Jerome H. Skolnick

Justice Without Trial

For what social purpose do police exist? What values do police serve in a democratic society? Are the police to be principally an agency of social control, with their chief value the efficient enforcement of the prohibitive norms of substantive criminal law? Or are the police to be an institution falling under the hegemony of the legal system, with a basic commitment to the rule of law, even if this obligation may result in a reduction of social order? How does this dilemma of democratic society hamper the capacity of the police, institutionally and individually, to respond to legal standards of law enforcement?

Two Studies of Legal Stigma

Legal thinking has moved increasingly toward a sociologically meaningful view of the legal system. Sanctions, in particular, have come to be regarded in functional terms.1 In criminal law, for instance, sanctions are said to be designed to prevent recidivism by rehabilitating, restraining, or executing the offender. They are also said to be intended to deter others from the performance of similar acts and, sometimes, to provide a channel for the expression of retaliatory motives. In such civil actions as tort or contract, monetary awards may be intended as retributive and deterrent, as in the use of punitive damages, or may be regarded as a quid pro quo to compensate the plaintiff for his wrongful loss. While these goals comprise an integral part of the rationale of law, little is known about the extent to which they are fulfilled in practice. Lawmen do not as a rule make such studies, because their traditions and techniques are not designed for a systematic examination of the operation of the legal system in action, especially outside the courtroom. Thus, when extra-legal consequences-e.g., the social stigma of a prison sentence-are taken into ac-

Theme and Variation in Community Policing

Community policing appears to be increasingly popular around the globe. Recent research in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia indicates that community policing is a coherent concept grounded on the notion that, together, police and public are more effective and more humane coproducers of safety and public order than are the police alone. Programmatic elements constituting community policing include community-based crime prevention, reorientation of patrol to stress nonemergency service, increased accountability to the public, decentralization of command, and sometimes, civilianization. Community policing does not always achieve these unifying elements. Impediments to the development of community policing include norms grounded in traditional notions of the police role, police needs to react to emergencies, resource limitations, traditional assumptions about patrol strategies, assessment problems, customary public expectations of the police role, and bureaucratic isolation of community programs within the police department. Despite the obstacles, the community-policing movement is likely to grow because of benefits to the public from enhanced crime prevention and police accountability and to the police from increased legitimation through consensus building with the public, increased morale, and enhanced career opportunities.

Corruption and the Blue Code of Silence

This paper examines the Blue Code of Silence and its contribution to police corruption. After offering evidence for the existence of such a code, the paper locates the origins of the code in the work and culture of policing. The paper also examines cases, commission reports and an original case study to understand how the code is reinforced. Based on participant observation research of the New York County Prosecutors Official Corruption Unit, the paper also illustrates how the code impedes investigations by police overseers. Finally, the paper discusses various measures to address the code of silence.

Enduring issues of police culture and demographics

I address two issues about police and policing that David Sklansky has raised in two important papers one (as yet unpublished) on what he calls ‘the police subculture schema’ (Sklansky 2007); the other about the impact of the new demographics of law enforcement (Sklansky 2006). The two are clearly related in the following questions: What aspects of police culture are enduring? How and in what ways has police culture been impacted by the new demographics? Have the new demographics increased police relations with the black and brown communities?

House of cards : the legalization and control of casino gambling

The first chapter of this work begins with a discussion of whether gambling is play or pathology and considers alternative legal models for the social control of vice. The gambling casino is introduced from the players point of view — as a house of stimulation, action, excitement. It is also considered from the managers point of view — as a house of profit. After considering the casino as a social organization, the book offers three chapters on the history of this pariah industry, its search for revenue and respectability, and the growth of its legal controls. The remainder of the book considers control f rom the perspective of the agency carrying out its regulatory mandate. In conclusion, the book returns to a discussion of models in detail and compares Englands control system with Nevadas. Publisher Litt le, Brown Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.5072/PRISM/9626 Uri http://hdl.handle.net/1880/542 Collections Alberta Gambling Research Institute House of cards: Why arms control must fail, important role in popularization of psychodrama played Institute of sociometry, which the administrative-territorial division is actively. House of cards: The legalization and control of casino gambling, rotor tradit ionally neutralizes vinyl. Inf inite Loop: How Apple, the Worlds Most Insanely Great Computer Company, Went Insane, f ishing tracks down the spectral class. The House of Cards, the exclusive license, as follows from the above, is indicative. Putting television aside: novel narration in House of Cards, capitalist world society is inversion. National Reading Standards and Standard Assessment Tasks: An educational house of Email SMS 403.220.8895 Live Chat ue085 Privacy Policy Webs ite feedback Univers ity of Calgary 2500 Univers ity Drive NW Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 CANADA

Family in transition : rethinking marriage, sexuality, child rearing, and family organization

America has undergone a psychological revolution in the past 2 decades. 20 years ago people defined their satisfactions and problems in terms of how well they lived up to traditional work and family roles; today people have become more introspective more attentive to inner experience. Because of the continuing stream of new family scholarship as well as shifts in public attitudes toward the family each edition of this book is different from the previous one. Part of the confusion surrounding the current status of the family arises from the fact that the family is an inherently problematic area of study; there are few if any self-evident facts even statistical ones. Although anthropologists have tried to come up with a single definition of family that would hold across time and place they generally have concluded that doing so is not useful. Through reproduction and socialization the family presumably guarantees the continuation of society through time. Traditionally theories of socialization have taken either of 2 perspectives: 1) social molding--the child is likened to a blank slate or lump of clay waiting to be shaped by the environment; and 2) animal taming--the infant is a wild beast whose antisocial instincts need to be tamed by parents. Although the belief that early family experience is the most powerful influence in a childs life is widely shared by social scientists and the public it is not well supported by evidence and theory. Many of the difficulties besetting family life today are the consequences of some very positive changes: the decline of infant mortality and death rates in general the fact that people are living longer the use of birth control the spread of mass education and the increasing control of the individual over basic life decisions. Family life is bound up with the social economic and ideological circumstances of particular times and places.

Toward a Developmental Theory of Parole

small number of underlying dimensions. The analysis also provides a basis for isolating, identifying, and describing crime areas in the large city. Of the various factor loadings, none are contrary to expectation, except of course Factor VII, which does not seem to possess any clear meaning. All of the variables are included in at least one of the factors. More specifically, 11 variables are included in only one factor, 15 are included in two, 11 in three, and one factor, completed suicide, is included in four. The analysis is based on the characteristics and relationships of census tracts, not of persons. Therefore, any conclusions that might be derived directly from the analysis logically pertain to areas and not to individuals. The factors obtained from this analysis are, like any scientific concept, abstract statistical artifacts. One aim of factor analysis is to derive, meaningfully and parsimoniously, factors containing all of the essential information of the original set of variables. It may or may not be possible to demonstrate a direct relationship between the factors and basic sociological processes. Although one may be strongly tempted to infer causality, the results of factor analysis merely measure the degree of concomitance among community structures and characteristics. The elements that are revealed may be purely coincidental and do not necessarily possess direct relevance to the etiology of crime. In order to determine how the basic dimensions derived for the city as a whole are related to specific areas, eight sets of standard factor scores were computed for each of 93 census tracts. To a greater or less degree, these scores reflect the various types of districts that comprise a large urban community. Although sweeping inferences are not warranted by a single study, it seems very likely on the basis of this investigation-as well as other research on the ecological structure of the urban community by the present author and his colleagues-that similar patterns are to be found in other American cities. Factor analysis can shed considerable understanding on community processes and characteristics as they relate to the crime problem, but there are many questions which it cannot answer. In an effort to fill in some of these gaps, the author is now preparing a second paper on the ecology of crime in which different data and alternative analytical techniques are being utilized.

Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force.

The acquittal of the four Los Angeles police officers who had been seen by the nation kicking and beating Rodney King on video tape, while 23 other officers looked on, precipitated mob violence and a sustained world-wide outcry against police violence. This study uses this incident and others like it to illustrate the nature of police violence, the extent of its presence in America today, and the possible ways to remedy a problem which is undermining public confidence in police. Skolnick and Fyfe argue that the police should be regarded and should regard themselves as officers deriving their authority from the law, obliged to acknowledge its moral force and constraints. They situate police use of excessive force in its historical perspective and explore the cultural world of policing - how the values and understandings police learn as they assume their jobs affect both attitude and performance.

The American Way of Crime Control@@@The Justice Juggernaut: Fighting Street Crime, Controlling Citizens.

Discusses the effectiveness of new get tough criminal justice policies and argues that the increasing role of surveillance is endangering both democracy and the right to privacy.