Criminal Justice Today ― An Introductory Text for the 21st Century

For introductory courses in criminal justice.

Best-selling introduction to criminal justice

Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century leads the field as the gold¿ standard for introductory criminal justice texts. Its comprehensive coverage focuses on the crime picture in the US and the three traditional elements of the criminal justice system: police, courts, and corrections. Drawing on a theme of individual freedom versus public order, Schmalleger challenges students to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the American justice system. The 15th edition narrows in on race and justice, police use of force, and civil rights – viewed through the lens of recent police shootings and the ensuing “war on police” that together continue to threaten national unity.

Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century, 15th edition, is also available via Revel™, an interactive learning environment that enables students to read, practice, and study in one continuous experience.

Frank Schmalleger, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and The Ohio State University, having earned both a master’s (1970) and a doctorate in sociology (1974) from The 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 has taught in the online graduate program of the New School for Social Research, helping build the world’s first electronic classrooms in support of distance learning on the Internet. As an adjunct professor with Webster University in St. Louis, MO, 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 user and website builder, Schmalleger is also the creator of a number of award-winning websites, including some that support this textbook.

Frank Schmalleger is the author of numerous articles and more than 40 books, including the widely used Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction (Pearson, 2018), Criminology Today (Pearson, 2019), and Criminal Law Today (Pearson, 2016).

Schmalleger is also founding editor of the journal Criminal Justice Studies. He has served as editor for the Pearson 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, and follow his Tweets @schmalleger.