"This book examines many examples of how the community has responded when the justice system is perceived to fail."--Book jacket.

SHADOW tells the haunting story of Dakota Sterling and how she became the ruthless vigilante, Shadow, who -- alongside her partner, Jasper Beauregard (Sparrow) -- protects the very city which turned her into the monster that she is. Silver City is plagued by crime and corruption, most of which is owed to the secret underground railroading faction called the Faceless League, which kidnaps children and trains them to be barbarous assassins. Thirteen years ago, in the year 2004, the Faceless League targeted three very important, very wealthy children: Dakota Lovett, her younger brother, Wesley, and his best friend, Alice Fitzgerald. Dakota found herself to be an unlikely protector of the younger children when they discovered the faction had no intentions of returning them to their respective families. When young Wesley fell ill within the week that they were held hostage, proving himself to be too weak for the Faction’s liking, he was executed right in front of the girls. A distraught Dakota and fearful Alice plotted to escape the next night and their plan worked, but only Alice made it out. Dakota Lovett was left behind, and no one – not even Alice – ever knew what happened to her. Through analepsis, 20-year-old Alice recounts the days of her captivity in the Faceless Institute up until her miraculous escape in order to expose the faction. To Dakota Sterling, the little girl she was before she was recruited by the Faceless League has long since been dead. To ordinary girl Alice Grey, the past is the key to everything - she just doesn’t know it yet. As the Shadow does what is necessary to achieve justice and protect the people, she also struggles with her epic love for the equally-damaged Jasper. When Alice Grey sets out to find the Shadow's true identity, she opens old wounds, discovers even larger conspiracies hidden beneath the streets of the city she calls home and joins a dangerous game that she never meant to play.

A form of subtle vigilantism threatens to undermine the justice system and is eroding community trust in law enforcement. A pervasive and destructive problem is afflicting our current justice system, eroding community confidence in law enforcement. "Shadow vigilantism" is a vicious cycle in which ordinary people, as well as criminal justice officials, are so fed up with the system's failures that they distort and subvert the system to force it to do the justice that it seems reluctant to do on its own. The effects of this lack of trust are pervasive and pernicious: citizens refuse to report a crime or help investigators; jurors refuse to indict or convict; and officials manipulate a system that is perceived to be unreliable. This downward spiral eventually undermines the moral authority of law enforcement and creates widening rifts in the community. This book examines many examples of how the community has responded when the justice system is perceived to fail, including the infamous murder of Emmett Till, which became a cause that spurred on the NAACP and the civil rights movement; the Lavender Panthers, which formed in response to gay bashing during the 1980s; the Crown Heights Maccabees, a neighborhood watch group that successfully reduced neighborhood crime when the police failed to do so; the Animal Liberation Front, which struck back at institutions for perceived abuses to animals; Operation Perverted Justice, an organization that used online chat rooms to out pedophiles by publicizing their personal information; and many others. Such examples highlight the importance of upholding a justice system that works to provide justice for all and is not perceived to condone legal technicalities that overturn just punishment, judicial rules that suppress evidence and let serious offenders go, and other actions that undermine public trust in the system.

For many people, the cinematic vigilante has been shaped by Charles Bronson's character in Death Wish and its sequels. But screen vigilantes have taken many guises, from Old West lynch mobs and rogue police officers to rape-avengers and military-trained equalizers. This book recounts the varied representations of such characters in films like The Birth of a Nation, which celebrated the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, and Taxi Driver, Falling Down and You Were Never Really Here, in which the vigilante impulse was symptomatic of mental instability. Also considered is the extent to which fictional vigilantism functions as social commentary and to what degree it is simply stoking popular fears.

Rough justice has often been served in the pages of serial novels, notably beginning with Don Pendleton's The Executioner in 1969. This is the first overview of the serial vigilante genre, which featured such hard-boiled protagonists as Nick Carter, Mark Stone, Jake Brand and Able Team among the 130 series that followed Pendleton's novel. Serial vigilantes repeatedly take the law into their own hands, establishing and imposing their own moral standards, usually by force. The book examines the connections between the serial vigilante and the pulp hero that preceded him and how the serial vigilante has influenced a variety of tough guys, private eyes, spies and cops in different media. A complete bibliography for each series is featured.

Most murderers and rapists escape justice, a horrifying fact that has gone largely unexamined until now. This groundbreaking book tours nearly the entire criminal justice system, examining the rules and practices that regularly produce failures of justice in serious criminal cases. Each chapter outlines the nature and extent of justice failures in present practice, describing the interests at stake, and providing real-world examples. Finally, each chapter reviews proposed and implemented reforms that could balance the competing interests in a less justice-frustrating manner and recommends one—sometimes completely original—reform to improve the system. A systematic study of justice failures is long overdue. As this book discusses, regular failures of justice in serious criminal cases undermine deterrence and the criminal justice system’s credibility with the community as a moral authority. The damage caused by unpunished crime is immense and, even worse, falls primarily on vulnerable minority communities. Now for the first time, students, researchers, policymakers, and citizens have a resource that explains why justice failures occur and what can be done about them. Confronting Failures of Justice is accessible for use by college freshman through graduate students and law students and is designed to be main text for a course on justice failures, but it could be used in conjunction with other texts in a broad range of courses touching on criminal justice. It presents arguments in a highly-organized fashion and provides dozens of case studies, many with photographs, to gain student interest and to bring the academic discussions to life.

A fae urban fantasy romance. Some humans can see the fae. McKenzie Lewis can track them. A Houston College student trying to finish her degree, McKenzie has been working for the fae king for years, tracking vicious rebels who would claim the Realm. Her job isn't her only secret. For just as long, she's been in love with Kyol, the king's sword-master--and relationships between humans and fae are forbidden. But any hope of a normal life is shattered when she's captured by Aren, the fierce and uncompromising rebel leader. He teaches her the forbidden fae language and tells her dark truths about the Court, all to persuade her to turn against the king. Time is running out, and as the fight starts to claim human lives, McKenzie has to decide once and for all whom to trust--and where she ultimately stands in the face of a cataclysmic civil war. "A fresh take on the fae, packed with suspense, surprises, and real moral dilemmas. Sexy and fun, this is a must for anyone who likes their fae modern, their stakes high, and their property damage extensive." --Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author "Combines top-notch writing and world-building with characters you'll adore...and the star-crossed lovers may just break your heart." --Ann Aguirre, USA Today bestselling author Keywords: urban fantasy, urban fantasy romance, contemporary fantasy, contemporary fantasy, fae romance, fantasy, fae books, fae urban fantasy series, urban fantasy magic, sword and sorcery, epic urban fantasy, paranormal romance, fae urban fantasy, fey urban fantasy, new adult urban fantasy, enemies to lovers, urban fantasy trilogy, paranormal fae Similar Authors: K. F. Breene, McKenzie Hunter, Linsey Hall, Jaymin Eve, Bella Forrest, Annette Marie, Kim Harrison, Karen Marie Moning, Meg Xuemei X

Introducing the newest good guys in the bad Old West. A ragtag team of misfit avengers who don’t wear badges, don’t follow rules, and won’t stop shooting—till justice is served . . . GUNS OF THE VIGILANTES It begins with a massacre. A crime so brutal and bloody, the local sheriff isn’t smart enough to solve it. But when young deputy Dan Caine sees the slaughter for himself—an entire family murdered—he can’t let it go. Especially when the eldest daughter is missing. Right there and then, Caine makes a fateful decision: throw away his badge, form a vigilante team, and go after the killers . . . There’s one problem: Who would be crazy enough to join him? First up is a grizzled old tinpan named Fish Lee, who discovered the bodies. Then there’s the Kiowa, an Indian scout with a grudge; Cooley, a washed-up gambler; Mortimer, a whiskey-soaked newsman; and Holt, a half-grown stock boy. Sure, they might be crazy. They might be inexperienced. But one thing is certain: be it from heaven above or hell below . . . vengeance is coming.

Significant amounts of criminal activity are detected by private police and many criminal disputes are settled through informal agreements between parties, or in adjudicative procedures run by private institutions. This book examines the vast private criminal justice system to reveal lessons for public criminal justice reform.

Six months have passed since Dakota surrendered herself to the Faceless League, and Silver City has become a war zone. With the Faceless League fighting for more control over the city, and Jasper and Alice nearly powerless against them, they have no other choice than to call upon Dakota's most dangerous allies. But in their heroic pursuit to cleanse Silver City of the evils that plague it once and for all, and save Dakota from a horrible fate unknown, they will find themselves face to face with their greatest enemy yet.