Originally published: Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, c2011.

Two men find themselves staring down the dark headlights of a car traveling against the flow of traffic on a major thoroughfare during their ordinarily routine commute home. As a result of the encounter, Sean Smith becomes the wrong-way driver's first victim when he is run off the highway trying to avoid a head-on collision. Minutes later, Charles Washington suffers the same fate just a few miles down the road. When the dust finally settles, one of them is killed and the other is critically injured. While the families of the two men struggle to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, the driver who caused the carnage has simply disappeared into the dead of night. Police discover skid marks from the assailant's car at one accident scene but not the other. Detectives are immediately suspicious that perhaps this was no random accident. They hesitate initially to call it murder. But when it is discovered that one of the victims has had threats made against his life by someone reputed to have ties to organized crime, this affirms for the detectives that they are, in fact, on the right trail. All who are close to the case agree: this method of murder is beyond bizarre.

The Psychology of Police Deadly Force Encounters: Science, Practice, and Police is a fascinating look into the reality of police work. The author integrates noted theories into a “street-wise” understanding of being a police officer. The focus of this book is on the use of deadly force by officers—a topic of considerable importance. The author discusses the psychosocial aspects of deadly force use, stemming from the individual officer, the situation, organizational influences, and the police culture. Expanding further into social issues, the controversial topic of race and use of deadly force is discussed. This depiction looks at both sides—that of racial victimization and that of the police—which helps to provide a rather unique perspective on this important issue. Of interest, the author breaks down the different dimensions of cognition as a factor in decision making among police, including the perception of the situation, the action taken depending on that perception, and the role of present and past memory. This will make for a useful training topic to alert officers to the cognitive processes that go into deadly force use—processes that they have the control to change to make a better decision. Next, the book delves into the biological factors that may be involved in police decision making—again where deadly force is involved. The various negative psychological impacts that a deadly force situation may bring about are identified and explained. This book will be useful as a tool for both law enforcement practitioners and researchers to better understand the intricacies of deadly force by the police. For researchers, the book has a multitude of references available for further exploration. It will prove to be a useful guide and reference volume for police managers and supervisors, mental health clinicians, investigators, attorneys, judges, law enforcement educators and trainers, rank and file police officers, including expert witnesses.

Airport Ranger volunteer Stacy Broussard expected a peaceful Saturday morning ride around the perimeter of Houston’s airport. What she encounters instead is a brutal homicide and a baffling mystery. Next to the body is an injured dog, the dead man’s motorcycle, and a drone armed with a laser capable of taking down a 747. Though FBI Special Agent Alex LeBlanc sees a clear-cut case of terrorism, his past has taught him to be suspicious of everyone, even witnesses. Even bleeding-heart veterinarians like Stacy. But when her gruesome discovery is only the first in a string of incidences that throw her life into a tailspin, Alex begins to wonder if Stacy was targeted. As a health emergency endangers Stacy’s community, and the task force pulls in leads from all directions, Alex and Stacy must work together to prevent another deadly encounter.

This collection of texts is a first step towards providing a theoretical and methodological platform for the study of social encounters. The social encounter is a particular sort of concept, focusing on confusion, tension, trauma, and possibly social change that may emerge in situations of contact when people and things interact. A social encounter is, however, not only about negotiation or contemplating existence, but is rather about what happens when people interact actively, when they involve themselves with people and materialities, when they move around, fetch things, use things, leave things etc. The repeated social encounter is often a confrontation with something, such as an opinion, a performance, or with materialities and the effects are often unpredictable. Encounters may reproduce a social pattern, but also contain potential for transformation and change. Such varied responses to encounters will certainly have effects on the archaeological record. The primary focus of the volume is the effects and processes involved in intra- and inter-societal encounters. The collection hence fills a theoretical and methodological gap in the study of the encounter in archaeology. There is a need for elaborating aspects of postcolonial theory in order to develop new ways of approaching the archaeological record. The articles of this volume include examples from various regions and time periods. They range from Scandinavian Stone Age, through Buddhist social practices of the first millennium AD, Maya warfare and ideology, to Aboriginal-European encounters in 20th century Australia.Per Cornell (PhD, Ass. Prof.) is currently lecturer at the Department of archaeology, University of Gothenburg. Cornell has been involved in extensive field-work in Latin America and current research topics include settlement archaeology, formation processes and social theory. Among his recent books are Local, Regional, Global, co-edited with Per Stenborg (Gotarc, 2004).

The SAGE Handbook of Global Policing examines and critically retraces the field of policing studies by posing and exploring a series of fundamental questions to do with the concept and institutions of policing and their relation to social and political life in today′s globalized world. The volume is structured in the following four parts: Part One: Lenses Part Two: Social and Political Order Part Three: Legacies Part Four: Problems and Problematics. By bringing new lines of vision and new voices to the social analysis of policing, and by clearly demonstrating why policing matters, the Handbook will be an essential tool for anyone in the field.

Argues that North American settler colonialism included episodes of genocide of Indigenous peoples as defined by the United Nations Genocide Convention.

In Force Under Pressure, Dr. Lawrence Blum, who has devoted his life's work to the survival and wellness of "those who serve," describes the sources of danger, injuries, and victory to police officers in a down-to-earth, readable style. Blum argues that there are missing "ingredients" in the training and socialization of police officers. These ingredients include techniques and tools to condition the officer's decision-making and concentration during conditions of emergency; internal controls necessary to maintain the will to survive; and aids that will prevent officers being defeated by any threat. Distressing and/or disturbing physical and psychological reactions are common in a police officer's workday, and the officer must be prepared for them. Blum's work has uncovered many of the casues of compromise to officer safety and wellness, and he contends that police officers will be well prepared to cope with unanticipated or rapidly changing encounters if they possess the right tools and the know-how to command and control field encounters and life's pressures. Here Blum provides practical tools for survival in law enforcement, by combining his clinical knowledge with true stories of police officers for an attention-grabbing and informative book.

The second installment in the Dangerous Encounters series features dozens of new and exciting real-life animal attacks. Mountain lions, alligators, killer sharks, stampeding elephants, and, of course, deadly cobras are just a few of the predators on the prowl in this gripping collection. Photo-realistic illustrations enhance the text throughout, and a new sidebar feature provides educational information on the animals.