From: The Law and Politics Book Review
Vol. 16 No.3 (March 2006), pp.267-272
As a service to subscribers, the REVIEW provides this brief summary of the contents of recent reference works, anthologies of previously published materials, textbooks and collected readings designed for students, casebooks designed for undergraduate and law school use, later editions of books previously reviewed in this journal, and other specialized publications. Unless noted, the comments are taken from the book’s jacket cover or the publisher’s webpage.
In this issue, books from
Cambridge University Press
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The Law-Making Process, Sixth Edition, by Michael Zander. Cambridge University Press, May 2005. 517pp. $37.99 (paperback). ISBN: 0-521-60989-5.
As a critical analysis of the law-making process, this book has no equal. For more than two decades it has filled a gap in the requirements of law students and others taking introductory courses on the legal system. It deals with every aspect of the law-making process: the preparation of legislation; its passage through Parliament; statutory interpretation; binding precedent; how precedent works; law reporting; the nature of the judicial role; European Union law; and the process of law reform. It presents a large number of original texts from a variety of sources - cases, official reports, articles, books, speeches and empirical research studies - laced with the author's informed commentary and reflections on the subject. This book is a mine of information dealing with both the broad sweep of the subject and with all its detailed ramifications.
The Rights of Refugees Under International Law, by James C. Hathaway. Cambridge University Press, August 2005. 1184pp. $70 (paperback). ISBN: 0-521-54263-4.
This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the human rights of refugees as set by the UN [*268] Refugee Convention. In an era where States are increasingly challenging the logic of simply assimilating refugees to their own citizens, questions are now being raised about whether refugees should be allowed to enjoy freedom of movement, to work, to access public welfare programs, or to be reunited with family members. Doubts have been expressed about the propriety of exempting refugees from visa and other immigration rules, and whether there is a duty to admit refugees at all. Hathaway links the standards of the UN Refugee Convention to key norms of international human rights law, and applies his analysis to the world's most difficult protection challenges. This is a critical resource for advocates, judges, and policymakers. It will also be a pioneering scholarly work for graduate students of international and human rights law.
Carolina Academic Press
The Death of Discourse, Second Edition, by Collins & Skover. Carolina Academic Press, August 2005. 400pp. $40 (paperback). ISBN: 1-59460-029-5.
This book explores one of the most disturbing intellectual dilemmas of our time—that our beloved First Amendment is being exploited in the name of the dumbing of America. It is the first book to examine the popular culture of the First Amendment, specifically with reference to television, advertising, and pornography. Comparing the culture of popular discourse with traditional First Amendment ideals, the authors expose the vast gap between our speech practices and our speech principles. Is the tyranny of the trivialization of discourse a problem? In a dialogue-like way, the authors invite their readers to judge.
A Practical Guide to Lawyering Skills, Third Edition, by Fiona Boyle, Deveral Capps, Philip Plowden and Clare Sandford. Cavendish Publishing, March 2005. 347pp. $56 (paperback). ISBN: 1-85941-975-5.
A Practical Guide to Lawyering Skills brings
together the theory and practise of lawyering skills in an accessible and
practical context.This second edition is fully updated to include all recent
developments.
The book provides a key introduction to the fundamental skills of writing and
drafting,interviewing and advising, research, opinion writing and advocacy. It
also introduces students to the key skills needed by modern lawyers, such as
information technology.
Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 45, edited by Austin Sarat. Elsevier Publishing, 2005. 188pp. $94.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 0-7623-1179-7. [*269]
This volume of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society presents a diverse array of articles by an interdisciplinary group of scholars. Their work spans the social sciences, humanities, and the law. Those scholars examine the nature of family and the intersection of family and law, the way contexts shape legal actors, and the nature of rights and resistance. The articles published here exemplify the exciting and innovative work now being done in interdisciplinary legal scholarship.
Harvard University Press
Wild Cowboys: Urban Marauders & the Forces of Order, by Robert Jackall. Harvard University Press, October 31, 2005. 438pp. $16.95 (paperback). ISBN: 0-674-01838-9.
Four bullet-torn bodies in a drug-ridden South Bronx alley. A college boy shot in the head on the West Side Highway. A wild shootout on the streets of Washington Heights, home of New York City's immigrant Dominican community and hub of the eastern seaboard's drug trade. All seemingly separate acts of violence. But investigators discover a pattern to the mayhem, with links to scores of assaults and murders throughout the city.
In this bloody urban saga, Robert Jackall recounts how street cops, detectives, and prosecutors pieced together a puzzle-like story of narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and murders for hire, all centered on a vicious gang of Dominican youths known as the Wild Cowboys. These boyhood friends, operators of a lucrative crack business in the Bronx, routinely pistol-whipped their workers, murdered rivals, shot or slashed witnesses to their crimes, and eventually turned on one another in a deadly civil war. Jackall chronicles the crime-scene investigations, frantic car chases, street arrests at gunpoint, interviews with informants, and knuckle-breaking plea bargaining that culminated in prison terms for more than forty gang members.
But he also tells a cautionary tale--one of a society with irreconcilable differences, fraught with self-doubt and moral ambivalence, where the institutional logics of law and bureaucracy often have perverse outcomes. A society where the forces of order battle not just violent criminals but elites seemingly aligned with forces of disorder: community activists who grab any pretext to further narrow causes; intellectuals who romanticize criminals; judges who refuse to lock up dangerous men; federal prosecutors who relish nailing cops more than crooks; and politicians who pander to the worst of our society behind rhetorics of social justice and moral probity. In such an up-for-grabs world, whose order will prevail?
Inside the Judicial Process: A Contemporary Reader in Law, Politics, and the Courts, by Jennifer Segal Diascro and Gregg Ivers. Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 507pp. ISBN: 0-618-39182-7
This unique collection of articles, case law excerpts, speeches, and primary source materials exposes students to the [*270] role of the judiciary and demonstrates how it works within American democracy. Major topics of judicial politics are covered across eleven chapters through selections that pique the imagination and interest of students. Traditional readings provide a foundation for each chapter and more contemporary ones reflect how participants and non-academic observers think about critical issues in judicial politics. Additional writings show how political scientists think about and study the field.
Oxford University Press
Fallen Blue Knights: Controlling Police Corruption, by Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovic. Oxford University Press, 2005. 244pp. 19.99BP (hardcover). ISBN: 0-19-516916-6.
Despite its suspected prevalence, no comprehensive analysis of police corruption has been published for nearly three decades. Fallen Blue Knights provides a systematic, in-depth analysis of the subject, while also addressing the question of what can be done to ensure successful corruption control. Ivkovi'c argues that the current mechanisms for control--the courts, prosecutors, independent commissions, and the media, as well as the internal control mechanisms within a police agency itself--suffer from severe shortcomings that substantially limit their effectiveness. In this much-needed analysis, Ivkovi'c redefines the roles of major players and develops a novel, comprehensive model of corruption control.
Law & Criminal Justice: Emerging Issues in the Twenty-First Century, by Christopher E. Smith, Madhavi McCall, and Cynthia Perez McCluskey. Peter Lang Publishing, 2005. 184pp. $29.95 (paperback). ISBN: 0-8204-7272-7.
Law changes as new developments affect society. The dawn of a new century provides a marking point for the evaluation of trends in law and policy. This book examines emerging issues that will shape society's rules and legal processes in the twenty-first century. By identifying developments affecting technology, demography, and politics, the authors evaluate impacts on law and criminal justice. Many of the issues discussed, including the expanding Latino population, new technologies for investigations, weapons, and executions, health crises in prisons, DNA testing, and the «war on terrorism», will have profound effects on the fates of individuals drawn into the justice system.
University of Oklahoma Press
Indian Reserved Water Rights: The Winters Doctrine In Its Social And Legal Context, 1880’s – 1930’s, by John Shurts. University of Oklahoma Press, March 2003. 352pp. $21.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 0-8061-3541-7. [*271]
Volume 8 in the Legal History of North America series
In its 1908 decision for Winters v United States, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling guaranteeing the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Indian tribes reserved water rights in the Milk River. Based on the same 1888 treaty that had created the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana, the Winters decision has with some controversy influenced American Indian water rights and western water development as a whole ever since.
Indian Reserved Water Rights by John Shurts is the first book-length historical study of the Winters case and its early effects. In contrast to previous explanations of the decision, Shurts demonstrates how the litigation and its outcome fit well within the existing legal context and ongoing water development in the Milk River Valley. He also analyzes the Winters doctrine during its earliest years, primarily through an examination of water-rights litigation on the Uintah Reservation in Utah, showing that it had a lively existence in those years contrary to what has been understood.
Community Justice: Issues for probation and criminal justice, edited by Jane Winstone and Francis Pakes. Willan Publishing, 2005. 310pp. $34.95 (paperback). ISBN: 1-84392-128-6.
This book provides an accessible text and critical analysis
of the concepts and delivery of community justice, a focal point in contemporary
criminal justice. The probation service in particular has undergone radical
changes in relation to professional training, roles and delivery of services,
but now operates within a mosaic of a number of inter-agency initiatives.
This book aims to provide a critical appreciation of community justice, its
origin and direction, and to engage with debates on the ways in which the trend
towards community justice is changing the criminal justice system. At the same
time it examines the inter-agency character of intervention and the developing
idea of end-to-end offender management, and familiarises the reader with a
number of more specialist area, such as hate crime, mental illness, substance
abuse, and victims.
New Directions in Restorative Justice: Issues, practice, evaluation, edited by Elizabeth Elliott and Robert M. Gordon. Willan Publishing, 2005. 310pp. $39.95 (paperback). ISBN: 1-84392-132-4.
This book addresses a number of key themes and developments in restorative justice, and is based on papers originally presented at the 6th International Conference on Restorative Justice in Vancouver. It is concerned with several new areas of practice within restorative justice, with sections on restorative justice and youth, aboriginal justice and restorative justice, victimization and restorative justice, and evaluating restorative justice. Contributors to the book are drawn from leading experts in the field from the UK, US, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Workplace Violence: Issues, trends, strategies, edited by Vaughan Bowie, Bonnie S. Fisher, and Cary L. Cooper. Willan Publishing, 2005. 291pp. $49.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 1-84392-134-0.
This book examines some of the key issues around violence
at work which have emerged in [*272] the new millennium, including the events of
September 11th 2001 and other terrorist-related incidents,
identifying these as an extreme form of workplace violence. It builds upon the
expanded typology of workplace violence in Violence at Work (Willan,
2001), and identifies four types of workplace violence: intrusive, external
violence including terrorism; consumer/client-related violence; staff-related
violence; organizational violence.
This book also addresses some key emerging and controversial issues facing those
concerned with workplace violence, including staff who abuse those in their
care, domestic violence spilling over into the workplace, violence against aid
and humanitarian workers, and organizations who are themselves abusive to their
staff and service users as well as oppressive of their surrounding communities.
Workplace Violence goes beyond the current emphasis on equipping 'primary
responders' (e.g. police, fire ambulance, etc) to react to terrorist-related and
other workplace violence incidents, paying attention to the 'secondary'
responders such as human services workers, managers, human resources staff,
unions, occupational health and safety professionals, humanitarian aid workers
and median staff - and their training and support needs.
Workplace of Crime Prevention and Community Safety, edited by Nick Tilley. Willan Publishing, 2005. 892pp. $55 (paperback). ISBN: 1-84392-146-4.
This book provides a comprehensive, authoritative and
wide-ranging account of the background, theory and practice of crime prevention
and community safety. It will be essential reading for anybody with interests in
these fields, and will be the major work of reference on this subject for those
engaged in the practice, study or teaching of crime prevention.
The book provides a detailed overview of the main theories and perspectives
informing crime prevention policy and practice, and includes chapters covering
efforts to address a number of the main types of crime problem. It also includes
chapters relating to research methodologies used in conducting and evaluating
crime prevention initiatives.