The American legal system is experiencing a period of extreme stress, if not crisis, as it seems to be losing its legitimacy with at least some segments of its constituency. Nowhere is this legitimacy deficit more apparent than in a portion of the African American community in the U.S., as incidents of police killing black suspects - whether legally justified or not - have become almost routine. However, this legitimacy deficit has largely been documented through anecdotal evidence and a steady drumbeat of journalistic reports, not rigorous scientific research. This book offers an all-inclusive account of how and why African Americans differ in their willingness to ascribe legitimacy to legal institutions, as well as in their willingness to accept the policy decisions those institutions promulgate. Based on two nationally-representative samples of African Americans, this book ties together four dominant theories of public opinion: Legitimacy Theory, Social Identity Theory, theories of adulthood political socialization and learning through experience, and information processing theories. The findings reveal a gaping chasm in legal legitimacy between black and white Americans. More importantly, black people themselves differ in their perceptions of legal legitimacy. Group identities and experiences with legal authorities play a crucial role in shaping whether and how black people extend legitimacy to the legal institutions that so much affect them. This book is one of the most comprehensive analyses produced to date of legal legitimacy within the American black community, with many surprising and counter-intuitive results.

Together with Consulting Editor Dr. William Rayburn, Drs. D. Michael Nelson and Leslie Myatt have put together a unique issue that discusses The Human Placenta in Health and Disease. Expert authors have contributed clinical review articles on the following topics: Why obstetricians know the future health of the babies they deliver; How obstetricians can predict the future health of mothers after a complicated pregnancy; What obstetricians need to know about placental pathology; Immunology of the placenta; Diabetes mellitus, obesity, and the placenta; Intrauterine growth restriction and placental dysfunction; The placenta as the root cause for preeclampsia; Placental anatomy and function in twin gestations; Placental implantation disorders: accreta, previa, and abruptio placentae; Key infections in the placenta; Chorioamnion function in normal and abnormal pregnancy; The future for imaging modalities of the human placenta; Artificial reproductive technologies and the decidual and placental development interface; and When the fetus goes still and the birth is tragic: The role of the placenta in stillbirths. Readers will come away with the clinical information they need to improve outcomes in the women, mothers, and infants.

First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The San Quentin Project collects a largely unseen visual record of daily life inside one of America's oldest and largest prisons, demonstrating how this archive of the state is now being used to teach visual literacy and process the experience of incarceration. In 2011, Nigel Poor-artist, educator, and cocreator of the acclaimed podcast Ear Hustle-began teaching a history of photography class through the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison. Neither books nor cameras were allowed into the facility, so an unorthodox course with a range of inventivemapping exercises ensued: students crafted "verbal photographs" of memories for which they had no visual documentation, and annotated iconic images from different artists. After the first semester, Poor says, "one student told me he could now see fascination everywhere in San Quentin." When Poor received access to thousands of negatives in the prison's archive, made by corrections officers of a former era, these images of San Quentin's everyday occurrences soon became launchpads for her students' keen observations. From the banal to the brutal, to distinct moments of respite, the pictures in this archive gave those who were involved in the project the opportunity to share their stories and reflections on incarceration.