Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction

For courses in Introduction to Criminal Justice.

The first and BEST-SELLING brief introduction to criminal justice text, Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction 8e continues to offer instructors and students a trusted, authoritative and impeccably researched introduction to the criminal justice system in America. Now with a CJ careers feature and learning objectives aligned with end-of-chapter questions, the book provides both a streamlined and up-to-date look at this ever-evolving field. Known for its unifying theme, its unmatched timeliness and its coverage of the newest criminal justice trends and technology, this book has become THE standard by which all other brief texts are judged. 

Frank Schmalleger, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Ohio State University, having earned both a master’s (1970) and a doctorate in sociology (1974) from 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 is also the Director of the Justice Research Association, a private consulting firm and think tank focusing on issues of crime and justice. The Justice Research Association (JRA) serves the needs of the nation’s civil and criminal justice planners and administrators through workshops, conferences, and grant-writing and program-evaluation support. JRA also sponsors the Criminal Justice Distance Learning Consortium, which resides on the Web at http://www.cjdlc.org.

            Schmalleger has taught in the online graduate program of the New School for Social Research, helping to build the world’s first electronic classrooms in support of distance learning through computer telecommunications. 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 surfer, Schmalleger is also the creator of a number of award-winning World Wide Web sites, including one that supports this textbook (http://www.cjtoday.com).

            Frank Schmalleger is the author of numerous articles and more than thirty books, including the widely used Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century (Prentice Hall, 2007), Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction (Prentice Hall, 2006), Criminology Today (Prentice Hall, 2006), and Criminal Law Today (Prentice Hall, 2006).

            Schmalleger is also founding editor of the journal Criminal Justice Studies. He has served as editor for the Prentice Hall 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.