Detectives work the streets--an arena of action, vice, lust,
greed, aggression, and violence--to gather shards of information
about who did what to whom. They also work the cumbersome machinery
of the justice system--semi-military police hierarchies with their
endless jockeying for prestige, procedure-driven district attorney
offices, and backlogged courts--transforming hard-won street
knowledge into public narratives of responsibility for crime.
"Street Stories," based on years of fieldwork with the New York
City Police Department and the District Attorney of New York,
examines the moral ambiguities of the detectives' world as they
shuttle between the streets and a bureaucratic behemoth.
In piecing together street stories to solve intriguing puzzles
of agency and motive, detectives crisscross the checkerboard of
urban life. Their interactions in social strata high and low foster
cosmopolitan habits of mind and easy conversational skills. And
they become incomparable storytellers. This book brims with the
truth-is-stranger-than-fiction violence of the underworld and tells
about a justice apparatus that splinters knowledge, reduces
life-and-death issues to arcane hair-splitting, and makes
rationality a bedfellow of absurdity.
Detectives' stories lay bare their occupational
consciousness--the cunning and trickery of their investigative
craft, their self-images, moral rules-in-use, and judgments about
the players in their world--as well as their personal ambitions,
sensibilities, resentments, hopes, and fears. When detectives do
make cases, they take satisfaction in removing predators from the
streets and helping to ensure public safety. But their stories also
illuminate dark corners of a troubled social order.
General
Imprint: |
Harvard University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
May 2009 |
First published: |
May 2009 |
Authors: |
Robert Jackall
|
Dimensions: |
202 x 130 x 30mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
448 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-674-03232-3 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
True stories >
Crime
|
LSN: |
0-674-03232-2 |
Barcode: |
9780674032323 |
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