CJ: Realities and Challenges

CJ: Realities and Challenges empowers students to think critically about the daily realities and challenges of the criminal justice system. Using the text's framework of Observe–Investigate–Understand, students learn to recognize the myths of the U.S. criminal justice system and gain a greater comprehension of its complexities.

CJ: Realities and Challenges brings together the insights of an expert author team of practitioners and scholars to present a contemporary and realistic perspective on a vital U.S. institution. With Connect Criminal Justice, a groundbreaking digital program, students study more effectively by using engaging activities to confirm what they know and to learn what they don’t know.

Michael Hooper is the Bureau Chief of California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST). He began his involvement with the criminal justice system as a member of the Los Angeles Police Department. His 23 years of LAPD experience encompassed positions as a patrol officer, field supervisor, and watch commander. This was followed by five years of service on the Criminal Justice Program faculty at Penn State University's Capitol Campus. He currently manages POST's Center for Leadership Development, which provides core leadership training for all of California's peace officers promoted to supervisory, management, and executive positions.

Lori Beth Way is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Criminal Justice program at California State University, Chico. Her research areas are primarily in the subfields of policing and courts. Dr. Way is also Project Director for a federally funded grant that works to reduce the crimes of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and stalking in the campus community. Besides teaching at CSU, Chico, she is also an instructor at the local police academy.

Bernadette T. Muscat has worked with victims of domestic violence by serving as a legal advocate. She has worked with law enforcement agencies, victim services, and court programs for program and policy development, evaluation, research, and training to ensure effective administration of victim assistance. She has also worked with state coalitions to develop and implement victim-related polices. She has written, presented, and provided professional entry level and advanced training nationwide on topics such as domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, trauma response, elder abuse, victims with disabilities, workplace violence, underserved victim populations, and campus oriented crimes, research, and policy development.

Candice A. Skrapec is a professor in the Department of Criminology at California State University, Fresno. She is a psychologist and criminologist. For the past 20 years she has maintained her research focus on serial murder (particularly in terms of underlying biological and psychological factors) and continues her interviews of incarcerated serial murderers in different countries. Her professional works and academic research result in regular calls from the media, movie and documentary producers, as well as authors of fact and fiction books in the areas of serial murder to investigate profiling. With over 20 years of experience in the law enforcement field working with officers and agencies in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, she is also frequently consulted by police around the world to assist in the investigation of homicide cases.She has taught a wide range of criminology courses since 1988 and has trained police and correctional officers in different countries in the areas related to her academic research and professional experience.

Lester Pincu is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Criminology at California State University, Fresno. He has worked in corrections, counseling and group psychotherapy, alcoholism, drug addiction, and treatment programs. He is a California Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor, a Certified Group Psychotherapist, and holds an appointment by the California State Legislature as a member of the California Council on Criminal Justice. He worked as a deputy probation officer for Contra Costa County investigating and supervising juvenile offenders from 1965 to 1970. He was a full-time faculty member at Fresno State from 1970 to 2001.