CJUS: Criminal Justice - General: Books & Video

In Before the Badge, Samantha J. Simon provides a firsthand look into how police officers are selected and trained, describing every stage of the process, including recruitment, classroom instruction, and tactical training. As training progresses, cadets are expected to see themselves as warriors and to view Black and Latino/a members of the public as their enemies. Cadets who cannot or will not uphold this approach end up washing out.

At 5:45 p.m. on September 9, 1919, Boston was effectively without a police force, leaving the city victim to four days of crime, looting, and violence. Ordered to disband their newly organized police union, the officers voted to walk off their posts in protest, leading to the greatest tragedy in American policing: the Boston Police Strike of 1919.

While FBI Agent David Nadolski risked his career, his informant, Anthony Romano risked his life to quash one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century. After two years of being joined at the hip and learning to trust each other unconditionally, special agent Nadolski and Romano run a successful criminal investigation and undercover sting operation to catch four dangerous criminals poised to launch one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century.

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country's death penalty system violated the Constitution. In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched.

This book dispels common misunderstandings regarding DNA analysis and shows how astounding match probabilities such as one-in-a-trillion are calculated, what they really mean, and why DNA alone never solves a case.