aspects of a wide variety of sexual crimes. Authoritative and informative, Sexual Crime: A Reference Handbook offers a thoroughly up-to-date report on an issue of extraordinary urgency. It is an expert introduction to a variety of often misunderstood crimes. Sexual Crime begins with a background chapter outlining the causes and definitions of sexual crime, legal and cultural attitudes over the past three centuries, and common myths surrounding this sensitive subject. It then offers wide ranging coverage of issues, including date rape, crimes involving male victims, rape in prison, female perpetrators, medical treatments, political ramifications, and other contemporary issues. A chronology of events related to sexual crime from colonial times to present, as well as a Facts and Data chapter with a range of informative statistics and excerpts of pivotal legal decisions Biographical sketches of nearly 35 activists, scholars, policymakers, and other notable figures involved in the efforts to fight sexual crimes

From the Abscam investigation to Judge Susan Webber Wright, who presided over the Paula Jones case, this ready-reference encyclopedia provides 264 alphabetically organized entries on the ethics controversies, political scandals, investigations, reforms, and the people involved in them from the formation of the Republic through the year 2000. Throughout American history, political scandals and political reforms have helped to shape the nation's political system. Extensive entries on the activities and players in the Whitewater investigation, Watergate, impeachment proceedings in history, and the ethics controversies in a number of presidential administrations offer full coverage of the most significant ethics controversies in American political history. Entries on legislation, court cases, organizations, and terms and concepts provide needed ready-reference material for student research. More than 65 photographs enliven the text.

A significant number of entries are devoted to individuals involved in ethics controversies that have taken place since World War II. Each entry is cross-referenced to other entries on related topics and each entry concludes with a short bibliography of further reading. A timeline of significant dates in the history of ethics controversies will aid the reader in placing ethics events in historical context. This encyclopedia contains the most current information on ethics controversies in government and will be valuable for student research.

In vast swathes of America, the sacredness of the Second Amendment has become a political third rail, never to be questioned. Gun rights supporters wear tri-cornered hats, wave the stars and stripes, and ask what would have happened if the revolutionaries had been unarmed when the British were coming. They have had great success in conflating unfettered gun ownership with the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and all things American, even in an era of repeated mass shootings. Yet the all-to-familiar narrative of America's gun past, echoed in the Supreme Court's Heller gun rights decision, is not only mythologized, but historically wrong. As Robert J. Spitzer demonstrates in Guns across America, gun ownership is as old as the nation, but so is gun regulation. Drawing on a vast new dataset of early gun laws reflecting every imaginable type of regulation, Spitzer reveals that firearms were actually more strictly regulated in the country's first three centuries than in recent years. The first 'gun grabbers' were not 1960's Chablis-drinking liberals, but seventeenth century rum-guzzling pioneers, and their legacy continued through strict gun regulations in the 1920s and beyond. Spitzer examines interpretations of the Second Amendment, the assault weapons controversy, modern 'stand your ground" laws, and the so-called 'right of rebellion' to show that they play out in America's contemporary political landscape in ways that bear little resemblance to our imagined past. And as gun rights proponents seek to roll back gun laws and press as many guns into as many hands as possible, warning that gun rights are endangered, they sidestep the central question: are stricter gun laws incompatible with robust gun rights? Spitzer answers this question by examining New York State's tough gun laws, where his political analysis is complemented by his own quest for a concealed carry handgun permit and construction of a legal AR-15 assault weapon. Not only can gun rights and rules coexist, but they have throughout American history. Guns across America reveals the long-hidden truth: that gun regulations are in fact as American as apple pie.

Offers a new understanding of jailhouse informants and the role they play in wrongful convictions Jailhouse informants-witnesses who testify in a criminal trial, often in exchange for some incentive-are particularly persuasive to jurors. A jailhouse informant usually claims to have heard the defendant confess to a crime while they were incarcerated together. Research shows that such testimony increases the likelihood of a guilty verdict. But it is also a leading contributor to wrongful convictions. Informants, after all, are generally criminals who are offering testimony in return for some key motivator, such as a reduced sentence. This book offers a broad overview of the history and legal and psychological issues surrounding the testimony of jailhouse informants. It provides groundbreaking psychological research to address how they are used, the number of convictions that have ultimately been overturned on other evidence, how such informants are perceived in the courtroom, and by what means jurors might be informed about the risks of this type of testimony. The volume provides a much-needed examination of legal remedies to the impact of jailhouse informants and suggests best practices in dealing with jailhouse informant testimony in court. There is a critical need to understand the influence of jailhouse informants and how their testimony can best be handled in court in the interests of justice. Jailhouse Informants is the first work of its kind that rises to the challenge of answering these difficult questions.

This international edited volume is a rare look at cultural, economic and political forces that contribute to school violence. In light of the devastating events in US schools and the violence towards students and schools world-wide, the war on knowledge development in non/secular education is increasing at an alarming rate. This book offers an international perspective on violence from both K-12 to tertiary levels, parents, administrators-teachers-support staff and research scholars in a desire to understand the contextual issues surrounding violence and its impacts on the field of education. ELWB Scholars and practitioners hail from six continents propose historical to futuristic perspectives linking violence towards education and its inhabitants while framing future strategies to alter multinational fear mongering to the decline of knowledge generation for an informed citizenry.

This book reveals the fundamental role rape played in promoting Dutch solidarity from 1609-1725. Through the identification of particular enemies, it directed attention away from competing regional, religious, and political loyalties. Patriotic Protestant authors highlighted atrocities committed by the Spanish and lower-class criminals. They conversely cast Dutch men as protectors of their wives and daughters - an appealing characterization that allowed the Dutch to take pride in a sense of moral superiority and justify the Dutch Revolt. After the conclusion of peace with Spain in 1648, marginalized authors, including Catholic priests and literary women, employed depictions of rape to subtly advance their own agendas without undermining political stability. Rape was thus essential in the development and preservation of a common identity that paved the way for the Dutch defeat of the mighty Spanish empire and their rise to economic pre-eminence in Europe.

More than 15 years have passed since the law regarding sex workers in New Zealand has changed. As a model it has been endorsed as best practice by international organisations, leading scholars and sex worker-led organisations. Yet in some corners, speculation is ongoing regarding its impacts on the ground. Written by an international group of experts, this groundbreaking collection provides the much needed in-depth research into how decriminalisation is playing out in sex workers' lives and how different groups of sex workers are experiencing it, while uncovering the challenges and tensions that remain to be negotiated in this field. Using the evidence from New Zealand, it makes an invaluable contribution to the international debates regarding sex work laws and the global struggle to realise sex workers' rights.

A lively, up-to-date overview of the newest research in biosocial criminology What is the relationship between criminality and biology? Nineteenth-century phrenologists insisted that criminality was innate, inherent in the offender's brain matter. While they were eventually repudiated as pseudo-scientists, today the pendulum has swung back. Both criminologists and biologists have begun to speak of a tantalizing but disturbing possibility: that criminality may be inherited as a set of genetic deficits that place one at risk to commit theft, violence, or acts of sexual deviance. But what do these new theories really assert? Are they as dangerous as their forerunners, which the Nazis and other eugenicists used to sterilize, incarcerate, and even execute thousands of supposed "born" criminals? How can we prepare for a future in which leaders may propose crime-control programs based on biology? In this second edition of The Criminal Brain, Nicole Rafter, Chad Posick, and Michael Rocque describe early biological theories of crime and provide a lively, up-to-date overview of the newest research in biosocial criminology. New chapters introduce the theories of the latter part of the 20th century; apply and critically assess current biosocial and evolutionary theories, the developments in neuro-imaging, and recent progressions in fields such as epigenetics; and finally, provide a vision for the future of criminology and crime policy from a biosocial perspective. The book is a careful, critical examination of each research approach and conclusion. Both compiling and analyzing the body of scholarship devoted to understanding the criminal brain, this volume serves as a condensed, accessible, and contemporary exploration of biological theories of crime and their everyday relevance.

Firearm and Tool Mark Identification: The Scientific Reliability of the Forensic Science Discipline examines the scientific reliability of the firearm and tool mark identification discipline (FATM-ID). It answers two primary questions that are necessary to assess the reliability of FATM-ID, including 1) Do different tools produce different tool marks? and 2) Can a trained examiner reliably distinguish among them? Other books published on the topic have assumed these true and have simply discussed what is involved in the discipline. This book brings together the most recent studies, serving as a well-referenced, single resource that shows that FATM-ID is scientifically reliable. Intended primarily for firearm and tool mark examiners, this valuable resource serves as a primary requirement for the training of firearm and tool mark examiners. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for attorneys who are seeking to better understand the scientific reliability of FATM-ID. Written by a foremost expert in FATM-ID, the book provides a complete and scientific examination for anyone involved in firearm and tool mark identification.

Sex worker activists throughout Africa are demanding an end to the criminalization of sex work and the recognition of their human rights to safe working conditions, health and justice services, and lives free from violence and discrimination. To Live Freely in This World is the first book to tell the story of the brave activists at the beating heart of the sex workers' rights movement in Africa-the newest and most vibrant face of the global sex workers' rights struggle. African sex worker activists are proving that communities facing human rights abuses are not bereft of agency. They're challenging politicians, religious fundamentalists, and anti-prostitution advocates; confronting the multiple stigmas that affect the diverse members of their communities; engaging in intersectional movement building with similarly marginalized groups; and participating in the larger global sex workers' rights struggle in order to determine their social and political fate. By locating this counter-narrative in Africa, To Live Freely in This World challenges disempowering and one-dimensional depictions of "degraded Third World prostitutes" and helps fill what has been a gaping hole in feminist scholarship regarding sex work in the African context. Based on original fieldwork in seven African countries, including Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda, Chi Adanna Mgbako draws on extensive interviews with over 160 African female and male (cisgender and transgender) sex worker activists, and weaves their voices and experiences into a fascinating, richly-detailed, and powerful examination of the history and continuing activism of this young movement.

This collection examines the perennial tension between society's need to protect its citizens from crime, while assuring that the crime control and reduction measures that it enacts do not deny basic rights or exacerbate the socioeconomic inequality that gives rise to disparate rates of offending. Such tension exists in all modern societies, but it has been particularly evident in the United States, a nation whose history manifests both group inequality and an ongoing effort to reduce such inequality, assure fairness, equal protection, and due process for individuals. Focusing largely on developments in criminal justice policies and practices enacted during the last few decades, the essays in this volume explore the delicate balance between governmental crime control efforts and professed goals of promoting social justice and protecting civil liberties. Representing disciplines ranging from criminology to economics, geography, law, sociology, and political science, the contributors critically examine and debate the nature and impact of recent and contemporary American criminal justice policies. Particular attention is paid to the impact of such policies on the nation's racial divide, but the authors use this disparity to illustrate the broader public policy paradoxes and dilemmas which lie at the heart of the struggle to control rising crime rates. Purported reforms in sentencing, the nation's growing prison population, the war on drugs and gangs, the demise of juvenile court, racial profiling and affirmative action are all grist for the mill. Contributors also ask more philosophical and epistemological questions such as the meaning of "social justice," "fairness," and "justice" andtheir relevance for understanding contemporary criminal justice.

This volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the United States, the Middle East, and North Africa, to discuss and critically analyze the intersection of gender and human rights laws as applied to individuals of Arab descent. It seeks to raise consciousness at the intersection of gender, identity, and human rights as it relates to Arabs at home and throughout the diaspora. The context of revolution and the destabilizing impact of armed conflicts in the region are used to critique and examine the utility of human rights law to address contemporary human rights issues through extralegal strategies. To this end, the volume seeks to inform, educate, persuade, and facilitate newer or less-heard perspectives related to gender and masculinities theories. It provides readers with new ways of understanding gender and human rights and proposes forward-looking solutions to implementing human rights norms. The goal of this book is to use the context of Arabs at home and throughout the diaspora to critique and examine the utility of human rights norms and laws to diminish human suffering with the goal of transforming the structural, social, and cultural conditions that impede access to human rights. This book will be of interest to a diverse audience of scholars, students, public policy researchers, lawyers and the educated public interested in the fields of human rights law, international studies, gender politics, migration and diaspora, and Middle East and North African politics.

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"Goulda]has produced a book that will ensure that the lessons from these wrongful convictions are available for study and, we hope, remembered and used to enact needed reformsa]this book is a valuable addition to what we are learning about wrongful convictions."
--WAMU-FM The Kojo Nnamdi Show

"Gould's book...is a masterpiece of the genre. He combines big-picture legal theory with details from a dozen Virginia miscarriages of justice, including mistaken eyewitness identification and prosecutorial misconduct."
--Steve Weinberg, "The Legal Times"

Convicted Yet Innocent: The Legal Times Review

aA thoughtful and disturbing account of his founding in 2003 of the Innocence Commission for Virginia (ICVA) to investigate wrongful convictions. . . . Written for the general public, Gould's book has important lessons for attorneys and policymakers as well.a
--"Library Journal"

aThe Innocence Commission adds to the scholarship in the area of wrongful convictions in several important ways and with riveting case descriptions.a
--Daniel S. Medwed, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law

DNA testing and advances in forensic science have shaken the foundations of the U.S. criminal justice system. One of the most visible results is the exoneration of inmates who were wrongly convicted and incarcerated, many of them sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. This has caused a quandary for many states: how can claims of innocence be properly investigated and how can innocent inmates be reliably distinguished from the guilty? In answer, some states have created ainnocence commissionsa to establish policies andprovide legal assistance to the improperly imprisoned.

The Innocence Commission describes the creation and first years of the Innocence Commission for Virginia (ICVA), the second innocence commission in the nation and the first to conduct a systematic inquiry into all cases of wrongful conviction. Written by Jon B. Gould, the Chair of the ICVA, who is a professor of justice studies and an attorney, the author focuses on twelve wrongful conviction cases to show how and why wrongful convictions occur, what steps legal and state advocates took to investigate the convictions, how these prisoners were ultimately freed, and what lessons can be learned from their experiences.

Gould recounts how a small band of attorneys and other advocates -- in Virginia and around the country -- have fought wrongful convictions in court, advanced the subject of wrongful convictions in the media, and sought to remedy the issue of wrongful convictions in the political arena. He makes a strong case for the need for Innocence Commissions in every state, showing that not only do Innocence Commissions help to identify weaknesses in the criminal justice system and offer workable improvements, but also protect society by helping to ensure that actual perpetrators are expeditiously identified, arrested, and brought to trial. Everyone has an interest in preventing wrongful convictions, from police officers and prosecutors, who seek the latest and best investigative techniques, to taxpayers, who want an efficient criminal justice system, to suspects who are erroneously pursued and sometimes convicted.

Free of legal jargon and written for a general audience, The Innocence Commission is instructive, informative, andhighly compelling reading.

As the explanation of crime and the social reaction to it depends on historical and cultural contexts, didactic methodologies are subject to continuous change in relation to theories and needs strictly linked to the profession. ""Cases on Technologies for Teaching Criminology and Victimology: Methodologies and Practices"" presents state-of-the-art research and teaching into the study of corruption and those affected by it, containing chapters authored by researchers, academic professors, and experts from all over the world. With examinations into real-life situations, this unique publication analyzes the benefits and disadvantages of various teaching methodologies in universities, police academies, and crime victim services.

"From The President of the United States Of America." From "George W Bush." Amber Alerts have become an increasingly important tool in rescuing kidnapped children. An Amber Alert adds thousands of citizens to the search in the crucial early hours, This law carries forward a fundamental responsibility of public officials at every level of government to do every thing we can to protect the most vulnerable citizens from dangerous offenders who prey on them.. April 30, 2003 * From: "Pastor Rod Parsley" "Our times demand it, Our history compels it, Our future requires it, And GOD is watching." From the Author of the New York Times bestselling book "Silent No More" Pastor Rod Parsley. Pastor of World Harvest Church Columbus, OH Founder and President of the Center For Moral Clarity www.centerformoralclarity.net * The Amber Alert is "the nation's most powerful tool for thwarting child abductions" Attorney General "John Ashcroft" January 13, 2005 * The Amber Alert allows us all to make a difference and gives our kids a real chance for a brighter and safer future." Former Assistant Attorney General "Deborah J. Daniels." * "Every Child Deserves This Amber Alert" "Ed Smart" * From: "Mr. John Walsh"Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 Dear Pastor Williams, Regarding the Amber Alert we wish you the best as you move forward. * Proclamation of Declaration Radio Talk Show Host @ Local Dallas Fort Worth Station 9am till noon on the A.M. Dial in a broadcast aired around the world via Internet on January 26, 2005 after a nine year silence by Pastor Charles Williams, the talk show host revealed on air that the true founder and creator of the concept known as the Amber Alert System is Pastor Charles Williams of ForthWorth Texas. Direct quote: "There is nothing like an idea, whose time has come." January 26, 2005 * "Mark Klaas"; The goal is to protect every child with one of the most brilliant ideas yet devised in the battle to recover kidnapped children.

For more than three centuries the criminal law has given rise to a divergent set of approaches to the crime of homicide. Whereas the law of murder has not conceptually changed,the crime of manslaughter has resulted in some forms of homicide being visited with relatively minor penalties. These various categories of unlawful killing present considerable problems relating to intention, or lack of it, and the culpability of those whose behaviour, while lacking in evident malice, is characterised by the grossest recklessness. The reaction of the relatives of victims is generally simpler. They frequently find it impossible to understand how those who kill by dangerous or drunken driving may receive comparatively lenient sentences, while those convicted of manslaughter following a drunken brawl may be dealt with more severely, and yet others, convicted of so-called 'mercy killings', are subject to the mandatory penalty of life imprisonment. This book addresses the powerful and controversial arguments for the current distinctions between murder, manslaughter and other specific categories of crime to be abolished and subsumed within a single crime of culpable homicide. In the course of this analysis the authors consider a number of issues of great contemporary importance, including the presentation of expert evidence in cases involving unexplained infant death, corporate killing, and the question of the defences available to the accused, including self-defence and provocation, where popular notions of what is reasonable or justifiable may be at variance with legal precedent. While this book aims to consider criminal homicide in its social, historical and legal setting, it also goes far beyond in setting out the case for radical reform.

While contemporary inquiries into the theoretical linkages between political economy and security are rare, the exploration of these connections was the cornerstone of political, social and economic philosophy during the upheavals of Enlightenment Europe. "A General Police System," a term borrowed from the late 18th century thinker Patrick Colquhoun, examines the overlapping genealogies of commerce, security, surveillance, and the problem of poverty in the works of foundational English and Continental intellectuals of the 17th to early 19th centuries. This book reviews and revives the epic project of police and critically examines the drive to classify, regulate and control populations, providing a renewed materialist contribution toward a critique of security.

While cloud computing continues to transform developments in information technology services, these advancements have contributed to a rise in cyber attacks; producing an urgent need to extend the applications of investigation processes. Cybercrime and Cloud Forensics: Applications for Investigation Processes presents a collection of research and case studies of applications for investigation processes in cloud computing environments. This reference source brings together the perspectives of cloud customers, security architects, and law enforcement agencies in the developing area of cloud forensics.

Taking an innovative approach to the subject, this book looks at how U.S. presidents and their administrations' policies from the late 1960s to 2017 have led to rampant over-imprisonment and a public policy catastrophe in the United States. Mandatory minimum sentencing; "three-strikes-and-you're-out" legislation; harsher sentences and less parole and probation. The result of draconian criminal justice policies in the last six decades is that the United States is the largest incarcerator in the world, surpassing Russia and China, with significant overrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos in U.S. prisons, especially for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses. Presidents and Mass Incarceration: Choices at the Top, Repercussions at the Bottom shows how American presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to Donald J. Trump have operated as significant political criminal justice entrepreneurs and how the leadership choices made at the top by these chief executives continue to have severe repercussions for the citizens at the lowest levels of our communities. Author Linda K. Mancillas references State of the Union Addresses, presidential initiatives, laws passed by Congress, Supreme Court decisions, and public opinion on high-profile crime events to assemble a cohesive framework of data that supports each president's impact on the incarceration explosion. Readers will come away with a greater appreciation for the complexity and magnitude of the political, economic, and societal issue of over-imprisonment that both the federal and state governments are attempting to address. Explains how presidential "tough-on-crime" rhetoric fueled by the public's fear of crime led to the war on crime, the war on drugs, and the war on gangs, resulting in the nation becoming known as "Prison America" Presents undeniable evidence that U.S. presidents have played a major role in America's imprisonment tragedy Provides a careful analysis of mass incarceration through presidential leadership to document how seemingly well-intentioned choices made at the top have had devastating repercussions on the bottom realm of our society

As international political and economic relations have become increasingly complex, so have the pressures on international boundaries and the borderlands which surround them. Although there are still many examples of "traditional" boundary problems associated with disputes between states concerning control over territory and maritime space, the papers in this volume demonstrate the vulnerability of borderlands to other forces, most notably illegal immigration and cross-border crime. This study aims to investigate the causes and implications of borderland stress. The first section explores changing concepts of sovereignty and their impact on the meaning and functions of international boundaries. The contributions in the second and third sections offer a combination of regional appraisals and individual case studies highlighting the range of problems affecting borderlands around the world, together with an assessment of some of the initiatives launched in response to those problems. While many of the conclusions drawn are rather sobering, it is clear that in some parts of the world new and imaginative approaches to territorial organization and management are helping to create safer, more dynamic and more prosperous borderlands. The papers in this volume represent the proceedings of the fifth International Conference of the International Boundaries Research Unit, held at the University of Durham on 15-17 July 1998.