San Antonio College Library

"Please see the attached text file"-- Examines the debate around the death penalty, raising questions, and attempting to provide an even-handed examination of this controversial practice. The authors combine analysis of important issues with excerpts from landmark legal decisions, important documents, survey results, and empirical data. The first part of the book discusses the origins of the death penalty and traces its development from antiquity...

"Prosecutors have a powerful and generally little-understood role in the criminal justice system. Their important powers include accepting or rejecting cases, making decisions about dismissing charges, or moving cases to disposition and recommending a sentence - all of which can critically affect not only individuals but society through prosecutors' ability to shape our criminal justice system. The Power of the Prosecutor: Gatekeepers of the Criminal...

"Many children, from the time they are old enough to be attracted to a siren and flashing lights, dream of becoming a police officer. As a retired police officer herself, Alley Evola looks at the daily ins and outs of the job of a police officer. Through recruitment, life at the academy, patrol, and eventually promotion, she provides a helpful understanding of what you can really expect. She also looks at current issues, including race and gender,...

"On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed African American high school senior, was shot by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. For months afterward, protesters took to the streets demanding justice, testifying to the racist and exploitative police department and court system, and connecting the shooting of Brown with the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and other young black men at the hands of police across the country. In the...

"The huge prison buildup of the past four decades has few defenders today, yet reforms to reduce the number of people in U.S. jails and prisons have been remarkably modest. Meanwhile, a carceral state has sprouted in the shadows of mass imprisonment, extending its reach far beyond the prison gate. It includes not only the country's vast archipelago of jails and prisons but also the growing range of penal punishments and controls that lie in the never-never...

"We all know that orange is the new black and mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow, but how much do we actually know about the structure, goals, and impact of our criminal justice system? Understanding Mass Incarceration offers the first comprehensive overview of the incarceration apparatus put in place by the world's largest jailer: the United States. Drawing on a growing body of academic and professional work, Understanding Mass Incarceration...

"When the final gavel clapped in a rural southern courtroom in the summer of 1988, Willie J. Grimes, a gentle spirit with no record of violence, was shocked and devastated to be convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. Here is the story of this everyman and his extraordinary quarter-century-long journey to freedom, told in breathtaking and sympathetic detail, from the botched evidence and suspect testimony that led to his...