The authors look at the connection between democracy and efficiency as they investigate the meaning of law and order. The authors argue that only through a democratically accountable police service can we hope to build up relationships within the inner city.

Law and Order offers a valuable new study of the political and social history of the 1960s. It presents a sophisticated account of how the issues of street crime and civil unrest enhanced the popularity of conservatives, eroded the credibility of liberals, and transformed the landscape of American politics. Ultimately, the legacy of law and order was a political world in which the grand ambitions of the Great Society gave way to grim expectations. In the mid-1960s, amid a pervasive sense that American society was coming apart at the seams, a new issue known as law and order emerged at the forefront of national politics. First introduced by Barry Goldwater in his ill-fated run for president in 1964, it eventually punished Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats and propelled Richard Nixon and the Republicans to the White House in 1968. In this thought-provoking study, Michael Flamm examines how conservatives successfully blamed liberals for the rapid rise in street crime and then skillfully used law and order to link the understandable fears of white voters to growing unease about changing moral values, the civil rights movement, urban disorder, and antiwar protests. Flamm documents how conservatives constructed a persuasive message that argued that the civil rights movement had contributed to racial unrest and the Great Society had rewarded rather than punished the perpetrators of violence. The president should, conservatives also contended, promote respect for law and order and contempt for those who violated it, regardless of cause. Liberals, Flamm argues, were by contrast unable to craft a compelling message for anxious voters. Instead, liberals either ignored the crime crisis, claimed that law and order was a racist ruse, or maintained that social programs would solve the "root causes" of civil disorder, which by 1968 seemed increasingly unlikely and contributed to a loss of faith in the ability of the government to do what it was above all sworn to do-protect personal security and private property.

Whether you tune in each week to see veteran Detective Lennie Briscoe analyze clues with wild-card partner Ed Green in the fist half of the show, or to see Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy invoke justice in the courtroom in the second half, you cannot help but get involved with the most human characters on television. With these powerful characters and socially relevant stories ripped from today's headlines, it is difficult to tell whether you are watching the evening news or one of the most intense dramas ever seen on television. Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion was written with the cooperation of the show's creator and executive producer, Dick Wolf, and features interviews with the stars, producers, and writers. It is the first-ever guide to this popular, Emmy award-winning police drama. You'll get the inside scoop on: -the past and current stars of the show-including Paul Sorvino, Jerry Orbach, Jesse L. Martin, Christopher Noth, S. Epatha Merkerson, Sam Waterston, Carey Lowell, Angie Harmon, and Michael Moriarty-and find out who was fired, who left willingly, and who remains -the show's continued problems with censorship issues and advertiser fallout -the behind-the-scenes anecdotes about cast regulars, including the fights-both verbal and physical-that have peppered the production -how Wolf was forced to increase the estrogen and decrease the testosterone on the show -the detailed history behind the creation and development of the show, and season-by-season critiques of each episode through the entire 1999 season

The authors of this seminal work challenge many of the Left's traditional attitudes toward crime and policing, proposing instead a rigorous, new Left realism for the issues raised.

An incisive look at how evangelical Christians shaped—and were shaped by—the American criminal justice system. America incarcerates on a massive scale. Despite recent reforms, the United States locks up large numbers of people—disproportionately poor and nonwhite—for long periods and offers little opportunity for restoration. Aaron Griffith reveals a key component in the origins of American mass incarceration: evangelical Christianity. Evangelicals in the postwar era made crime concern a major religious issue and found new platforms for shaping public life through punitive politics. Religious leaders like Billy Graham and David Wilkerson mobilized fears of lawbreaking and concern for offenders to sharpen appeals for Christian conversion, setting the stage for evangelicals who began advocating tough-on-crime politics in the 1960s. Building on religious campaigns for public safety earlier in the twentieth century, some preachers and politicians pushed for “law and order,” urging support for harsh sentences and expanded policing. Other evangelicals saw crime as a missionary opportunity, launching innovative ministries that reshaped the practice of religion in prisons. From the 1980s on, evangelicals were instrumental in popularizing criminal justice reform, making it a central cause in the compassionate conservative movement. At every stage in their work, evangelicals framed their efforts as colorblind, which only masked racial inequality in incarceration and delayed real change. Today evangelicals play an ambiguous role in reform, pressing for reduced imprisonment while backing law-and-order politicians. God’s Law and Order shows that we cannot understand the criminal justice system without accounting for evangelicalism’s impact on its historical development.

Like the popular TV series, this book walks the thin line between reality and fantasy, focusing on crime scenes from the show's most popular episodes. Includes 100+ high-quality photos in a rivet-bound, foil-stamped hardcover flawlessly replicating an authentic police blotter.

In an innovative departure from the much-studied field of 'crime in the media', this lively book focuses its attention on the forces of law and order; how they visualize and represent danger and criminality and how they represent themselves as authorities. After two chapters covering basic terms and tools in the study of culture and representation, the book covers such topics as the history of justice - system methods for visualizing criminality, from fingerprinting to DNA; the emergence of a 'forensic gaze' that begins with Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes and culminates in the American television show Crime Scene Investigation and the rise of ways of seeing urban space that constantly divide the city into 'good' and 'bad' areas. The final chapter uses some recent conflicts regarding the legal admissibility of 'gruesome pictures' to reflect on the importance of the visual in our everyday experiences, both of safety and of danger. Shortlisted for the Hart SLSA Book Prize 2007

Examining the Soviet Union’s response to crimes with the use of enforced security, Peter Juviler provides insight on trends in criminal actions and common legal responses to them in Soviet Russia. Revolutionary Law and Order looks at how policy has been made by the Soviet Union, as well as the social and political changes that came to Russia and the successes and failures that came with the Soviet’s efforts to eliminate crime. Through Peter Juviler’s evaluation of Russia’s quest for law and order in the sense of security against crimes, readers will find numerous examples of the effective enforcement from the tsarist reforms to elaborate efforts of preventing and fighting cybercrimes.

Foundational and renowned study of how politicians and others use crime rates -- and most of all the public perception of street crime, whether or not it is accurate -- for their own purposes. Dr. Scheingold also provides a theoretical and historical basis for his views. The follow-up to the landmark book The Politics of Rights, this text is both supported in research and accessible and interesting to readers everywhere. Features new 2010 Foreword by Berkeley law professor Malcolm Feeley. A work that is both "timely and timeless," writes Feeley, it "is important for what it says -- and how it says it -- about American crime and crime policy, as well as American political culture. It speaks truth to power today as much as it did when it was first published." As recently noted by Amherst College's Austin Sarat, Scheingold "was quite simply one of the world's leading commentators on law and politics."